Table of Contents
How to identify your brand story?
You need to ask yourself specific questions that relate to your brand to identify your story. It’s great to look at other companies’ examples, but you should not copy these.
Here are some questions to ask yourself (keep them in an online document and ask your team for input too):
- What values do you stand by, and which values do you dislike?
- What are the specific problems your products and services are supposed to solve?
- What do you want your brand to do to make a difference (e.g. planting a tree for each subscriber)?
- What aspects of your history/culture can you showcase? For example, which country is your brand from, and is your office building a former warehouse?
- What emotions do you want people to feel when they see your brand?
You might need to revisit these questions more than once, so you should do a couple of rounds before you complete your document.
Why should you use storytelling in business?
Businesses use storytelling to give their company name a face, but there are other reasons too. Here are some of them:
- Brand Awareness: Humans have told stories throughout history for a reason. Use storytelling to stick in your audience’s minds and personify your brand; don’t use statistics and figures unless they back up your point.
- Customer Engagement: You must connect with your customers on a personal level if you want them to buy your products/services. Consider storytelling as one avenue.
- Brand Loyalty: You need customers to feel an affinity to your brand if you want high lifetime value. Customers should know your backstory; use storytelling to do this.
- Conversions: Use storytelling to initiate action-taking (e.g. getting people to sign up for a product trial period).
What are some storytelling techniques?
Consider these storytelling techniques and experiment with each of them for your brand:
- Hero’s Journey: The protagonist needs to deal with trials and tribulations to get to their goal. For example, an athlete endures multiple rejections but eventually signs a professional contract.
- Underdog Story: You should use this story method if you want to build empathy among your audience, but it needs careful planning.
- Before and After Story: One example is a personal trainer showing clients’ weight loss stories via pictures.
What are the benefits of storytelling in content marketing?
Consider these reasons to use storytelling in your content marketing, but expect it to take some time to get right:
- Differentiation: You should use storytelling for differentiation. You want people to know who you are; without storytelling, you’re just another company.
- Personification: It’s important to make your brand personable, and you should think about using storytelling for that.
- Making Your Brand Stick in People’s Minds: You need to use storytelling so that others can remember your brand.
- Conversions: You can drive more sales via storytelling, but you have to make it convincing enough.
What are the resources and tools for storytelling?
Consider consuming content from different sources, such as books and online courses. Here are some pointers:
- Books: Look at “Building a StoryBrand” by Donald Miller, “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek, and Matthew Dicks’ “Storyworthy”. Consider reading general writing books (e.g. On Writing by Stephen King).
- Online Courses: Look at courses like Shane Snow on Storytelling on LinkedIn. You should also search through Skillshare, Udemy, and MasterClass.
- Content Creation: Use tools like Canva and Adobe Express for visual content creation. Illustrator and Photoshop are other examples.
Conclusion
You should use storytelling if you want your brand to stand out; without it, you’re just another brand. Think about the type of story that would work with your business, and experiment until you find something that works.
Before making your story, you should consume books and other content. You also need to think about the questions you want to answer and ask your team for their input. Start with the points in this article before building.
