Key Components of A Brand Story
The Why: Whatever type of business you have, the reason behind it is a very important part of your brand story. Why do you offer the services or products you do? What does your company aspire to achieve? What does your company value? The reason why you are in business can often be why a potential customer connects with your company, and chooses you over a competitor.
The Customer Experience: Anytime a prospect is interacting with your company, it’s included in the customer experience. Whether that means seeing an ad on social media, browsing your website, or walking into your store, their experience will shape their perspective and opinions of your company. It is very important to make these interactions as enjoyable and seamless as possible, which is why even the smallest things such as the font on your website contributes to your brand story.
The Personas: Typically when we talk about personas in businesses, we focus on buyer personas, to help you better understand your customers. However, your own personas are equally as important. Do you have a unique story behind your business? Are you a family-owned business? For example, Walt Disney, founder of Walt Disney Productions, has created a persona that resonates with the brand of his company. He had a very inspiring and magical view of the world, which worked well to establish his animations and fairytales
The Brand Profile: How did you start your company? What are the events in your life that inspired you to start your company? Your brand profile consists of your personal experiences and emotions that created your company.
The Brand’s Value: What is your brand known for? Great value, great quality? When people buy from your company, what will they expect because it’s what your brand is known for? This is truly what sets your company apart from your competitors and helps you stand out.
The Value of A Brand Story
How it can improve your bottom line!
Human beings are innately captivated by storytelling, but The Content Marketing Institute found that only 52% of marketers regularly use storytelling in their marketing efforts. A well planned out, cohesive brand story can help customers conceptualize and relate to your company. Think of it this way, imagine you are a customer on the hunt for a new pair of shoes. You see one commercial which shows a generic salesman that just shouts the latest sales they have going on, with no other context. The second commercial that you see shows the shoe being the perfect fit, with a song in the background that conveys when you buy a pair of these shoes, you are becoming a part of this brand’s community, like this Tom’s commercial. Which one would you be more persuaded by?
The value that a brand story brings is tremendous. It is similar to inbound marketing, when you first create the idea behind your brand story or inbound marketing campaign, it is a lot of work, but once you are finished with it, the ROI it brings just builds up and continues to grow over time. Harvard Business Review found that when companies create emotional connections between their customers and their brand, customers visited their stores more often, were less sensitive to price changes, were more receptive to store promotions, and became brand ambassadors for the company by word of mouth. This is because when you are able to tell a truly compelling story that your customers relate to, you are building brand loyalty, building brand awareness, and creating brand ambassadors, all at the same time! This will have a huge impact on your bottom line, all because of your brand story.
How to Create Your Own Brand Story
If you have read this far, you’ve already started building your brand story! The first step is to start thinking about the questions previously mentioned:
- Why did you start this company, what does your company value?
- What do you want your company to be known for among the competition?
- What do you want to see your company achieve, and what does true success look like for your company?
Once you’ve begun brainstorming these ideas about the core values of your company, it’s time to start thinking about your potential customers. Who do you want to be buying your products or services? If you could pick one buyer persona (if you don’t know what these are or haven’t created them yet, check out our ebook on Buyer Personas to get started!) to be the ideal customer of your brand, what would it be? The type of person that buys your products is a heavy contributor to your overall brand story.
You should also begin thinking about the aesthetics and procedures of your company (and this will vary a lot depending on what type of business you have). Is the design of your website modern and sleek or traditional? What sort of atmosphere exists within your retail store? Do your employees interact with your customers in a very formal way, or in a more casual way?
Once you have started thinking about how these types of things already exist in your business, you should have a good idea of how to start actually implementing your brand story. There are a few key elements to this, and remember, your brand story is your company, essentially. This is not something you want to rush through or not put a lot of thought into. It needs to be consistent, authentic, and readily available. If your company has a modern and sleek design (such as Apple), you definitely need to keep that in mind when creating any content, including social media posts, blog posts, advertisements, etc. A consistent brand is a powerful one. Your brand story also needs to be authentic, customers are very wary of fakeness especially when it’s involved in a sales pitch. Create a brand story that you are truly passionate about, because others will quickly see through any fakeness or imitations. Lastly, your brand story needs to be readily available. This will also help with the consistency of the brand story. Implement elements of your brand story in your social media, training materials, marketing brochures, etc. Put your brand story everywhere you can, it will only help to make your brand seem stronger.
Submit a Comment