The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap

StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap image
In the early days of StoryBrand, there was a course offering called the “StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap”.

Today, many of the principles from this course have been adapted into the Marketing Made Simple book and course found on Business Made Simple University.

However, we still fondly remember it as one of the foundational pieces of the StoryBrand marketing philosophy.

Here’s a little more information about the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap.

 

Background Info on the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap

 

Sneakily, you can still find the landing page for the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap here. All the links, however, redirect users to the Business Made Simple website.

The main value proposition of the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap was that it could help DIY marketers create a sales funnel. If you work in the marketing industry, surely you’ve heard of sales funnels, and you also know how challenging and time-consuming they can be to set up.

The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap solves that problem by offering marketers and business owners a simple framework to set up a marketing funnel and begin collecting leads and generating sales.

This was the advent of the Marketing Made Simple framework that we know of today.

 

Similarities Between Marketing Made Simple and the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap

 

While StoryBrand has changed or refined some things between the two courses, there are a few similarities between MMS and the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap.

 

Both courses help you build a sales funnel

Both Marketing Made Simple and the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap help you create a sales funnel.

If you’re at all familiar with the StoryBrand methodology, you’ll know that a StoryBrand sales funnel consists of five core pieces of marketing collateral.

  1. A clear BrandScript
  2. A simple website
  3. A lead generator
  4. An automated email campaign
  5. A sales letter/email

Creating these five marketing pieces is foundational to both courses.

 

Both courses address why your business needs a sales funnel

Bravo to Donald Miller and the StoryBrand crew for truly understanding the needs of their audiences.

Both the Marketing Made Simple and StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap courses address why you need a sales funnel and both courses (in the promotional materials) speak to that need.

We can learn a great deal about value proposition design and positioning by examining the marketing materials of both courses. Because although they both speak to the same need, they do so in separate ways and using different words, but both are effective.

There was no copy and pasting when StoryBrand decided to rebrand the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap course as the Marketing Made Simple course.

 

Both courses emphasize copywriting

A final similarity between the two courses is that they both emphasize exceptional copywriting. In other words, they require you to do some copywriting and they teach you at the same time.

For both courses, you’ll create the five pieces of marketing collateral that we referenced, but you’ll begin the creation of these pieces of collateral by writing them first.

If you know anything about Donald Miller, you’ll know that he’s an excellent copywriter and often pushes copywriting in his courses and videos. These courses are no different.

So, if you’re looking to enhance your copywriting skills, then the StoryBrand courses are for you. Specifically, Marketing Made Simple (formerly, the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap.

 

Differences Between Marketing Made Simple and the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap

 

Just as there are similarities between these two courses there are some interesting differences, which we’ll talk about below.

 

Gather customer testimonials

In the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap course, there is actually a sixth marketing piece that you’re taught to create – or rather gather.

This marketing piece is customer testimonials.

The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap course helps you to craft a survey with which you can distribute to your customers and collect testimonials.

This survey is uniquely designed to help you highlight the transformation that a customer has gone through because of using your product or service.

Why StoryBrand decided to take out this component from Marketing Made Simple is unknown, but you can always hire a StoryBrand Guide to help you collect customer testimonials that are in-line with the StoryBrand methodology.

 

Price tag

Another significant difference between the two courses is the price tag.

The StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap cost users a one-time payment of $1,997 (there was also a 3-month payment option).

While an individual user can obtain the Marketing Made Simple course with a Business Made Simple University subscription for only $275 annually.

This is a dramatic difference! And one we’re very glad that StoryBrand decided to go with as the content in the courses remains similar, however, we all have more money in our pockets because of the price change.

Thanks, StoryBrand! ????

 

Guest course teacher

A final significant difference between the two courses is that the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap featured a guest teacher alongside Donald Miller.

That guest teacher was a well-known copywriter by the name of Ray Edwards.

Don and Ray are long-time friends, have endorsed each other’s books, and appeared on each other’s podcasts as well.

So, it’s no surprise that a course with a heavy copywriting emphasis by Donald Miller would feature his good friend and exceptional copywriter in his own right, Ray Edwards.

We believe that StoryBrand opted not to have Ray teach in the Marketing Made Simple course because StoryBrand had more talent to draw from within its organization, namely, Dr. J.J. and Koula Callahan.

No slight to Ray Edwards. In fact, check out his website. He seriously is a fantastic copywriter and marketer.

 

In Summary

 

That is some of the background information on the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap.

It is similar to the Marketing Made Simple course, as it was an early iteration of that course, but there are indeed a few key differences.

Have you taken both the StoryBrand Marketing Roadmap and Marketing Made Simple courses? What did you think?

Reach out to us via Twitter to let us know what you thought about both courses.

Angie Schultz StoryBrand Certified Guide since 2018

Angie Schultz

Make StoryBrand work for you.

So many business leaders fall in love with StoryBrand but get overwhelmed when it comes to making it work for their website.

Over the last four years, we’ve partnered with Angie Schultz, a StoryBrand Certified Guide, to help help dozens of businesses implement StoryBrand on their websites and marketing materials.
Schedule a call with our team by clicking the form below. We’d love to chat about helping you leverage the power of StoryBrand, too.

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