In 2021, 5.4 million new business applications were filed according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That's 14,794 per day. ([And I was one of them](https://vickygu.com/skin-contact-studio)!) I'm glad that the barriers to entrepreneurship are lowering. That also means that building the next big thing doesn't auto generate success. Disrupting an industry is the easy part; the hard part is sustaining the innovation. Look at it from everyone's favorite business example: Apple didn't just launch the best product on the market. They didn't just enable a more fluid tech ecosystem. They showed you why you needed them spiritually, not just functionally. Let's talk about my work with B2B research company NewtonX. We provide market research that enables our clients — like Google, The NYT, and [Checkout.com](https://www.newtonx.com/article/how-checkout-tells-stories-with-textured-data/) — to make better decisions in high stakes scenarios. We have a fantastic offering: the best data you've ever seen. Last year, 96% of clients started a second project with us after the first. But there are other options, other research providers for clients to go to, even if they don't measure up. What this means for NewtonX's narrative strategy: it's not enough to market how we empower clients to retain their competitive edge. What's key is to help our clients and prospects see: with us, confidence is your new baseline. There's no more rationalizing away bad data. We restore trust in your data, in an industry where 30-40% of data sourced from traditional providers and methods are trashed. We reinvigorate your organization's research practice, through partnering with you — the research buyer — to change the culture and expectations of insights in your company. We equip you with insights that don't just validate hypotheses or serve premeditated internal agendas, but rather bring truth, no matter how hard to stomach. Yes, this is all thanks to our search technology and automation and AI, but that's just the background enabler. **Narrative strategy asks: how do we translate the complexity of our tech - to the simplicity of the impact?** It's the same in B2C world. One of my favorite success stories is Chinese tea brand HEYTEA. I live 7,364 miles from the nearest one yet I'll scroll through their immersive comics on WeChat. In a country where food delivery giant Meituan delivered [over 210 million milk tea orders](https://kr-asia.com/meituan-delivered-210-million-orders-of-milk-tea-last-year) in 2018 — somehow, [HEYTEA](https://daxueconsulting.com/the-secret-recipe-of-heyteas-buzz-in-china-2/) has made bubble tea an out-of-body $5 experience worth waiting hours for, through none other than _stories._ Because [technology doesn't move people](https://creativeleadershipblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/reds_2010_ver3.pdf); poetry does. The most effective narratives paint a portrait of who your customer or reader or viewer could be, infusing hope. I call this editorial marketing. It's storytelling the way journalism does it: not to overtly sell, but to pitch in ways so truthful and compelling that you can't help but want more. The NYT has over 10 million subs not because they sell subscriptions; they tell stories that sell subscriptions. With that, the four tenets of effective narrative strategy below: - [[Editorial starts with ethnography]] - [[Editorial designs for both existing and emerging behavior]] - [[True narratives resist virality]] - [[Good content remembers the joy and fights the urgency]]