How often should you change your narrative?
(and how do you know when it's time?)
There was a strange shift in horror movies around the early 00s.
Situations that would normally be tense, like being alone in the middle of nowhere or stuck in your house with an intruder, became less tense.
Why? Because of mobile phones.
Audiences would watch these situations play out and just think, “Why don’t they text or call someone for help?”
Essentially, what was frankly terrifying in the 70s and 80s became a lot less so in the 00s and 10s.
So the narrative had to change.
Instead of not having a phone, characters would turn to their trust gadget for help… only to find the dreaded no bars. They didn’t have the signal they needed to ask for support. Oh man. Now it’s terrifying again.
My point is, narratives have to adapt over time. And the same is true of your product’s narrative.
There are three main drivers of this:
Your market
Your category
Your product
I’ll explain each in turn.
How your market shifts your narrative
A sensible strategy for your product is to aim it at a specific type of customer. I won’t go into all the detail here, but the more specific your ICP, the more specific your narrative should be.
But of course, your market might shift over time. If you decide to expand your audience or pivot to a different sector completely, then your narrative is now out of date. You’ll need to adapt it to your new ICP.
Another key component of your narrative focuses in on a specific need that your customers have, and a problem that’s preventing them from fulfilling it. But again, those needs and problems will change and evolve over time. What might be a prime growth blocker today might not be anymore than a passing concern in a year’s time.
And so as market needs change, so too must your narrative.
How your category shifts your narrative
Your category is the type of product you’re selling. And as such it encompasses your various competitors. Over time, this category will likely expand. In fact, if it doesn’t expand that’s a sign of a dying category and you don’t really want to be stuck in one of those.
As the category expands, more and more products enter the fray. Your competitive set grows and then starts to splinter off into subcategories.
Your narrative is partly a reflection of the category your product sits in. It might, for example, focus in on a problem with the category that your product is best-placed to solve. But those category problems and quirks also change as the category evolves.
Eventually, the claims you’re making become table stakes. You’ve lead the way and others have followed. And what at first made your product different now makes you blend in with the rest.
And so as category norms change, so too must your narrative.
How your product shifts your narrative
It goes without saying that your product’s narrative is very much dependent on your actual product. And I also don’t need to tell you that your product should always be improving and adapting to changing customer needs.
To a certain extent, your product should be a reflection of your narrative, just as much as your narrative is a reflection of your product. In other words, you should build your product to fit the narrative you design.
But it isn’t always that simple. There are times when new tech or shifts in your category mean you have to pivot the direction of your product’s roadmap, and as such you need to pivot your narrative too. AI is a great recent example of this. Suddenly AI hit the scene and if your product wasn’t adopting some form of it you’d be falling behind. This was a product shift that necessitated a narrative shift for many companies.
And so as your product changes, so too must your narrative.
Okay, but how often should I change it?
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this, I’m afraid, despite the promise of this post’s title.
What I will advise, however, is to revisit your narrative at least once every 12 months. Even better would be every 6 months. It depends how turbulent your market, category, or product is.
Essentially, you should set aside some time to analyse your narrative compared to those three things.
Look at your market. Are you still chasing the same customers now as you were when you designed your narrative? Are their needs and problems the same as the ones you identified back then? If the answer is no, you need to revisit your narrative and make some adjustments.
Look at your category. Are you still leading the way when it comes to the claims you’re making? Do you still have some kind of differentiated edge over your competitors? If the answer is no, you need to revisit your narrative and make some adjustments.
Look at your product. Are you still focused on the same core functionality? Is the underlying tech the same as it was when you designed your narrative? If the answer is no, you need to revisit your narrative and make some adjustments.
Equally, I want to point out that you shouldn’t constantly tinker with your narrative either. When I talk about revisiting it and changing it, I’m either talking about minor tweaks or major changes but that are borne out of necessity. A narrative takes 3-6 months to really bed in with your audience, so if you’re always chopping and changing it you’ll never reach that saturation point.
The key point I want you to take away? Narrative isn’t a set it and forget it kind of thing. It’s a living component and needs to be carefully shaped and cultivated as your market, category, or product evolves.
Woah, you made it to the end. There’s still hope for our dwindling attention spans after all. If you enjoyed this please pass it on to others you think would enjoy it too. And if you haven’t already you can sub to get more like this in your precious inbox.