Do You Know How to Tell Your Brand’s Unique Story?
Storytelling is an essential form of human communication. It helps each of us make sense of our life experiences and shows us our place in the world.
Your brand’s story is just as fundamental to building your business as your finances, products and customer service.
When you get it right, your brand’s unique story helps your customers to understand what your company stands for, and how you can help to make their lives better.
Stories describe the human struggle and all the feelings that come with it. This is why stories are powerful marketing tools, because they encourage your customers to connect emotionally with your brand.
If you can make an emotional connection with your customers, your brand will grow and thrive.
So let’s talk about how to get brand storytelling right.
Identify Your Core Values
Values lie at the heart of every story. They are the message that people receive when they watch a film or read a book: good triumphs over evil, the nice girl gets the guy, etc. They are also key to selling your brand.
When people hear your brand’s story, they receive a deeper message about your company’s values. So you need to pin down what those values are.
What is most important about the way you do business? What makes you different from the competition?
Note down some ideas. Discuss these with colleagues. Make sure that everyone is on board with the values you choose, because a consistent message is very important.
Keep It Real
Your company’s core values should reflect what it’s really like to do business with you.
Unlike fiction, your brand’s story is based on real life. You should describe real people, in real situations, with genuine emotions and facts. Anything else will sound false.
Using the truth is powerful and will boost the trustworthiness of your brand. If you can show your customers real situations where they will benefit when they buy from you, you’re on to a winner.
Make an Emotional Connection
When your brand’s story describes a situation your customers can relate to, it automatically generates an emotional response.
To make the most of this connection, you need to know your customers. Divide your target audience into segments, and think about how your brand can connect with their emotional lives.
For example, if you are a furniture company, you might devise a segment for expectant parents by suggesting the joy of furnishing a new nursery; or for a retired couple, describe how buying a pair of adjustable easy chairs make their evenings together more comfortable.
These stories are very effective because they encourage your customers to imagine a bright new future where your brand has improved their lives.
Show Some Personality
One of the most important functions of brand storytelling is its uniqueness. It helps you show your customers how your brand is different from others. This means you need to display some personality.
Your brand’s personality will be based on your core values, so think about what is important to your business and how that is shown in the service you offer.
One way you can show some personality is by telling your story using the right tone and style in advertising and marketing copy.
If you want to attract younger customers, you can use slang (remember the 2001 Budweiser beer “Wassuup” campaign?), while if you want to strike a lighter note you could use puns and visual humour (think Ben and Jerry’s ice cream).
On the other hand, older customers might prefer language that makes them feel reassured and safe (e.g. life insurance adverts).
Whatever you do, make sure that your personality really reflects the reality of your company culture. Fakes are quickly found out.
Do Something Different
Now that you have a clear brand story to tell, the last piece of the puzzle is telling it through the right medium.
You might decide to use case studies, blogs, videos, tweets, Instagram images or Facebook posts. There are a lot of ways to communicate out there.
What can really make a difference is to communicate in a different way from your competitors. Look around outside your own industry to get ideas of new ways to tell your story.
You might decide to use an infographic rather than a newspaper advert, or a short video rather than a blog post. Choose the best way to reach your customers.
Your Customers Are Key
Your customers are key to doing things differently. Study and understand what your customers are saying about your brand, and use this to identify patterns that can help you to communicate your story in a unique way.
Using all this information to tell your brand’s story will help you to grow and succeed.
The Printed Bag Shop are brand experts, with years of experience helping UK brands to grow and stand out. To speak to one of our lovely team about printed bags and which is best for you, contact us on sales@theprintedbagshop.co.uk or 0191 268 7555.