Storytelling is an effective marketing strategy that can help you generate loyalty and vocal advocates for your business. However, how can you make your business message is something that resonates with your customers?
The answer to this is simple – it requires the creation of a brand story and the development of brand experiences that your target audience will find meaningful.
Telling a Brand Story
Storytelling has become a vital aspect of fully-developed marketing plans; however, many marketers and businesses struggle with the difference between writing promotional messages and telling stories. I suggest you include these five features of a great brand story, as they can help you tell a story that will improve your results and help your business become more successful.
Five key features of a brand story
A successful brand story will include the following five factors: they are honest, transparent and true; they include characters and personalities; they include characters people want to support; they use a traditional story arc; they don’t reveal everything straight away. Brand stories should be descriptive and tap into the emotions of your customers. Instead of telling, show your customers something through characterisation and descriptive language. This is how you make them feel an emotion, and it will help you build a strong connection between your brand and your audience.
To be effective, you should create a message that engages and intrigues your customers. Do so by letting personality shine through your story; create characters that people want to emotionally connect with; create a journey for your character that customers want to follow; use perpetual marketing in a way that ensures your customer wants to return to see what happens next in the story. Essentially, you want your customers to care about the character’s journey and believe in your story, as this will help them become attached to your story and brand.
Most importantly, keep in mind the fundamentals of branding by making sure that your brand’s promise is consistent with the stories you’re telling, otherwise you will confuse your audience. Your stories should reflect what your audience expects of your brand, or else the customer will move away to a different brand that consistently meets expectations of the brand’s promise and the customer’s perception.
