The Fight for Clients: Story Strategy for Health IT Firms

“The people I meet on each flight? They’re single-serving friends.”— The Narrator ( Edward Norton ) Fight Club

Are you stressed out from the pressures of generating sales? Jet lagged pitching investors all over the country? Suffering from insomnia?

Does your Content Marketing produce too many “single-serving friends”… one time visitors who come to your website, take a look around, and leave… and you never see them again?

Winning Health IT clients today requires much more than a “single-serving”. The game has changed. Buyers now conduct as much as 60% of their research online before engaging a salesperson. An effective Content Marketing approach GAINS attention, BUILDS the relationship with the potential Buyer, and EARNS trust. Fail to grab attention: no visit to your website. Fail to build the relationship: single serve friends. Fail to earn trust: no sale.

So, how do you win Health IT client

What can you do to break through the noise and GRAB ATTENTION?

How can you get your targeted audience to KNOW who you are and what you do?

How do you get your potential Buyers to LIKE you and TRUST you?

Marketing isn’t cranking out Tweets, blog posts, white papers, videos, or webinars.

Marketing is simple.

It’s getting your target audience to KNOW, LIKE, and TRUST you.

Simple. But, not so easy to do.

Story Strategy: The Knockout Punch

Grabbing the attention of busy, stressed out doctors and hospital executives… your potential Buyers… demands a focused, disciplined approach to telling your unique Story. It’s your Story that breaks through all the noise.

Your unique Story has the power to break through the noise to educate, engage, and motivate prospects to take action. With your Story, you CONNECT with your prospects on a human, emotional level. Since your Story CONNECTS, prospects want to be more than “single serving friends’. They want a relationship. They want you to help them solve their problem.

YOUR story is effective simply because only YOU can tell YOUR story.

To tell a powerful, effective story that connects with your targeted audience requires a smart approach. You need a Story Strategy.

The Story Strategy Process

Here are the 5 steps to telling your power-packed Health IT marketing Story that CONNECTS with prospects and wins clients.

1. Discover and Know Your WHY- WHY do you do what you do? People don’t buy WHAT you do. They buy WHY you do it.

Keep asking WHY to get at the root of what makes you and your Health IT business special. When you discover your WHY, you are positioned to tell your unique story that breaks through the marketplace noise and gains attention from prospects and truly connects with potential Buyers.

2. Gain a DEEP Understanding of Your Buyers- Too often I see businesses “going through the motions” of creating Buyer Personas. The Buyer personas are written, include a fictional name, and even a photo to represent the avatar of a Buyer. But, they lack depth and understanding. To really understand what your Buyers’ want, you must enter their world. The depth of thinking, energy, and time spent in the “process” of understanding your Buyer is more important than the Buyer Persona document you create.

What does she See, Hear, Think and Feel, Say and Do? Use an Empathy Map to truly understand the pains and desires of your potential Buyers.

Take what you learned from the Empathy Map and turn it into a narrative of your Buyer’s Life. Use this narrative to guide the crafting of your marketing Story.

3. Map the Buying Process- Your prospects enter a Buying Journey. They seek to eliminate their pains and accomplish their goals. They are in search of a better way of doing things, or a better life.

What challenges will they encounter during this Buying Journey? What tools and information do they need at key points during the journey? What are the trigger points? Who do they encounter during the Journey? Who takes the Buying Journey with them?

The Health IT Buyer’s Journey is a complex one. There are multiple Buyers, or decision makers and influencers. There are multiple decision points and trigger events. This complex journey must be mapped out.

Screenwriters use Storyboards to map out the path characters take within a story. Your Buying Process is the Storyboard for how you move a stranger to learn about your Health IT products and services, and turn them into becoming a happy, satisfied client.

4. Test Buyer Story Lines- Before you unleash your Content Marketing, make sure you’re on track with the messaging, language, and emotional triggers of your story. Test your Story Lines with the Buyer Personas you’ll encounter. Test at least 3 versions of your Story Lines on each Buyer Persona.

5. Create, Test, Learn- Adopt a flexible, agile approach to your Marketing Story. After you complete the 4 steps above, you conduct micro Story Strategies.

You create story lines, put them in front of your targeted audience, test the elements of your story, such as the Headline, Key benefits, the offer, and the Call to Action. Based upon prospect response, you learn what resonates and what falls flat. Based upon the insights you gain, you adjust your Story Strategy.

This is the focus and discipline part of your Story Strategy. You use constant micro-strategies. You gain Big Insights. You make rapid iterations. This process doesn’t end. You can always improve your Story.

Follow this 5 step process to use your Story to GRAB Attention, BUILD relationships with your potential Buyers, and EARN trust. Story Strategy is the way to break through the noise and win clients in today’s online fueled world.

Want to learn more about Story Strategy and the power of Story in Marketing and Sales?

Grab the FREE Guide: Tell Stories. Drive Sales.