How do you go about developing your mHealth marketing story?
There are no hard and fast rules, but why reinvent the wheel? Use the techniques and storytelling structures that are proven winners. Apply the same techniques and structure used for best selling novels, short stories, and blockbuster movies to your content marketing.
About This Show:
Each Wednesday, Sam Stern, founder and Chief Marketing Technologist at Modallic, an mHealth marketing and brand development firm reveals his winning Mobile, Digital and healthcare IT marketing strategies, shares real life Mobile Health marketing success stories, and offers breakthrough marketing tips and tactics so you can lead the field with your Mobile Health and healthcare IT solutions.
Discover how to craft compelling stories to open doors with key health care system decision makers. Understand how an agile marketing mindset and approach positions you to create a profitable, sustainable business.
Gain insights into Mobile Health and healthcare IT marketing strategy, how to tell your unique mHealth and healthcare IT marketing story, creating your mHealth buyer personas, how to integrate an agile marketing process, mobile health and digital health brand development and market positioning, and learn what really works in attracting and landing mobile health and healthcare IT clients.
Show Notes:
George Lucas credits one man as his inspiration behind Star Wars. In fact, Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to give credit to this man’s influence.
Another fact: Lucas had already written two drafts of Star Wars when he rediscovered Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”. “The Hero’s Journey” within Campbell’s work, served as the blueprint for Lucas, giving him the focus he needed to draw his ultimate imaginary universe into an epic tale, a classic single story between good versus evil.
In “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, Campbell outlined what he calls the “monomyth” — which is a pattern that many believe can be found in almost every narrative around the world. It can certainly be seen in classic Hollywood storytelling. Campbell’s point is that storytelling throughout time all shares a fundamental structure and can be summarized into this journey.
Yes, it’s a pattern found in good marketing storytelling too.
Let’s pull the elements from “The Hero’s Journey” and apply them to an mHealth marketing story or brand journey.
Here’s the 10-Step mHealth Brand Journey
Step 1: The Current Marketplace. This is the mobile health world as you know and understand it— and as you brainstorm your pillars of content, you should know and be able to define your current marketplace.
Today’s health care information technology world is one big mess, filled with tremendous opportunity. There are multiple unconnected legacy information systems. Smart people, physicians on one side, IT engineers on the other, are engaged in ego turf wars. It painful and frustrating. The fix is expensive, and with The Affordable Care Act, it’s mandatory.
What’s YOUR perception and understanding of healthcare IT? What’s happening in your market? Who are the key players, your competition? What stories are your competitors telling? What is the reality- the challenges and desires, the fears, concerns, and hopes- for your clients? Why do they currently identify with your brand? Do they even know who you are?
Step 2: The Challenge. This is your big “what if?” What if YOUR Vision of reality were actually true? What if your mobile health solution connected systems and brought big, clashing egos together? What if your mobile health service could completely re-define how doctors used information and talked to patients? What would the world look like if you could actually realize that HUGE Vision that you’ve set out for your brand? What is the call to adventure for your product? What’s the big promise your mobile health product or service delivers?
Step 3: Rejection of the Challenge. Why hasn’t this been done? Why haven’t you done it yet? What’s the pain that the current market feels now? What will you need to add to your story to let your audience know what will be left behind? Are you conflicted about this? Are you indeed even part of the problem? What will be the effect of this change on your existing brand?
Step 4: Appointment of the Yoda. Who in your company (or outside of it) can help you take this adventure? Will you need technical, medical, and business sages to carry your message to the various stakeholders? Who will speak for your brand as it makes this journey? Who will guide you? Is it you? Is it your CEO? Or, do you even have that person? Is it more than one person? Can you get someone external for this? Will you need to conjure an imaginary character to act as your brand Yoda- the sage or mentor? Who can stand in front of the world and credibly tell your audience that you are going on this journey together?
Step 5: Crossing Into the Unfamiliar. This is where you burn the ships so that you can’t go back. Ultimately, in your content marketing, your brand must take a definitive point of view that is differentiated — and it will cross into your new “what if” idea. This is the unknown — and you are exploring. How will you communicate this crossing into this new idea — this new adventure? And how will you lead your audience into this new unknown with you? Maybe you start talking about the problem and the pain for the first couple months to gain credibility and build an audience before you “test” your solution?
Step 6: Map the Road of Challenges. How will you answer the unbelievers? What’s your response to competition claims or misrepresentations of your solutions? Perhaps you’ll take a strong point of view that may actually create enemies, or controversy. Who will be your story and brand allies? How can your allies help you with your story? Who will be the naysayers? What tests and challenges can you anticipate? What story points will your brand need to make to meet the challenges?
Step 7: The Final Challenge. As your brand faces these challenges, attracts and aligns with allies and client advocates, and carves out your unique point of view, it should establish itself as differentiated — as a leader. What will you and your business ultimately achieve? Who can you recruit to help tell and spread your brand story? What will that final challenge be?
This is the culmination of your story. In the larger sense, you may never want your brand’s (your hero’s) story to end. And this content marketing campaign may be but one episode in your story. But this final challenge is what you have to OVERCOME to get to the possibility of the “what if” …
Step 8: Looking Back. Take a look back at the ordinary world. Your brand is different now. How do you show that differentiation?
Step 9: The Final Renewal. What ambush could — or will — your brand face now that it is different? What will the competition say about you now — and HOW do you continue on? Your brand’s story is never going to end and you are ready to continue on your journey — but there may be huge challenges now that you are different. How will you overcome them?
Step 10: The Celebration. This is you realizing your vision. Celebrating. The final part of your story.
You can use this story structure on one small content marketing initiative, such as a white paper or webinar — or across an entire strategy of content marketing throughout your business. Don’t be afraid to craft a “Big” story. Move beyond level of hero from product, to brand, to service can make it more compelling. This positions you to explore ever-more creative “webs” of stories within your “big” story, and allows for an ongoing storytelling adventure. You simply add client success stories as new “characters”, heroes in your never ending brand story.
Items Mentioned in this Show:
“The Hero with a Thousand Faces” Joseph Campbell
Maybe you need help getting your mobile health story started?
If so, I invite you to reserve your spot in my Friday Storyboarding Brainstorms. Every Friday, from 1-3 Eastern Time, I have four 25-minute slots available to listen to your story.
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