Brand storytelling is so much more than sharing a nice or interesting tale. A successful brand story delivers a solid connection that people are drawn toward in a way that’s genuine and authentic to the brand’s mission and values. Developing a compelling brand story isn’t complicated, but it does require certain elements. Here’s a checklist to craft your brand narrative and strengthen your relationship with your audience.
Define Your Company’s Goal
Think of this as your story’s general outline. Defining your company’s goal is what the story is all about. What do you want the world to know about your brand? Everyone is working towards one common goal. The big questions are, what is it and how are you going to get it across to your audience?
Mission
Narrow down your brand’s mission, if you haven’t already. If you have, utilize the mission as the backbone of your storytelling in marketing. Take Airbnb, for example. Their focus has been on building community and local hospitality. They’ve effectively communicated their mission through their marketing by showing real customers, experiences, and places. What is your mission, and how you can authentically demonstrate it?
Vision
Where do you hope to see your brand in the future? Vision is all about taking those goals and making them come to fruition. How can you utilize this in your brand storytelling? Even a company such as Domino’s took negative feedback from years ago and made it part of their marketing to show how they would move forward. While it doesn’t have to follow that exact path, sometimes it’s as simple as showing the world what you hope to be.
Values
What sets your brand apart? Do you donate a portion of your proceeds to a charity? What does the brand stand for? What is your brand promise? Share your values as part of your brand storytelling. Connect with your audience on an identifiable and relatable level. Give them a glimpse of what philanthropic values drive your business. Even if it’s something relating to creating a product or service that you felt the world needed, share it!
Identify Your Audience
Now that you have the “Why” of your overall story figured out, ask yourself about the “who” side of this arc. This is where you should really hone in on who you’re trying to market to, especially if you’re hoping to branch out to a different demographic or widen the reach of the one you have already.
Create customer personas by identifying the needs of your marketing campaign. Who is the hero of this tale? The villain? The guide? What motivates these “characters” to act? These classic storytelling techniques are crucial in configuring your audience and what you hope they glean from your messaging. You want to emotionally draw them in — not in a phony way but a real and genuine manner. Knowing who you’re speaking to will help with that connection.
Develop Your Messaging
To develop your messaging, you need to consider what the end goal, or “transformation,” of each buyer persona is as a result of the storytelling. For example, a brand selling a healthy alternative to potato chips may choose typical, unhealthy snacks as their villain. After deciphering such elements, like who or what the “villain” of your story may be, you can apply this to each persona to create their messaging.
Visualize Your Story
Even though you may have had a visual idea all along for how you’ll market your brand, now is when you put it into action. Through a combination of marketing techniques, you should be able to get your brand’s story out into the world. This can include sending email blasts to existing customers directing them to your new site, sharing videos and images on your social media, or even streaming video ads with QR codes or other CTAs. This is where your story truly comes to life.
Craft Your Brand Story with Disruptive Marketing
Each brand has a story worth sharing. When going through this checklist, you may already be getting ideas for how your own brand story is unique and how you can tell it to the world. It’s about crafting honest, worthwhile relationships with your audience while showing what you have to offer and demonstrating what sets you apart from others in the industry.
Disruptive marketing is all about shaking up the usual marketing tactics. Book a consultation with Mavericks Marketing today to unlock the power of storytelling for your brand!
