brand storytelling
Branding

Brand Storytelling: 5 Steps to Telling Your Brand Story

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Brand storytelling is a way to connect with your customers on an emotional level. It’s much more than just writing sales copy – it’s about crafting compelling stories about your brand and products to create an authentic relationship with consumers.

By effectively communicating your brand story, you can build trust between your company and your customers, inspiring them to take action. Therefore, in this article, let’s take a closer look at the definition and content of this unique communication tool.

What is brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling is about telling a story that speaks to your audience and creates emotional connections which in turn, helps your company define its brand.

brand storytelling

The first step to developing a story is to understand how you want to be perceived by your customers. Are you a fun and original startup? The approachable luxury brand? Or the reliable technology company that has been around for decades? Your story should be relevant to both your company’s values and your customers: it should show who they are and what they do.

The next step is to choose the type of story you want to tell. Will it be a fictional story or a non-fictional story?

If it is a fictional story, then there are certain rules that apply to such stories: The main characters must have a clear motivation, there should be some sort of conflict, and there must be a resolution at some point.

In addition to these basic rules, when we read this type of fiction, we tend to think not only about whether our hero succeeds but also about what happens next after he or she succeeds – or fails.

What are the benefits of brand storytelling?

Brand storytelling is a powerful tool that can help you build your brand, connect with your audience, and communicate your values and vision. It also helps you deliver a more memorable experience to your customers.

Below are some benefits of brand storytelling:

  • Brand storytelling makes brands more memorable and ensures higher brand awareness. Your customers can remember your brand name when they hear it, as well as the feelings and sentiments associated with it towards the company and its products or services. Then, when they later need to buy something from another company, they know exactly who to trust – your brand!
  • Brand storytelling helps build connections between a brand and its customers. This emotional connection is driven primarily by shared values and the stories you tell with your marketing. A customer who feels an emotional connection to your company will be more likely to choose your product or service when in doubt.
  • With the right brand story, you can provide more authenticity for your company and convey advertising messages in your marketing in a more human way. For example, by featuring the founder of your company or even narratives from your employees, your marketing content will seem closer to life and less like an advertisement.
  • Your brand story can help communicate the values and core of your corporate identity, allowing you to position yourself clearly. This can be especially helpful in differentiating yourself from the competition in a competitive business marketplace.

What are the types of storytelling?

There are a variety of ways to tell your brand’s story. The key to success is finding the best approach for your audience and the story you want to tell. Examples include:

  • Traditional narrative – using a linear structure with a beginning, middle, and end.
  • Non-linear narrative – use of storytelling elements such as flashbacks or foreshadowing
  • Interactive content – allowing the reader to choose their own ending or otherwise make the story interactive

Interactive content is the latest way to tell a story. Here, consumers can decide what happens next by clicking on different elements on a page and navigating through different storylines. They essentially create experiences for themselves using your brand’s story.

This can be done through branching stories, different social media posts, or even interactive games across social media channels.


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5 steps to telling your own brand story

To start, you need to figure out where you want to go with your company story. Before you write the first sentence of your company story, consider what’s your brand’s identity, who your target audience is and what they want from the experience.

If there are questions your audience might have-or if there’s something that’s keeping them from buying or following what you’re selling-those are good places to start a hook.

storytelling

Once that’s done, you should determine the extent to which you want to use your brand story content for corporate communications and the budget you have for it.

If you already have a dedicated content marketing department in your company, then you can integrate the brand storytelling campaign as a component in your content marketing strategy and include the story in your marketing messages on social media or even in your own newsletter.

If your company doesn’t have an in-house content manager, then a storytelling agency can help you write your brand story. Either way, the following 5 steps will help you create your brand story.

Step 1: What does your company stand for?

A company story is a narrative that tells your audience who you are, what you stand for, and why they should care. To effectively tell this information, you need to identify and clearly communicate the foundation of your brand:

  • Who is your company? What does it stand for?
  • What is the company’s mission?
  • What is the company’s vision?
  • What are the values or principles that guide your company?
  • When have these principles come to bear in history and/or current events (if applicable)?
  • How have these beliefs played out in history and/or current events (if applicable)?

Step 2: Who are the protagonists of your brand?

If you want to tell your company’s story, you should also remember that it’s not just about you. Your company’s story is made up of many people – the people who make up your company, the people who buy and use your products, and the people who work for you.

It’s also made up of those who are affected by your work but with whom you don’t interact directly: the people in the community around your offices or factory.

The first step to telling this story is to figure out who these protagonists are:

  • Your team members: your brand exists because it is backed by people who make products and services that consumers want or need. These employees are at the heart of everything you do as a company, so they should always be included in any narrative about what your brand is all about.
  • Your customers: It’s easy to think of customers as people who pay us money for things we sell them, but that ignores a lot of important details – like why they pay us and not someone else, how much they like our product or service, where they first heard about us, and how often they come back. In short, what makes someone an active participant in this dynamic narrative?
  • Your leadership: your company’s founders are, of course, extremely important parts of your company’s story and should be in your story accordingly.

Step 3: Find your own voice

Your voice is your brand’s personality. It is how you want to be perceived, how you want to be remembered, and how you want to evoke emotion in your customers.

Your voice determines how people think about your product or service and what tone you strike when communicating with them.

Therefore, the next step is to determine that voice by answering three key questions:

  1. Who are we?
  2. What do we stand for?
  3. Why do we exist?

Step 4: Create an outline for your content.

Now that you know what your brand’s story is, it’s time to create an outline of the content you want to tell. This will help you create a clear and concise core message for your audience.

The outline should be easy to read, follow, and understand so that people can easily absorb and comprehend the information to better identify with your brand.

Step 5: Translate your brand story into assets for your marketing.

It’s important to think about the different storylines of your marketing mix and how and in which networks you want to place your messages.

Your company’s backstory is probably best served on your website, whereas Customer Experiences might be a good strategy for your advertising. Employee information, on the other hand, is a good option for targeting new talent on business networks like Xing or LinkedIn.

3 successful brand storytelling examples

There are many examples of companies that communicate a very clear identity with their brand story.

Coca-Cola

The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has managed to trigger an emotional response from it’s audience with its advertising time and again for years. The brand uses corporate storytelling to connect with consumers and create emotional bonds. Especially at Christmastime, the brand always manages to tell great stories.

Nike

Nike has also managed to tell stories of inspiration and empowerment through its marketing channels and slogans for decades. The company even has a storytelling team whose job is to help athletes sponsored by Nike share their stories with the world.

Edeka

Finally, supermarket chain Edeka also manages time and again to touch its customers with its emotional campaigns and cause a stir via clever storytelling and promotional videos – just think of its 2020 Christmas commercial.

Conclusion

Brand storytelling efforts are a great way to humanize your brand and make it more likable. It can help you connect with your audience on an emotional level, which can lead to more brand loyalty and sales. And the best part? You don’t need any fancy equipment!

All you need is an idea, some creativity, and a little extra time added to your marketing strategy. If that time isn’t available, contact a content marketing agency.

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