The team at Keen as Mustard was thrilled to lead the ‘Beyond Storytelling’ masterclass for the ESOMAR Academy in October. This is a 5-star rated, specialised training to guide insights professionals through the essentials of creating compelling communications. From irresistible story hooks to impactful design, attendees learnt how to bring a powerful and visceral understanding of the customer to their internal audience.
If you missed the training don’t panic – you can sign up to see the recording here: https://esomar.org/tr4in1ng5/beyond-storytelling
Not only did the course get a 5-star rating from attendees, but we have also been signing up clients to deliver bespoke training to address their specific communication challenges. To talk about how we can support you, contact Simon Dunn or click here: simon@mustardmarketing.com
What is ‘beyond storytelling’?
Researchers are brilliant at getting data and revealing insights but communicating them often remains a challenge. The past ten years of storytelling training has led to no greater impact for insights. All too often, powerful insights are left unused – wasting time, budget, and missing the chance to fuel strategic decisions.
If you are one of the insight professionals still emailing data-packed PowerPoint presentations we can help! Our research with Coca-Cola revealed that PowerPoint summaries fell flat with stakeholders, compared to videos, newsletters, and infographics. It’s clear things need to change if we want to bring the voice of the customer to the heart of organisations and create customer salience. This training is designed to equip researchers with communication tools that engage, resonate, and drive action.
Lesson 1: Focus the Message and Control the Narrative
We start by advising on your blueprint for a successful campaign – distilling the essential elements, acting as a reference point for strategy and creative at every step.
The training builds on what we need to know before you can do any communication – the audience, the objective for the communication and how we are going to measure success.
Next, we pinpoint what needs to be communicated – the context, insight or key finding, a single key message and a call to action. We share how to pinpoint the message from a host of data and how to ensure you stick to that core message.
Working through these key questions means you can focus your message, control the narrative, and guide your audience to engage meaningfully with your insights.
Lesson 2: From message to story
To go beyond storytelling, you need to master it first. In lesson two, we build from message to story, starting with making titles, headlines or email subject lines work for you, ensuring it is seen, heard, and remembered. Here, we learn how the insights industry can learn from journalists on how to captivate your audience from the start and use our own research to show the five best ways to write a headline.
Another key to planning your message is building a story arc. In the session, we cover identifying your character, setting, conflict, and resolution. In order to further connection and build resonance with your audience with your story, we show how to tap into emotions, using metaphors, and consistently reflecting your company’s unique voice.
Lesson 3: Bringing Your Insights to Life Visually
Design breathes life into your insights, it packages the story you wrote into captivating visuals. It does more than “make slides look pretty” – design plays a pivotal role in communicating findings effectively by making it easier for your audience to follow the material.
We share our foundational design principles to guide you on creating and assessing your communications and show how keeping your single key message and creative brief at the forefront of your mind is foundational in creating impactful designs that align with your goals.
The three lessons from our ESOMAR Academy masterclass lay a powerful foundation for transforming insights beyond storytelling, into materials which captivate and drive outcomes. In a data-saturated market, strategic narratives that resonate with your audience are vital. Now is the time to make your insights communication impossible to forget.
Don’t forget, you can still view the training if you sign up here: https://esomar.org/tr4in1ng5/beyond-storytelling
If you would like us to tailor the training to your company and specific needs, we are booking into January 2025 now – please email us at simon@mustardmarketing.com.