How Using a Back-story Will Improve Your Marketing Campaign and Brand Identity
In every narrative there is inevitably information omitted for various reasons, sometimes in order to intentionally obscure/simplify the plot or because specific agendas cannot be made known to the public. The background information or history behind the story, video or news report you are viewing is known as a back-story.
A back-story usually involves the history of the individuals involved, their environment, socio-cultural data and other information relevant to the visible narrative. Plugging in the back-story for your website, marketing campaign or product is not only a great way to distinguish it from the competition but an excellent method of persuasion that works incredibly well.
You don’t push the features of the your product or the value of your idea by repeating its benefits again and again. Instead, you promote a back-story which situates you within a favorable context. Talk about origins. Talk about your history. Talk about subcultures. You tell a story, one that precedes the already visible. One that supplements the existing pitch.
Image Credit: convenience store
Here’s a good example. In March 2008, Ian Usher, a resident in Australia decided to auction his life away on Ebay after splitting up with his wife. He wanted to start afresh by selling most of the items which comprised his life, which included his house, mountain bike, television, access to his friends and details of his favorite bars. The winner will even be given a fortnight job trial with his employer, a rug store owner.
So he set up a website giving everyone else the backstory on his offer. You can read about his reason for doing this, see pictures of his house, learn about his lifestyle and even check out his workplace. All these data fill in the gaps and frame what is essentially a bulk sale of one man’s possessions. The extraneous context accentuates the offer perfectly.
Many major media outlets covered his story yesterday, which marked the start of an Ebay auction that’ll will end on the 29th of June. This media buzz and attention was developed primarily because the whole setup had a compelling backstory. Compare and contrast a man ’selling his life’ to a man ’selling some possessions’. You get the idea.
You can do the same for marketing campaigns. It’s more than just promoting benefits. When you want to create buzz and engage your audience, try to frame your brand within a favorable context by creating a backstory, one that provides information which enhances your selling narrative. People will connect with your backstory and share it with others.
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Excellent points made, here, DoshDosh, as usual.
Allowing potential clients and customers to get to know you is a fabulous way to generate a life-long raving fan. And sharing the backstory on you, or your offer allows your audience to build more trust in both!
Sincerely,
Meg Meyer
Business Coach
Hi,
Being an artist, I obviously acquire some art mags where I like to read the interviews with artists.
And in coeherence with your article, besides talking about their art and career at this moment, it’s often mentioned the context in which their art is.
One likes to know their background to have an idea of how they reached a certain level on their career. What choices were important, influences, etc.
By reading a “story”, the reader will probably identify him/herself with the artist and will absorb experiences.
Best regards,
José
I did a similar thing last week on this blog post http://thedailymind.com/how-to/how-to-wake-yourself-up-in-the-morning-7-tips-from-a-buddhist-yogi/
I wanted to do a post on how to wake yourself up in the morning and the night before I had talked about it with an old yogi friend of mine. I decided to frame the post around our conversation and people loved it – got stumbled a lot.
I think the personal touch makes blogs much more engaging.
TDM
In relation w/the corporate setting and how a company can provide a back-story for their website or product, its sad to think how many companies actually fail to see the benefit in this; in being open and transparent for the end users, the community. They seemingly fall into a reactive marketing state and will only continue to further hinder their company’s brand.
Great idea if you can get a convincing back-story going. The Quickie-mart 7-11 campaign is a great example of an offline backstory
Sounds freaking fantastic! I have to figure out how to use this technique on my blog!
I always read back stories if a site has one. They let you feel kind of more connected to whoever is writing the blog to see what kind of roots they came from.
I think this is the main reason blogs work well in marketing. People like doing business with people, not with faceless organizations. I call it the I factor, like I in I am. We can do the standard sales talk on the front page, but on the blog page, we need to present ourselves as real people.
Kind of interesting to read about it here at DoshDosh — Maki, you apparently don’t like talking about yourself. Why?
Nice post Maki. Love to see your creative juices flowing.
Keep up the good work.
Great new post. I’m always impressed how this blog offers creative new posts that aren’t your typical MMO posts.
Having a back-story is an important part of viral marketing, in my opinion. The more “connections” you can make between your audience and idea, the more likely they’ll identify with it. Like Akemi said, we all like things that are “real” to us.
It’s fascinating to try relating with Ian Usher. Obviously, not many people will follow his path, but it’s entertaining to ask ourselves “What if I did something like that?”
Maki, I analyzed in your writing that you have very effective way of describing things and stuffs. We appreciate if you can start a separate section of this Buzz news. in which you will allow our readers to share their buzz. Of course you can mix your words to make it more effective.
“Word of Mouse” it far better then “Word of Mouth”!
What do you say?
Ali.
This also work on getting your adsense impressions increase, you’re really something in your own field. Keep it up and be creative as ever.
it also help you get your reader to engage in your story and to comments on your post and the more comments you get the more interesting your story gets.
I agree. Back stories add texture, depth if you will. There’s more opportunity for engagement. Besides, it is a heap more interesting.
I took a look at the auction story. I bet there are more than a few people out there who’ve wanted to totally chuck it all and start over. Hm. I am wondering, curious about it now, although it has been done as performance art before. How long before ” I ebayed my life”, becomes common usage in our language.
Hello Maki!
That was a really well written and researched post with a refeshing perspective on marketing…
Thanks!
You pointed out a great way to personalize marketing in this piece Maki .
Just one thing I would add: I think there’s a fine line though between creating a backstory and rambling, oversharing and/or writing just to write.
The “backstory” should be relevant and compelling. To make sure that it falls within these parameters, it should answer the question “Why?” As in, why is this relevant to the story and can I live with sharing this (to ward against oversharing). Because once it’s in cyber, it’s there forever.
Yuwanda
I think a lot of it is about harnessing peoples emotions.
Just a word of caution, do not take things personal. Remember it is just a post!
If you can control the negativity of the post you will work wonders into the comments and your relationship with your community members.
No need to delete a negative comment, but work it to make it a positive contribution to your topic.
Surely this is just good branding practice? We know that people buy brands not products especially where the product is a commodity (and there are more of those around that folks tend to admit!). Brands are communities that the purchase of a product gives you admission to so the more interesting the community is and the more facets it has that people can relate to, the better.
What interests me is that while pretty well everyone includes an “about us” tab on their web site, regardless of how funky or friendly they try to appear in the rest of their site or the remainder of their marketing communications, reading some of these back stories is like watching paint dry. Yet again, success is in the detail.
We talk a lot about integration and I beat on at length about the fact that few organisations really know what it is, but it really comes home to you when the integration within a single communication pants. We should all pay attention to this. Competing for those consumer hearts and minds is tough enough without missing out on the potential of an important element like this. But, hey! Be truthful!
I agree more or less with everything you’ve wrote. The problem, most of the time, seems to be with makig this back-story – the muse must really hit you in order to come up with something as brilliant as Ian Usher. Furthermore, this kind of story might not be appropriate for each kind of business or website and often you will be left just with the old-fashioned marketing techniques.
Nevertheless very good article. Brief but to the point.
Man…framing a backstory and capitalizing on the fact that people have moved on in an attempt to “Brand” one’s product is fuckin ‘U’…’Ill let it soak in.’
It is mere appreciation for those of us left is why I write this now.
U made too light of a serious subject and I don’t care for it.
If you ACTUALLY knew how to write, you wouldn’t be writing that. Some of us out here actually give a shit, and can actually brand themselves without selling their souls. Take that for what you will.
Not impressed by a damn sight.
Regards,
- Not interested; yet I wrote the email. Holla if you have a retort.
Hi Maki,
When I finished reading this post, 2 books immediately comes into mind. The first is “Made Your Content Presell” by Ken Evoy, the founder of SBI and the second one is “All Marketers Are Liars” by the one and only, Seth Godin.
Basically it all sums up that every successful marketers should have good storytelling skills to have a successful marketing campaign.
I couldnt’ agree more to your post Maki. Great job, as always !
Fantastic post. I would like to see more examples of back stories. This story of the guy auctioning off his life is absurd and I didn’t follow it like I would some other examples.
Maki, this is a great site and you have a really good writing style. Thanks for the content.
Shame for the Aussie guy that the eBay ‘idiot monkeys’ couldnt help themselves and ruin it for him though …
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080624084250.5hrz68cs&show_article=1
Still enjoyed reading the post though and the bottom line is you do ‘make sense’.
Cheers.
You would also notice that the really good landing pages for affiliate products always have an excellent back story that allows you to connect with the individual on some level.
Like Ditto, Seth’s book immediately came to my mind as I read your blog post. Make sure the story is authentic too. Fake story can do more harm than good.
Great reminder!
Just found your blog. The potentional impact of having a “back story” was wonderfully explained here. It’s something I myself struggle with on my own blog. Whether I’m saying “enough” or “too much”. I’ve got to let your post sink in and then decide.
Very interesting read on back story. I wonder as well how I would use that with my blog. I really like the concept of more branding of me.
Back stories work great on corporate websites and even personal blogs. I highly recommend them.
The “back story” is essential if you want to brand yourself. The creation story is an integral part of ever great epic… Joseph Campbell wrote a lot about this. Every great epic story has a great beginning, or creation story to go along with it. It is part of the reason we remember it and get involved. Very important for branding.
Great psot.
Story seems to be wired in the human brain. We have always, since the beginnings of our species, responded powerfully to stories. So I have to agree that finding a way to turn your information into story form draws people in more deeply and emotionally.
Excellent post. I would like to see some more examples of back stories.
Great idea DoshDosh, its make my mind is open. Thank a lot.
What a great post, and what a smart guy that Australian is. His marketing angle is so much more interesting and effective than just someone selling their stuff.
This gives me some great ideas for marketing and creating campaigns that will certainly attract curiosity, and buzz.
Thanks DoshDosh!
Every great marketing can always be successful if there is a back story that really connects with the prospects.
I guess we have all been conditioned to enjoy and live on stories. You know the why, how, where, what, when, who. And its still embedded in us, even the most savvy prospects.
Great article.
Thanks
Great points, but there’s a slight danger in going off topic. If you can maintain the focus and not ramble it should prove a great technique.
A successful internet marketer should have good knowledge about explaining it to others. You discussion is really good and helpful.
Maki,
Good stuff (as usual). I have really gotten caught up in the power of storytelling as a way to market products and services.
I’m a copywriter who writes case studies for businesses who want to highlight their customers’ success stories. And I have learnd that STORIES SELL.
The thing is, stories have an element of suspense that pulls readers in. There is a fiction technique called the “Narrative Question” that your writing causes readers to mentally ask themselves: “Why is this guy selling his life?” or “Will Jack Bauer get out of this alive?” or “Will this company be able to turn around from the brink of bankruptcy?”
When you’ve written a story that causes the reader to ask a narrative question, you have succeeded in capturing his or her attention and interest.
I’ve just written an ebook called “The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers” that can be downloaded free at The Plot Thickens: Why Case Studies Create New Customers. I hope it helps.
Charles Brown
Great post Maki!
Story-telling is an art which when applied correctly to marketing your message;
you’ll definitely get the desired results.
Storytelling is something we have yet to try out for our organization. I think somebody suggested this a few months back but we never really gave it much thought at that time. I have yet to find out if this would work for us. Thanks for an informative post!
Hi buddies, great… i m worried about my site.. can u tell me how can i built traffic on my site?
If someone knows please share me..awaiting your reply
I read this post a couple of days ago and didn’t have time to comment. I realise now, as I re-read it, it must have stayed with me because I was insistent (internally) on creating our new blog with a contining “backstory feel”.
I can’t say finer about your writing skills than that
A back-story is an idea that evolved naturally because it contains content that HUMANS are interested in. So many SEO-preoccupied people forget the human factor. And they forget that the only thing that mad the Internet a social and commercial success, is the people talking to people satisfaction and instant gratification that it provides. My son was a youngster when the Internet started to get popular. He sat at my side while I worked on the Kraftfoods.com website from my home office and said: “Dad, can I play too?” Well I tried this approach: “Son, I am not playing, this is dad’s WORK.” Not ever being able to lie to my children, may words were accurate, but he was too smart for that… He saw in my eyes that dad was having fun and he wanted IN!
That’s how we sat up santa.net – What is now an animated Santa Claus and Christmas tour of the North Pole. And to keep him entertained and to allow me to work, he helped develop that site at the time. Then, because as his soccer coach and a soccer player we had soccer in common, we developed the “International Soccer Cybertour for Kids” and he worked on that one at age 9 or so! The International Soccer Cybertour, because it contained a LOT of genuine human interest items, began a viral growth that is still in place today. The soccer website never even had its own domain name and is still more popular today than almost any Kids soccer website! And Santa.net received millions of hits years beforepeople realized the potential for that type of web success! By the way, my son and I also purchased worldcup.org at the time but we intentionally agreed to let it expire so that some organization such as FIFA can use it for the good of the sport!