Many companies jump into branding, storytelling, or content marketing – without first knowing what truly matters to their customers. It’s like writing a speech before understanding your audience. The result? Messaging that sounds good internally but misses the mark externally.
Here’s the issue:
Most strategies are built on assumptions. In 2+ decades of conducting double-blind customer research, we’ve found that 90% of the time, internal teams guess wrong about what customers value most.
This misalignment leads to wasted marketing dollars, missed sales opportunities, and messaging that fails to resonate – no matter how polished it is.
A Word of Caution on “Storytelling”
Storytelling has become a trendy fix-all in business – but what exactly does it mean? Branding agencies often sell “storytelling” to humanize your company, but if the story isn’t built on what your customers actually care about, it’s just narrative noise. It is about you, not them.
Telling your story before knowing your customer’s priorities is like delivering a monologue to someone who just asked a question. They’ll tune out – because you didn’t answer what they were looking for.
Before you invest another dollar in marketing, ask yourself:
- Do we know what our customers truly care about, or are we guessing?
- Has this been validated by objective research – not just collecting internal opinions?
- Are we leading with messaging that addresses our customers’ top buying criteria?
Marketing that leads with relevance most often outperforms marketing that leads with creativity. And relevance starts with research.
If you want marketing that converts, retention that lasts, and a sales team aligned with what buyers want – research must come first. Everything else, including your story, should follow.
May, 2025