Brand stories are very effective in marketing and can help you build both brand loyalty and vocal brand advocates. But how do you turn your brand messages into something consumers can actually relate to?
The answer is simple. You need to develop brand experiences and create brand stories that are meaningful to your target audience.
Brand storytelling has become a vital part of a fully-developed marketing plan, but most business owners and many marketers struggle with transitioning from writing promotional brand messages to telling brand stories.
By keeping the five factors of the best brand stories and the five secrets to brand storytelling discussed below in mind as you write your own brand stories, your results will improve and you’ll be much more successful.
5 Key Factors of the Best Brand Stories
The best brand stories include five key factors:
- They’re true, honest, and transparent.
- They include personalities and characters.
- They include characters that the audience wants to root for.
- They follow a traditional story arc with a beginning, middle, and end.
- They don’t give it all away immediately.
Brand stories are descriptive, and they tap into consumers’ emotions. Don’t just tell your audience something in your messages. Show them something by using descriptive language and characterization. That’s how you make your audience feel, and that’s how you build a powerful emotional connection between your audience and your brand.
5 Secrets to Brand Storytelling Success
In order to write effective brand stories, you need to create messages that intrigue and engage your target audience. Here are five brand storytelling secrets to help you do it successfully:
- Make sure your stories are honest, transparent, and rooted in your brand.
- Let personalities shine in your stories (both the brand personality and the writer’s personality when it’s appropriate).
- Create characters that your target audience can become emotionally connected to.
- Keep your audience interested by creating journey for your character that they want to follow.
- Leverage tease and perpetual marketing to ensure your audience wants to return and learn what happens next in the story.
Ideally, you want your audience to believe your brand stories and care about your characters’ journeys so they become attached to the story and your brand.
Don’t Forget the Fundamental Rules of Branding
Most importantly, make sure your brand stories are consistent with your brand promise. Remember, brand confusion is the number one brand killer.
With that in mind, always make sure your brand stories meet consumers’ expectations for your brand, or they’ll turn away from it and find another brand that does consistently meet their expectations based on the brand’s promise and the consumers’ perceptions of the brand.
Originally published 1/9/14. Updated 6/20/18.
Susan Gunelius
Susan Gunelius is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Women on Business. She is a 30-year veteran of the marketing field and has authored a dozen books about marketing, branding, and social media, including the highly popular Ultimate Guide to Email Marketing, 30-Minute Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing for Dummies, Blogging All-in-One for Dummies and Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps. Susan’s marketing-related content can be found on Entrepreneur.com, Forbes.com, MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, and more. Susan is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She has worked in corporate marketing roles and through client relationships with AT&T, HSBC, Citibank, Intuit, The New York Times, Cox Communications, and many more large and small companies around the world. Susan also speaks about marketing, branding and social media at events around the world and is frequently interviewed by television, online, radio, and print media organizations about these topics. She holds an MBA in Management and Strategy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and is a Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).
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