This blog post by Mitch Joel is a good reminder that you should never forget the story behind your product.

As customer development managers and marketers, it’s easy to fall into pushing your product to the detriment of your story. You’re so desperate for a email sign-up, a sale, a Facebook Like that you push and push to get it, rather than let the story sell itself.

To find your story, you have to put yourself in your customers shoes and imagine their circumstances, their problems and their motivations. They get your features. They get the benefits. But how does it fit into their life?

Mitch’s post urges marketers to pretend they don’t have all the tools available (the nicely packaged product, clever social media campaigns, showy apps etc.) and instead focus on the compelling story.

Nowhere is this more true than for lean startups where we don’t have the fancy resources, let alone an fully-functioning product, to help us sell.

In the Pollenizer customer development team, we have to constantly re-evaluate the story of our products as they shift and morph from one week to the next.

If you think you’re getting distracted with all the options for your start-up, Mitch’s advice below is a great grounding reminder.

Forget about the fluff and focus on;

1. A compelling story.
2. A defendable and unique market position.
3. Making your content as shareable and as findable as possible.
4. Doing nothing that doesn’t add economic value to the brand.
5. Connecting to the people who truly do want to be connected to you (not just the ones who “like” you on Facebook because you’re subtly bribing them).
6. Quit pushing your Marketing department and agency to be more innovative. Most brands aren’t even doing the basics right. No need to worry about innovation until you have a foundation for success.
7. Don’t try for viral. Getting something to go viral or getting thousands of people to connect to you is a false God. If you go back to creating a compelling story, it will go viral and get many followers by the very nature of it.
8. Copying is not flattering. It’s boring. It’s even more boring when the copy isn’t better than the original.
9. Don’t underestimate your consumer. They’re smart, they’re connected and they’re smarter than you.
10. Get rid of the fine print. Nobody reads it and nobody understands it, but worse: it’s mostly used as a bait and switch.
11. Contests and couponing works… sadly. So, do it, but promise yourself that your marketing won’t be entirely driven by it. You’re better than that.
12. People will come and people will go, but your integrity is all that you have.
13. Technology is not what’s stopping you… your ideas are.
14. Real relationships are not built on offers… they’re built on long-term value.

All great points. What’s your favourite? Do you have any more to add to the list?