Brand Storytelling: How to run a successful & well-loved business

With so much white noise in the media ecosystem, how can we make our brand stand out? Should we focus on the brand’s tone of voice, perfect the customer experience, or better the brand storytelling? Or should we perhaps only concentrate on engaging with our audience? 

Every business should be aware of the power of great brand storytelling and has already carefully utilized it. Yet, even then, anyone from a startup to a well-established company will still experience constant pressure to succeed — and to do even better.

 

 

What are today’s challenges in brand storytelling?

 

• Customer attention & competition

One rather important window of opportunity has been gradually narrowing down. Today’s customer spends 2.5 seconds on desktop and 1.7 seconds on mobile devices consuming any one given piece of content or platform. Is it because of the constant bombardment of products, brands, and services? Or is it because media, somewhat quietly, demonstrate one simple fact — that it’s possible to turn literally anything into a brand? No wonder that that’s the reason the whole media ecosystem will only grow, overflow, and continue to compete for everyone’s attention. 

 

“We’ve got just one shot at making a good first impression.”

 

• Lack of brand storytelling & customer alienation

When our brand storytelling isn’t a priority, our business will fail. And fail hard. Because presenting a confusing, generic, or overly salesly voice is only causing customer disinterest and alienation. So now more than ever, our brand has got just one shot at making a brilliant first impression. 

 

 

What goes into excellent brand storytelling?

 

• Defining the ideal audience & strategy

Distilling a perfectly-fitting voice for our customers starts with ignoring the urge to appeal to everyone. Identifying our target audience for our particular product/service leads us closer to uncovering the most relevant strategy — our strategy on how to best connect to our customers. That is, we reverse-engineer our target audience to decipher what they want to hear and how we best speak to them.

Having this defined will then inform, shape, and guide our overall brand storytelling strategy; therefore, allowing us to present our product/service in the most engaging way possible. And this will enable us to achieve our desired results, such as sales, engagement, or any other goals. 

 

• Informing & entertaining the audience

Brands and their storytelling have to be capable of interrupting — and capturing — the audience’s attention. If we want to stand a chance, our brand and every instance of our brand storytelling have to inform or entertain. Yet this alone can’t guarantee success. There’s more to it.

 

• Authenticity & sharing values

Essentially, brand storytelling uses narratives to connect our brand to customers, primarily focusing on linking what we stand for to the values we share with our customers. 

Whether we are a global company or a one-person business, our brand storytelling needs to revolve around our values. And we’ve got to highlight them through authenticity. We can achieve this by documenting our journey, empowering others to solve problems, or starting a movement around a cause important to us. 

 

“Authenticity is what writes the best and most compelling stories, and narratives based around it are the single biggest driver of audience engagement.”

 

• Relatability & psychology of genuine connections

Once our audience can relate to our brand and become a part of a conversation, a solid and loyal relationship is established — a relationship that will go far beyond product and service. 

 

“People now expect no less than pure excellence in how they experience brands and brands’ stories.”

 

In other words, these long-lasting connections happen when a positive emotion is triggered and then associated with the brand. It’s an underlying yet hardest-to-master objective of brand storytelling. When we focus on building a genuine emotional bond with our audience, we can develop mutually beneficial relationships, grow our customer base, and further strengthen the awareness of our brand.

 

 

Will brand storytelling determine how successful & well-loved our business is?

 

Today’s audience is strongly driven by personal connections that they can establish with brands. That said, the entire media ecosystem is changing for the better — from on-the-nose statements such as “buy these products” to “I stand for this, and if you share my values, here’s something you might be interested in.” Brands are continuously adapting in the hope of satisfying every customer’s expectations, as they understand that customers now have the collective power to make or break any brand.

 

“Brands are continuously adapting in the hope of satisfying every customer’s expectations, as they understand that customers now have the collective power to make or break any brand.”

 

So if we are to stand a chance, we have to focus on creating an authentic narrative. Once we integrate our brand storytelling strategy, product/service, and branding, we’ll be projecting a consistently relatable image. There’s nothing more to it. These are the magic ingredients in the recipe for running a successful and well-loved business. So, go on. And unleash the power of storytelling.