I think storytelling is best when integrated from the earliest stages of a product's existence. Look at popular framework's like Jeff Bezos/Amazon's famous "write the press release" before you start building features/products. Ideally product marketing is involved in early product development, not only to understand the capabilities/value for customers, but to start crafting narratives that will win in the market. I just find many marketers don't know how to write those compelling narratives, so this is here to help

Choosing the right framework depends on finding one that resonates with your team. These are different styles of the same end goal: to develop a winning narrative. The Pixar framework is a bit more "day in the life" focused, whereas Andy Raskin's work is certainly more sales/demo-focused.. all depends how teams best envision putting their product narrative down on paper.

Figuring out what resonates with customers is sort of like figuring out if you have product-market fit; when you know, you know, when you don't, you also know. It's difficult. But when working with sales, I often will say we want to start by getting heads nodding in the room—indications your customers are agreeing and feeling the pain point or reality you're describing—and move to ask more technical "how might we" questions often indicates they agree and are envisioning your solution, as opposed to "wait can you go back a slide? So you're saying..."

This whimsical, storytelling-based approach is definitely more suited to internal use; I wouldn't recommend using this framework to create a client pitch deck. That said, it can be great for crafting user stories for a new product or expanding empathy within your org. More than anything, it helps your team understand the emotional journey you ideally want your customers to progress through ("golden journey") and gives a bigger picture for the value you're aiming to deliver.

Before crafting this narrative, I find you typically need to have a really good grasp of your target market, your ideal customer profile, existing solutions, and your customers' pain points. I've read a bunch and been inspired by Andy Raskin, and in order to tell these powerful stories at the 30K-foot level you need to have great command of the problem you're solving for customers. You can't just slap on "the world is changing" and "so you need this app" as your strategic narrative; you need to think deeply about how you progress your external audience through each stage and tactfully place your solution at the very end. The Zuora example is so great because I find myself nodding my head the entire team without even thinking about some SaaS platform I'll need to implement as a system of record for subscription billing and payments!

I've found that Product or Engineering teams may often think they have incredible features that should provide "aha" moments—"this dashboard shows all your reports in one place, as it aggregates different pieces of data together"—but they often are still thinking in technical terms as opposed to customer value terms. We saw this at Panorama. The customer value was not necessarily data in one place, but actually seeing the profile of an individual student with their grades, attendance, behavior data, and test scores on one page and being able to say, "wow, maybe there are connections between this student's attendance record and the dip in their grades..we wouldn't have been able to see that before and now I'm going to reach out to this student's family." We shipped a tiny "aha" moment at Panorama, as well: we put a birthday hat on students' profile pictures ahead of their birthday, allowing teachers and administrators to wish that student a happy birthday. This was a tiny "aha" moment that really spoke to our wider product story of supporting each individual student holistically.

I like using this one more as an audit of your current narrative than as a starting point for narrative creation. Once you have your v1 demo script or landing page draft, it's helpful to go back and review what you've written to see if there are intentional call-outs to "aha" moments, or to vet where you might sprinkle these in so they delight your target customer. It's also helpful when working with sales teams to make sure they have these sentence starters ("Now the reason this matters...") to communicate about your product using the most effective narrative.

Jack McDermott

Crafting a compelling B2B product story is key to GTM success, but can be difficult. I’ve used this worksheet at Chegg and Panorama Education to craft stories that resonate with customers and deliver meaningful outcomes.

Telling your product’s story is key for successful go-to market.

 The best products tell the best stories in the market. But crafting a compelling B2B product story is 

 to create impactful product stories. These best practices can help you craft

 and deliver successful go-to market outcomes.

Once upon a time…. ______________________________________.

Every day…. ______________________________________.

But one day…. ______________________________________.

Because of that…. ______________________________________.

Until finally…. ______________________________________.

And ever since then… ______________________________________.

Once upon a time…there was a chief human resources officer named Janice who was committed to developing internal talent and future-ready skills at Acme, Inc.

Every day…Janice worked diligently to champion internal skills initiatives, like embracing skills-based hiring practices by dropping degree requirements for many open roles and offering a wide library of on-demand online skills courses for Acme’s employees.

But one day…Janice realized how Acme required workers with new digital and relationship skills to thrive in a competitive, changing market environment; that external recruiting would be difficult and costly, and that internal skills course engagement and completion rates were abysmally low.

Because of that…few internal employees attained new skills to get promoted or move into Acme’s open positions.

Because of that…a large share of employees left their roles for opportunities at other companies.

Because of that…Janice decided to rethink her skilling strategy at Acme and decided to partner with Chegg Skills to deliver impactful, in-depth skilling programs for targeted groups of Acme employees.

Until finally….employees gained valuable new skills to fill in-demand roles within the company and realized greater retention and job satisfaction with a refreshed investment in internal skilling.

And ever since then…Acme has outpaced its competitors and achieved industry-best results in a changing market; and Janice has been recognized for her innovative, forward-thinking approach to internal talent and career mobility in the industry.

Andrew Stanton: The clues to a great story | TED Talk

Andy Raskin’s Strategic Narrative Framework

What’s the big, relevant change in the world? ______________________________________.

Who are the winners and the losers? ______________________________________.

What’s the promised land? ______________________________________.

What are the obstacles to reaching this destination? __________________________________.

How does your product overcome these obstacles? ________________________________.

“We now live in a subscription economy. Businesses are now in a different era; we’re no longer just selling products, but we’re building relationships with customers.

In the last 15 years, 52% of the Fortune 500 companies have disappeared. But the winners are adapting quickly: Unilever buys Dollar Shave Club for $1B for a startup challenger against P&G; IBM evolves from punch card tabulators to cognitive data services with IBM Watson.

Customers now expect a subscription experience with ongoing value, immediate fulfillment, and anywhere, anytime moments personalized to them.

So what would it take to turn every customer into a subscriber?

It starts with a new focus on subscriber identity; demographic data, behavioral data, and financial data.

And, as you can see, we’re already seeing this shift come true for companies like Box and NCR.”

 - “No one wants to fill out forms anymore. Your website should help your potential customers find the answer to their questions on their time, not yours. Are you ready to take a conversational approach?”

 - “Schools today need to support the growth of the WHOLE student; educators know that test scores only capture a small fraction of students’ success in school. So how can schools transform how they support each student? Panorama offers a comprehensive, actionable view of every student in one system with social-emotional learning, feedback surveys, and positive behavior tools.” 

The Greatest Sales Deck I’ve Ever Seen | by Andy Raskin | Medium

The power of strategic narrative | Andy Raskin

Define your product’s “aha” or “wow” moments.

 Then strategically craft language that introduces these moments into your 

product demo flow, landing page copy, and more

Too often…other solutions… ______________________________________.

Not only can you do X…but you can also… ______________________________________.

That’s not all….with X, you can… ______________________________________.

Now the reason that matters is… ______________________________________.

What that all adds up to is… ______________________________________.

How this has worked best for others is… ______________________________________.

What you see here is… ______________________________________.

The problem this solves is… ______________________________________.

What makes this different is… ______________________________________.

, educators are only able to see a subset of important info about students’ progress; primarily in the form of test scores and grades. Panorama changes that. 

 by providing teachers and principals with data about the whole student, by bringing together grades, attendance, behavior, and social-emotional learning skills into one place.

 Panorama let you collect survey data across all students and teachers in your district…

 allows you to compare your results to national benchmarks to better understand your progress in a wider context. 

, you can also adjust your benchmarks to compare your results against other districts most similar to your own.

 social-emotional learning solutions focus on explicit instruction, Panorama lets teachers understand their students’ holistic growth so they can best meet each student’s needs. Seattle Public Schools and San Francisco Unified are already seeing tremendous progress here…

 learning requires strong social-emotional skills as a foundation; research shows that students with a higher sense of belonging and stronger relationships at school attend school more regularly, have fewer behavioral incidents, achieve higher grades, 

 persist to graduation at higher rates.”

 (1999) - “The end of software is here. The cloud must go on. Salesforce.com is online sales force automation that makes software obsolete. As easy to use as your favorite website, Salesforce.com lets companies of any size securely access, manage, and share sales information. No software to buy, install, or upgrade. Sign-up online and your first five users are free for one year.”

 (2023) - “$19 out of every $20 spent on customer acquisition is still wasted because buyers don't get a relevant buying experience. Mutiny helps turn your website into your #1 revenue channel. Customers like Notion saw a 60% increase in signups by personalizing their paid landing pages with Mutiny. And that’s not all, if you get in touch with us, we’ll create a custom ROI analysis for your website and show you which playbooks can dramatically increase your conversion.”

Worksheet for Crafting Your Product Marketing Story by Jack McDermott

Writing Your Product Marketing Story

Pixar Storytelling Formula

📐 Framework Structure

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