As a community college marketing professional, you might think your job is to tell your college’s story. But what if I told you, you were wrong? What if I told you that the story your students really want to hear is not your story, but their own?
This is the basic premise of Donald Miller’s “StoryBrand” approach to marketing. Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen, which boasts testimonials from the likes of Seth Godin and Ken Blanchard, is something of a classic in the world of copywriting and marketing.
Instead of focusing on how to tell a good story, Miller’s genius is helping marketers figure out what story they should be telling. Miller’s big idea is that, “Your customer should be the hero of the story, not your brand.”
While this sounds like a simple and obvious premise, community colleges are not alone in struggling with it. The Story Brand website boasts over 3,000 clients a year whose businesses also need this help.
The clearest example of this misstep is marketing that focuses solely on institutional achievements.
Sure, it’s great to be the #1 transfer college in your region, or to be an HSI, but here’s a hard truth—those accomplishments are meaningless to a student unless they are framed around what that student wants to achieve. This is the difference between making yourself the hero in your story or making the student the hero.
This doesn’t mean that transfer rates, institutional achievements, athletic championships, faculty awards, and other braggable points of pride aren’t important. They are because they help create credibility and trust. But Miller’s warning is that when they become the whole story, the real story (the customer/student story) gets lost.
Using the language of myth, Miller’s framework suggests that instead of positioning ourselves as the hero, we should instead think of ourselves as “the guide.” Think Obi-Wan, Dumbledore, and even Olaf. What do mythic guides do? They provide the knowledge, support, and guidance the hero needs to succeed on their journey. Kinda sounds like a community college, right?
So how does this apply to higher education marketing?
If we return to those institutional points of pride, the simple way to reframe this type messaging is to show how those points of pride help the student on THEIR journey. Which is to say, don’t make it about being the best, make it about how being the best helps the student be their best.
That’s what education is all about anyways, right?
The truth is, most of us know we’re the guides. We just need to make sure we’re making the students the heroes.
Storytelling Fundamentals: 4 Tips For Finding the Best Stories
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