Marketing is an important part of building a successful brand, but many business owners ignore word-of-mouth advertising strategies. Why is word-of-mouth so crucial, and how can we use storytelling to boost our success? How do we become relevant in the eyes of our target customers?  On this episode, New York Times bestselling author and Convince & Convert founder, Jay Baer explains the importance of storytelling for branding a business.   3 Things We Learned From This Episode Get your fans to do the advertising for you (17:34- 18:14) The best brands often have the least advertisements. The reason for this is, they’re being talked about by their customers. The power of word-of-mouth is immeasurable, so we need to make sure we’re giving our customers something to talk about.   Use storytelling to generate word-of-mouth (19:11- 21:17) Simply being competent and running a good business isn’t enough to generate excitement about our brands. We need to create talking points and put word-of-mouth strategies in place. We can’t assume people will talk about our businesses. We need to give them something to talk about.    Keep your audience small (28:50- 30:14)  To create successful content, your podcast, books, or videos need to be someone’s favorite version of that content. For that to be possible, you need to be targeting a small enough audience so you’re not competing with every other version of your product. Stop trying to generate a huge following - focus on being great at being small.   Advertising is crucial, but relying solely on marketing campaigns is not enough to turn our brands into household names. We need to be focusing on creating stories - whether through unique experiences or inside jokes - that make us relevant in a public space. We can stay small and create awareness and excitement to the point where our need for traditional advertising is reduced.   Guest Bio- Jay is a Hall of Fame speaker, emcee, New York Times best-selling author of six books, and an internet pioneer. The 7th-generation entrepreneur is the founder of five, multi-million dollar companies, including Convince & Convert, a boutique consultancy that works with the world's most interesting brands.  For more information on Jay and his work, see Convinceandconvert.com And Jaybaer.com To follow Jay on social media, visit these links:http://www.twitter.com/jaybaer http://www.instagram.com/jaybaer http://www.linkedin.com/jaybaer http://www.youtube.com/jaybaer00 http://www.facebook.com/therealjaybaer To find out about Jay’s Talk Triggers book, head to talktriggers.com To follow the Talk Triggers show, visit https://talktriggersshow.com/