What is a brand story is a question to want all your senior staff, and perhaps everyone in your business to understand. Your brand story is the back-story to your business or brand which gives depth to what you are selling.
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Consider two brands, one with a brand story and one without.
- Brand A: Makes do with a tagline, and uses a designer to make nice adverts
- Brand B: Makes sure staff can tell a value-based story on why this business meets the needs of the customer. The website, sales materials and publicity draw on the underlying story, giving the brand (some) authenticity
What are the components of a brand story?
Start with the smallest possible explanation of your brand:
I provide marketing consultancy for medium sized businesses
This doesn’t say much about why I provide those services nor what they are, and doesn’t really define the target audience. It’s not even that snappy!
Maybe a better version is:
I provide exceptional marketing services, specialising in branding and website development, tailored for medium-sized firms to elevate their brand presence and drive business growth
Now expand that into a final longer version which becomes the foundation of your brand story.
I provide comprehensive marketing services throughout the marketing lifecycle, including brand development and design, website design, website development and delivery, traffic generation and SEO. With a bespoke approach for each client, I provide a tailored service which enables your business to thrive and brings targeted customer engagement.
Yeah but!
Theorists want your brand story to follow a story arc, with three parts literally, how things are, what’s wrong, and how you’ll fix things.
- The current state: Our firm can’t afford a full-time CMO or marketing team but we’re failing to make an impact in public. Our competitors are getting attention and leaving us looking like the second-best choice. Our visuals and website just don’t match the standards of everyone else.
- The threat: We need to raise our game online both with better design, a better website and by sounding like a company which means business. We’re not sure how to tackle all these problems when we have limited cash flow.
- The resolution: We decided to work with Bill Hodgson Marketing, by staying within the budget we can afford and changing things one step at a time. Starting with our brand we’ll update our marketing strategy and visuals, then roll these out as we deliver new materials. We’ll move on to the website when we have the time and money, then finally run a traffic generation campaign either using paid adverts or organic content to grab attention online.
What is a brand story might be answered with some careful thought using the above, but it’s just the start of writing down what matters.
How does the brand story work with your brand strategy? The two belong together, with the story a component of your overall strategy. There’s more you can add to your story beyond your elevator pitch.
What is a brand story needs to include more background on topics such as:
- What are the beliefs and values of your company? (or brand)
- What is the vision for this brand or your company?
- How was your company founded and why?
- Does your company have a Corporate Social Responsibility plan? (and if so what?)
- What makes your company different from others? Is it a cool and modern place to work? What do your staff think about working there?
- How does your brand story fit with your business goals? Are you in startup mode or an in-flight business which needs to gain market share?
- What would your audience (existing or target customers) say about your brand and how it meets their needs?
- How do you inspire your audience to take action? What’s the motivation to buy your brand if not just the price?
- How does your story integrate into your brand strategy?
Have you heard of the fundamental story archetypes?
Depending on who you ask or where you look there are some story patterns which might also provide a framework to answer What is a brand story? Here’s an example based on the ‘quest’ narrative:
The Quest
- The Call to Adventure: A company gets in touch with me, they are struggling with brand visibility and customer enthusiasm.
- Crossing the Threshold: My associates and I begin work to understand the state of the brand, the company, the thoughts of the existing customers, and the perceptions of prospects.
- Challenges and Trials: We find access to customers hard and feedback patchy. The existing messaging and website are poor and we don’t want to embarrass our customer but be truthful.
- Allies and Tools: My associates and I formulate a plan, based on the customer’s budget to remake the brand and messaging to provide the foundation of a new marketing strategy
- The Climax: After implementing the new marketing plan, we launch a new website, with new messaging and use social media to grab attention for the fresh approach.
- The Reward: We monitor website traffic and engagement, but also the perception of the company. The sales team see fresh feedback from prospects and renewed energy in their sales process.
- Return Home: We provide our customer with a long-term plan to use the brand messaging, and new brand visuals to keep grabbing attention. On an annual basis, we have a short catchup to see how things are going.
- The Transformation: Our customer and their staff feel like the future is brighter, and that the investment has set a new expectation about change and opportunity. Our team gets some brownie points for a job well done and move on to the next project.
Whilst this level of storytelling takes time to develop, one of the story archetypes can be a useful way to structure your efforts to express where your company is now, and what the future might look like.
How to use your brand story
An investment in storytelling means using that story in public. This should lead to a content strategy which interleaves these things:
- Your brand vision and values
- Your product sales pitch
- Advertising
- Your social conscience
- Fun and community spirit
I’ll tackle What is a Content Strategy in another post.
In summary, What is a Brand story is answered by:
- An elevator pitch of varying size, which all staff should learn and be able to provide to anyone
- A larger explanation of how your brand will transform your customer’s future
- Background narrative on your company, vision and values and back story
- A plan to use all this in public
What is a brand story resources
- Stories and examples here
- Four essential elements here
- The seven story archetypes here
Benchmark your Brand Story with me
Send in your brand story and I’ll give you feedback, I’d love to see what you’ve written and how you created it.
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