In this episode of the Market Your Message show, host Jonathan Milligan, author of the 'Your Message Matters' book series, discusses Chapter 10 from his book 'Launch Your Platform.' Jonathan explains how to craft a compelling brand story homepage using Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework. Key steps include using a wireframe template from Canva to map out the homepage, making the visitor the hero, and establishing visual brand consistency. Jonathan provides a detailed, step-by-step guide to creating a strategic homepage that resonates emotionally with the audience and encourages action.
00:00 Introduction to Market Your Message 00:47 Crafting Your Brand Story: The StoryBrand Framework 03:08 Building an Effective Homepage 05:52 Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Homepage 09:18 Implementing Your Homepage Wireframe 11:47 Day 10 Takeaways and Next Steps
In this episode of the Market Your Message show, host Jonathan Milligan, author of the 'Your Message Matters' book series, discusses Chapter 10 from his book 'Launch Your Platform.' Jonathan explains how to craft a compelling brand story homepage using Donald Miller's StoryBrand framework. Key steps include using a wireframe template from Canva to map out the homepage, making the visitor the hero, and establishing visual brand consistency. Jonathan provides a detailed, step-by-step guide to creating a strategic homepage that resonates emotionally with the audience and encourages action.
00:00 Introduction to Market Your Message 00:47 Crafting Your Brand Story: The StoryBrand Framework 03:08 Building an Effective Homepage 05:52 Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Homepage 09:18 Implementing Your Homepage Wireframe 11:47 Day 10 Takeaways and Next Steps
Hello and welcome to the Market Your Message show. I'm your host, Jonathan Milligan, an author of the Your Message Matters book series. We are currently going through book number two in the series called Launch Your Platform, a 21 day launch plan to build your personal brand and share your story online as a writer, coach or speaker. And as a special thanks to you, my podcast listeners, I'm releasing the audio book. One chapter at a time. If you'd like to grab any of the books in the series, just go to platformgrowthbooks. com. Okay. Let's jump in to today's reading.
Chapter 10 day 10. Craft your brand story homepage. Donald Miller never set out to build a marketing empire. The Christian memoir writer is known for vulnerability crafted books. He cultivated a small, but fervent fan base. Yet as his blog and speaking engagements, gain traction. Miller felt something was still missing. Audience engagement remained surface level. His core concepts failed to resonate fully after the seminars ended. Miller Hatton translated his ideas into practical application in the real world. The sparked Miller's epiphany. He began studying how big brands like Nike and apple clearly communicate value. They do this by tapping into stories. Etched deep in the consumer psyche. Miller realized he could help companies speak directly to their customers. Deeper motivations. He would do this by focusing less on features. And more on aspirations. Drawing lessons from classics like the hero's journey. Miller developed his StoryBrand framework around 2013. It's a proven seven part storytelling method now used by over 500,000 brands globally. The StoryBrand process breaks through noise and connects consumers at an emotional level. It calls the consumer the hero. On a transformative quest. The brand serves as their guide, providing a clear path forward when failure seems eminent. Ultimate success is a narrow possibility worth fighting for. The StoryBrand framework is divided into seven parts. One hero. References the customer as the hero of the story. To problem. Focuses on the customer's problem. Three guide. Introduces your brand as the guide. For plan. Provides the step-by-step plan for success. Five call to action. Ask the customer to take action. Six. Success. Paints a picture of the success customers enjoy. Seven failure. Warren's what failure looks like. If no action is taken. So far in our journey, we've covered the core elements. Every strong home page needs. These include an aspirational headline that speaks to ideal visitors, deepest hopes. Listing the top three challenges, holding them back from realizing their goals. Your three-step formula to guide them to success. And lastly, a prominent call to action button. To get them started toward their dreams. In this chapter we build on that foundation. We'll illustrate how to weave these critical pieces into an aspirational brand story homepage. This homepage makes visitors to heroes. We'll craft a high impact homepage. The persuades readers to join our cause by combining compelling copy strategic design and putting the visitor experience. Front and center. No code or tech skills are required. You're now ready to guide visitors confidently through the customer journey that you envision for them with this bold brand story blueprint. We're moving from theory to application. Let's put these concepts into practice with clear examples. Day 10. Create your brand story homepage. Most personal brands lead their homepages. By touting themselves as the hero. They splash logos and headshots front and center. This cell focused approach fails to resonate emotionally. Or convey core values to visitors. Effective homepages, make the idle audience, the hero of the story instead. They speak directly to visitors, aspirations and pain points with targeted messaging. For example, you want to write a book, but don't know where to start. Demonstrates empathy and establishes common ground. Savvy personal brands, guide visitors down a path by making them the central character. A homepage headline, like write your way onto the bestseller list. Encourages readers to imagine achieving their wildest dreams. Empathetic copy provides a wise guide for confused visitors. They want to transform their manuscripts into publish masterpieces, but may not know the next steps. The key is crafting a visitor focused narrative. Make ideal visitors, the inspirational central characters and position your brand as their guide. Meet visitors, where they are in their journey before asking them to take action. Esteem teachers throughout history have used this servant leadership approach to lasting influence. Step one. Use a template. When mapping out your home page, resist the urge to start building it in your website builder immediately. That's like an architect diving into construction blueprints before conceptually planning the building's purpose and layout. I've created a dragon drop home page wire frame template using Canva. Wireframing allows you to strategically map out the critical elements your homepage needs. It also shows how visitors will flow through it. The good news is you don't need to be a graphic designer to use this tool. Just go to J mill.biz/wireframe. That's the letter J. M I L l.biz/wireframe. To get free access to my Canva template. The Canva templates have placeholders for you to map the customer journey visually. You can experiment with what messaging works best by dropping in sample headlines, captions images. And buttons before going live. Think of it like an artist's sketch before painting the full Uh, approaching your homepage as a storyboarding process, keeps the focus on customer experience rather than just features. The goal is to craft a compelling homepage brand story. This story should make visitors to heroes and present your business as they're helpful guide. This sets the stage for an aligned journey across every subsequent page. Step two. Add your content to the wire frame template. Now that you have access to the home page wire frame and Canva. It's time to plug into critical branding and messaging elements. You've already defined them through your prior homework. Start by establishing visual consistency with your color palette and logo placement. Use the exact brand colors and vector-based logo files that you have finalized. Rather than approximations. This ensures that alignment with all other customer touch points, like business cards and packaging. Next insert your tightly honed, aspirational tagline. In the headline placeholder. Keep it to 10 words or less. Follow up the bull promise with a paragraph, calling out the precise pain points, your ideal customer faces before meeting you. Quickly, establish empathy and familiarity. Further down the page, insert your three big success steps. These steps outlined the transformative process. Your customer will undergo. Reinforce how you will guide visitors step-by-step to become their best selves with supportive solutions. Finally make your primary call to action button loud and proud. Use contrast in colors and action-driven text. This button should direct visitors to take their next step. They could download an offer book, a call, start a free trial, or subscribe to your email newsletter. The wireframe should emotionally resonate with your readers and move them to convert. Step three, use the completed wireframe to build your homepage. Your strategic homepage wire frame is now complete. Now you're ready to build the live version on your actual website. Instead of staring at a blank web page, wondering where to start. You simply have to transpose what you've conceptualized in your wireframe visually. It's about finding matching templates, fonts, images, colors. And content blocks. You don't have to start from scratch. For example, website, builder platforms like WordPress Squarespace, Wix. All offer templates with similar layout structures, drag and drop editors. Make it easy to place headlines, photos, buttons, and text sections without any coding. Modern tools empower anyone to bring their vision to life. And the next chapter, we'll explore a website hosting platforms that are best suited for personal brands. Each option comes with its own strengths and limitations, depending on your goals. So don't worry yet about how to technically build your homepage. First concentrate on strategic clarity. No, your story and hero's journey first. Once your wireframe concept lands emotionally. Well RMU with all the hosting know-how needed to make it real next. Dayton exercise. Craft your brand story homepage. Let's put these homepage story branding concepts into action. Follow these steps one. Sign up for a free canvas account. If you don't already have one. To go to J mill.biz/wireframe. To add the wireframe homepage template to your canvas account. Three use canvas drag and drop tools to map out your ideal customer journey. According to your work, up to this point. Four. Experiment with various photos, colors, fonts, and content arrangements. Use them to bring your ideal visitor's journey to life. You now have an intuitive yet strategic home page wireframe. Ready for implementation. And the next chapter we'll cover translating this map. Into a live lead generating website. Day 10 takeaways. Use a wire frame template to strategically map out the key elements of your homepage before building it live. Make visitor's the hero of the story. Establish visual brand consistency on your homepage with colors, logos, et cetera. Insert your aspirational tagline address, pain points, outline success steps. And at a clear call to action. Once your homepage wireframe resonates emotionally with your target audience. You can easily transpose it into a live website using templates. Focus on the strategic story first before technical implementation.
