When you’re building your brand or business from scratch, and you provide the same product or service that many others do, you’ll need to catch your customers’ attention and stand out from the crowd. You can grab recognition from the customer by breaking the ice using storytelling, which is a proven way to build lasting customer connections. Storytelling is an important part of educating your audience about who you are, what you do and what you stand for. Building a bond of trust between your small business and your consumers means more attention for your brand, more interest and more business growth. Customers may enjoy your stories for entertainment but more importantly, they may engage with them and empathise with them, particularly if your content helps solve a problem. Along with the tips below, use your experience of your service or product to explain how it solves problems and benefits the user. You’ll soon find that storytelling will help to positively build your brand.
About Page
Your “About” page is the perfect place to let your customers know more about your personality, why you came into your current line of business and how you got started. Customers often respond positively to a well-crafted narrative, so you should take some time to put bespoke, engaging copy together describing the reasons behind your brand. You can answers questions as to why you’re passionate about your product or service, where the idea first came from and hiccups along the way to show your human side. Your About page should also include your current mission statement and what drives your business today.
Social Media
You should follow up with your mission statement on your about page across all of your branding including social media. This is one of the most important customer touchpoints, and with a number of social media platforms being free to use, an even better place to engage with your audience and promote your brand. If you’re unsure where to start with storytelling, keep it simple. Seek out inspiration from others within your industry to see if something sparks your imagination. With social media, posts should feel like they’re directed you each customer individually, not just a generic message to one and all. Sharing links to your latest blog posts and sharing customer experiences such as testimonials will help strengthen your brand narrative. If your business is very visual you can create a narrative simply using images and no words.
Blog Content
Utilising your blog content is another great way to use storytelling to build your brand. Blogposts and articles on your website, and guest posts in other locations, are an opportunity for you to let your audience know about your latest news and updates. Writing compelling content in your authentic voice allows readers to engage with the information and helps build a business to customer relationship. A conversational style and unique content about your brand show the customer you are a real company and the personality behind the brand. Blog posts can capture the customer’s attention and are an integral platform to build your credibility. Anything can inspire stories and blog post content, for example, customer experiences and pain points, solutions to problems, product and service launches, industry news and personal responses to the world around us.
Humanise Your Brand
To use storytelling, it can be beneficial to think of your brand as a person. What do they believe in, what is their personality like, are they loud and vivacious, reserved and serene? Attributing these personality traits to your business helps you to understand your brand story. And adding a personable touch helps your customers engage and empathise with you. Without adding a strong human element to your business and brand messaging, your brand story may seem confusing and inconsistent. Telling effective and meaningful stories by humanising our brand creates strengthened connections with your customers, which will contribute to increased brand loyalty and value.
Language
The language you use to communicate with your customers is sometimes just as important as the story you are telling. To communicate effectively you need to know the language, phrases and for SEO purposes, the keywords they may be using to search for products and services like yours. A consistent style of writing and content should be used across all platforms to avoid any miscommunication or confusion. And a personable tone will ensure the customer knows that they are reading content written by the real person behind the brand. Your core message should always be in a concise and easy to read format. The easier it is to read, the faster your customers will be able to grasp the mission of your business and understand why you exist and the reason they should come to you. In general terms, using abbreviations can be confusing and can actually exclude those who aren’t “in the know”.
The above tips should show you how to use storytelling to build your brand and help you to create and express your authentic message. A successful brand listens to its audience and knows how to communicate effectively with them in a way that builds trust. Using existing platforms including your website “about” page, social media channels and your blog posts are easy ways to integrate storytelling into your brand structure. Considering the language you use and the personality you’d like to illustrate can also contribute to creating and building an authentic brand story to achieve the ultimate goal of customer loyalty.
