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Do you tell your customers who you are before you tell them what you are doing?

This is a common mistake in the marketing world. We want our customer avatar to know our brand name. So we tell him first. The problem is that this name is meaningless until we tell them what we do for you

Your customer avatar doesn't care about your company's clever name until they know what your company is going to do for them. Sure, your name matters … but only after they have been reassured that your company is relevant to an issue in their life.

This is where the one-liner comes in. StoryBrand CEO Donald Miller recently took us through his strategy of creating stories around brands in an insider training session. He taught us how to sell with stories and what is one of the most important aspects of that story.

It's the one liner.

We give you an insight into Donald Miller's insider training and show you what a one-liner is and in which three places you can get results with it.

Let's begin.

What is a one-liner?

A one-liner is the single sentence that describes what your company is doing in a particular format to make sure that the person listening actually cares. That's the secret of a one-liner – it provides information based on the priority that matters to the reader or listener.

There are 3 components of a one-liner. How to deliver them:

Component 1: Identify the problem or pain point that your customers are facing

Component 2: Talk about your product or the solution to the problem just mentioned

Component 3: Talk about the results someone will get when they buy this product

Here's an example Donald Miller gave for a one-liner for an e-bike company based in Nashville:

Component 1: Identify the problem or pain point that your customers are facing

With 110 people moving to Nashville every day, people are wasting more and more time sitting in traffic.

Component 2: Talk about your product or the solution to the problem just mentioned

With a Circuit e-bike that's just for you …

Component 3: Talk about the results someone will get when they buy this product

… you will work faster and add hours to your day. "

If we put this one-liner together it looks like this:

“With 110 people moving to Nashville every day, people are wasting more and more time sitting in traffic. With a circuit e-bike specially adapted for you, you can work faster and add hours to your day. "

A great one-liner filters out the people who care about your product on the first line. That is why the first line speaks about the pain point. If someone doesn't live in Nashville, they won't be very interested in a circuit e-bike because they don't have to. You don't want a leads list of people who live outside of Nashville when all you can do is get your bikes to Nashville.

Your first line tells your audience who this is for. Anyone who lives in Nashville and is going through the traffic problem will instantly think, "Yeah, I'm wasting more time on traffic and it only gets worse when all these people keep moving here."

Only when you have addressed them with their pain point is it time to give them your solution. In this case, you can talk about your product or solution and guarantee that you will focus on their interest.

Lastly, you will remind them why they want to solve this problem. Everyone who is in traffic wants to spend this time with family or friends instead (or anything but actually sitting in traffic). Your one-liner ends with the outcome that your customer avatar can experience when they select your product.

Your one-liner answers the question: "What are you doing?" in a clear, concise way. If someone wants to know more, you can head into your extended elevator area which will give them the details they are looking for.

Where would someone like to find out more?

Your one line can be used in many places, and we can only cover a few here. Almost anywhere your customer avatar first meets your brand is the best place to put your one-liner.

Read on for examples of what this will look like:

1. Your social media profile
2. Your website
3. Your email signature

3 places to use your One Liner

Your one-liner will live in more places than just these three options, but we wanted to pick the options that you are most likely to be able to use. Let's take a look at what your one liner would look like on your social media profile, website, or email signature.

Example 1: social media profile

Your social media profile is a hub for brand awareness. You will meet many of your customer avatars here. So it is important that they know who you are and what they are doing. It is more important that they remember.

It's easy to create a social media profile that won't let your customers know who you are. When you run a marketing agency, it's easy to forget that our customers need more than "We are an e-commerce company marketing solution". to understand what our business is doing. That is why Donald uses one-liners.

Instead of saying something general like "We are an e-commerce company marketing solution", let's create a one-liner that says exactly what your agency is about.

For example, let's say you have an ecommerce business marketing agency and you only focus on Instagram marketing.

Component 1: Identify the problem or pain point that your customers are facing

Juggling ads on too many social platforms?

Component 2: Talk about your product or the solution to the problem just mentioned

With Instagram, we can bring your e-commerce business to over 6 numbers.

Component 3: Talk about the results someone will get when they buy this product

… So that you can concentrate on growing your company again.

When we put all of this together it looks like this:

Juggling ads on too many social platforms? Instagram allows us to bring your ecommerce business to over 6 numbers so you can focus on growing your business again.

Anyone who finds your profile will know what you are solving (juggling ads on too many social platforms), what your product and solution are (ecommerce marketing to get more than 6 numbers) and what the result is (focus again on growing your business). .

Example 2: your website landing page

Your landing page will be seen by people who are new to, familiar with, or ready to purchase your brand. The clearer you can be about what problem you are solving, what solution you have and what results will result from it – the better your chance of conversion.

Your one-liner will be as high as possible on your landing page in the hopes that this will be one of the first things a visitor reads when your page loads. If you can put it in your parent content, that's perfect.

Since your website gives you more space than the bio limit of 150 characters on Instagram, we can expand this one-liner a little bit more detail about the problem, solution, and outcomes that our company is focused on. Slack did a great job putting together a one-liner and using it in its above-average content.

Your one-liner is:

Teamwork can be tough, chaotic, complicated … and still the best way to work. That's why we made Slack – a place where people work together.

Let's break down the components of Slack's one-liner:

Component 1: Identify the problem or pain point that your customers are facing

Teamwork can be tough, chaotic, complicated … and still the best way to work.

Component 2: Talk about your product or the solution to the problem just mentioned

That's why we made Slack –

Component 3: Talk about the results someone will get when they buy this product

A place where people work together.

After the one-liner, Slack includes a call-to-action button that says "Try it for free". When using your one-liner in your above-the-fold content, always make sure to include a CTA like Slack did.

Example 3: Your (and your team's) email signature

Yes, we take it from social media profiles and fancy websites on email. When was the last time you opened your inbox? If you're like us, it has been a few minutes by the time you read this article you just saw a notification for a new email.

If you email prospects regularly, your email signature is a prime place to put your one-liner. You can use this on your team's signatures as well. For example, every time a sales rep reaches a potential lead, your one-liner is after their name. Or your customer support team always ends their emails with your one-liner.

We'll let you decide if you want your entire team to have your one-liner or some of the team members, but we'll say we're for the former. You never know when someone will know someone who could use your help. This is the only way for them to know what problem you are solving, how to solve it and what the result will be if you tell them.

Let's say you are a freelance marketer. Your one-liner will talk about:

1. What problem are you solving?
2. What is your product or your solution?
3. What is the result?

In this example, you want to specialize in helping software companies with their content marketing strategy using your signature "Distribution Matrix".

This is what your one-liner looks like:

Component 1: Identify the problem or pain point that your customers are facing

Software brands can create interesting content.

Component 2: Talk about your product or the solution to the problem just mentioned

Using the distribution matrix …

Component 3: Talk about the results someone will get when they buy this product

… You can maximize the reach of your content and consistently bring in qualified leads.

When we put it all together, your one-liner is hyper-specific about who you're helping (software companies), what you're helping them with (content), and what the result is (qualified leads).

Software brands can create interesting content. With the distribution matrix you can maximize the reach of your content and always bring in qualified leads.

Congratulations – you've just turned your email signature into a lead generator, and we (and Donald Miller) couldn't be more proud.

Creating a one-liner works around one of the biggest mistakes a company can make: thinking that their customers care about their brand In front You know what you are doing. Your one-liner is a great way to tell the short story of your brand. But this is just the beginning.

It's not just about creating an engaging and converting story. Learn for yourself from master storyteller Donald Miller how to create a branding story that your customers won't be able to forget in our StoryBrand playbook.