Stories: The Connecting Language of Women
These past few months I’ve been studying up a bit on storytelling. I read ‘The Story Factor’ by Annette Simmons (run, don’t walk, to get it) for a writing project, and have been putting her ideas to use by collecting and writing down (this is key) my own in order to enhance anything I write or present in the future.
Why do I find this so key for marketing to/with women, in particular? Because studies have shown that male brain traits lean toward more linear, positioning communication styles while female brain traits tend toward non-linear, more connecting communication styles. And, as Annette pointed out when I interviewed her a few weeks ago: ‘Connection comes from emotional commonality.’
In entering a communication or conversation for the first time, women are looking for common ground as the jumping off point. It may be something as minor as saying ‘I love the color of your sweater,’ or ‘my son, Peter, plays on that soccer team too,’ but that’s where it starts. Sharing stories, even if they are one or two sentences, start conversations that launch long-term connections.
I heard a great example of the opposite, a more status-oriented, positioning approach, from my friend John a few weeks ago: John was at a festive wedding celebration in Mexico, where lots of the late 30s/early 40-year old guests didn’t know one another. Up walks a guy who puts out his hand to shake John’s and says, ‘Where’d you go to grad school?’ Hmmm. You see how that is so different from ‘I like the color of your sweater?’
‘Grad-school guy’ was immediately positioning himself as someone who went to grad school. It would be akin to asking: ‘Where do you summer?’ And, doesn’t it seem odd that people that far removed from college/grad school would even be using that as a conversation topic?
Anyway – from the marketing perspective, it should be all about connecting customers with one another around your brand, as well as to your brand. Shared stories present the emotional commonality by which those connections can be made. Didn’t my story about John help you get my point a little better? I hope so!
That’s why a company’s mission and the causes it supports, and all the emotionally connecting stories therein, can be so important to an ‘it all matters’ woman proceeding down her non-linear buying path. Each touch point along that winding path, be it a web site, a word-of-mouth recommendation, an in-store experience or some random editorial coverage, presents the opportunity for more stories to be told, fitting into that one big one your brand wants to share: that you have quality goods or services and incredible customer experience, but you also have that extra something that has really resonated with a lots of other folks.
In the same way, a brand cannot design or develop products for customers without knowing their stories. And, you have to know your customer’s story at the sensory level – see, touch, taste, smell and hear what they do on a daily basis. As Annette put it, ‘only when your body knows the story can your brain figure out how to interpret it.’
