Three stories climate tech marketers can capitalize on
Are you telling the wrong climate story?
Hello friends,
Are we sick of hearing about ‘storytelling’ yet?
‘Use storytelling’ is advice marketers hear so often that it’s mostly just noise now. It’s another thing we just don’t have time to think about in the busy world of climate tech startups.
We’d like to make the age-old storytelling advice a little more concrete. Here, we’re suggesting three stories your climate tech brand can tap into, whether through your messaging, your content marketing, or your sales and investor pitches.
1. The planet story.
This is the story many climate tech marketers are keen to tell — what’s going wrong at the global level and how your company contributes to the solution.
These stories are necessary. You need to frame your company’s mission in the bigger picture. But these stories are also now so widespread that they are rapidly losing their effect.
If your *only* story is a planet story, you start to sound like every other climate tech startup out there. And your customers, investors, and potential talent already know the plot.
How to tell a more compelling planet story
Use it briefly to give context in your mission statements and company stories.
Use it when pitching to investors, but emphasize the opportunity.
Make your climate story unique by shrinking the scope of the problem. Many marketers think playing up the size of the problem increases urgency, but it tends to induce paralysis instead. Focus very clearly on your small climate niche.
2. The founder story.
Many marketers and founders like to wax lyrical about the ‘company story,’ but people care about people, not companies. We encourage marketers to lean into the often surprising narratives that come from their founders. Founder stories and voices have far more opportunity for uniqueness than climate stories, so we recommend marketers find their brand differentiation here.
How to tell a more compelling founder story
Get plenty of photography of your founders, offices, team, etc. (not just headshots). These bring life to founder stories.
Play up funny or interesting anecdotes, like how two founders met or came to work on climate.
Imagine alternative futures. What would have happened if your founders hadn’t gotten into climate tech? Where would they be now? Find ways to weave the surprising and serendipitous into your content.
Don’t spend too long on founder stories in customer-focused content. Rather, have your founders (or SMEs if it’s a better fit) be the voice of your customer-focused content. We recommend ghostwriting all thought leadership and company update pieces through the founders.
Do whatever it takes to get founders active on LinkedIn. They can attract much bigger and more loyal followings than company pages — just look at Lubomila Jordanova’s following compared to that of Plan A.
Have founders or engaging SMEs be the face of any video content.
3. The customer story.
We should have listed this as #1, because it’s the most important story you can tell in your comms and content. Ultimately, the stories you tell are most powerful when your customers become the main character.
If we follow the hero’s journey as a basis for building stories (order — disorder — reorder), we can:
Catch our buyers at the state of disorder…
(How can I get on top of my climate reporting? Should I invest in reduction or removals? Where do I start with decarbonizing my supply chain?)
…and then….
help make them the hero who establishes re-order.
(Through, of course, the use of our product).
Crucially, the product is not the hero: it is simply the tool the hero resourcefully uses to come out on top.
How to tell a more compelling founder story
This should be your biggest focus in your external communications, so it’s worth writing out this story arc in detail as part of your brand guidelines.
Testimonials are key. Help customers to format them in ways that follow a narrative arc from chaos/disorder to success/reorder.
Case studies are your best friend. Structure these along a narrative arc: perhaps all is well until the company grows or realizes it needs a climate plan, the hero (person you interview) finds your product and re-establishes order, taking the company to new levels. Get quotes, photos, and as many compelling anecdotes or personal tidbits as you can. Make your key contact (or their team) the hero — not just their company.
The takeaway?
Storytelling can make all the difference in your marketing — but you need to be telling the right stories.
And that means…
Leaning into your unique founder and planet stories, but spending most of your time perfecting your customer story.
The challenge ahead:
Not getting too caught up in the global climate story. It’s tempting, but it’s not the best use of your time.
Helpful resources
Marketer-specific lessons from a master of screenwriting and storytelling theory.
The original blueprint for the hero’s journey — the foundation of all good storytelling.
Not the first time we’ve recommended this. A must-read for customer-focused storytelling.