Brand storytelling is one of the most powerful marketing tools that a business can use to make a genuine and honest connection with their target audience.
Why tell the story of your brand?
Storytelling will allow you to show how your business or products add value to the lives of others, meet their needs, or even ease their troubles. It gives your audience a way to connect with your brand. In highly competitive industries, brand storytelling can set you apart from your competitors.
Here are four ways that you can tell your brand story.
1. Make a video
Recent marketing surveys indicate that videos are hotter than ever. A video puts a face to a name and humanizes a business. You don’t need a fancy Hollywood studio to produce a compelling video. You can hire a local videographer, or even set up a high-definition video camera in your office.
Brand videos are exploding right now and successful businesses are finding that their audiences would rather watch a video than reading information on a website or paper.
2. How the company came to be (saw a need, etc.)
Telling the story of how your company came to be will resonate well with your audience. Why did you start the business? What need did you see that needed to be fulfilled? Providing answers to questions like these will help your audience better understand your business and enable them to make an honest emotional connection.
This type of storytelling works very well in competitive markets. It gives people a reason to continue to buy your products or services over your competitors.
Back in the early 2000’s, a plumbing company in Los Angeles ran a series of commercials that ended with the tagline “our plumbers smell nice”. The owners of the company saw that people were frustrated and sometimes disgusted with plumbers who had less-than-ideal body hygiene. The campaign was a hit and drove lots of new business through their front doors.
3. Make it personal - use authentic memorable details
A story needs to be personal. It needs to connect with people on an emotional level. While each story is different, there are a few key elements that you should include in order to create a personal story:
- Truth – The story should be true. It should feature genuine emotions and real people – not actors.
- Humanize – Having a human element present will enable you to show how your services or products touch the lives of actual people.
- Original – Don’t use tired clichés or the same story a competitor is using. Look deep into your company and see what is interesting and important and then use that as the basis for your story.
- Customer-centric – It’s far too easy to fall into the trap of making your story all about your company. By keeping the focus on your business, it will come off as very corporate-centric and not something people can connect with.
4. Make a timeline
A timeline works well when there is history attached to your business. For example, the New York Times in 1863 resorted to using machine guns to defend their fledgling business against rioters who were burning buildings while protesting Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. They have their timeline listed on their “Who We Are” page.
Your business may not be as old and storied as the New York Times, but there are other elements that you can include such as when your product first arrived on the market and the people who benefitted first from it. You can also include local historical notes from the city your business resides in.
Need Help Creating a Brand Story?
Not everyone is a master storyteller. If you’re struggling to create a compelling brand story or need help with any aspect of your marketing services in Raleigh, give the experts at AlphaGraphics of Downtown Raleigh a call. We can help you create a brand story that will enable your customers to feel more connected to you which can result in them sharing your story with others. We're not just a printing company in Raleigh, we also specialize in:
To learn more about how AlphaGraphics of Downtown Raleigh can help you with your storytelling or marketing needs, you may
email us,
request a quote or call us at
(919) 832-2828.