Last Updated on: March 29, 2022
Brand Storytelling refers to capturing the audience’s imagination and engaging them. Here are some tips to Introduce Brand Storytelling in Your Content Writing.
Once upon a time……
Who hasn’t grown up listening to stories? We all still love stories, be it through books, plays, movies, web series, television serials, YouTube videos, or any other medium. Humankind has been telling stories for thousands of years. Storytelling is the art of capturing the audience’s imagination and engaging them through voice, gestures, text, pictures, or videos. In recent years, storytelling has emerged as a popular brand advertising and marketing technique.
What is Brand Storytelling?
Brand storytelling refers to the use of creative content writers to convey a brand’s mission, vision, values, and belief to the target audience. It narrates the what, why, and how of a brand.
If you are wondering why storytelling is important, you should know its advantages. Storytelling builds trust, engages the audience, and increases customer loyalty. It humanizes the brand and gives it an emotional personality. It also strengthens brand recognition and positioning in the target audience’s minds. Cognitive psychologist Jerome Burner estimates in his book ‘Actual Minds, Possible Worlds’ that people remember the facts approximately 22 times better if they are a part of a story.
One of the best brand storytelling examples is Warby Parker Eyewear, the popular US-based retailer of prescription glasses and sunglasses retailer. Their website has a beautiful and powerful brand narrative about the company’s genesis. They got brand storytelling just right while connecting with the target audience at an emotional level.
Brand storytelling marketing is no mean feat. You need to study all the brand elements and incorporate them successfully in the storytelling for maximum impact.
Here are a few content writing tips to be a good storyteller for the brand:
- Create Storytelling Framework
The brand storytelling framework gives you a logical structure and direction in presenting the story. The framework should identify the problem statement and provide a conflict resolution. It should serve the brand purpose and meet the business and marketing goals. It should create empathy and compel action.
Keep in mind that brand is the hero, antagonist, and main character of the story. The framework usually starts a backstory (problem), goes on to show the journey of the hero (brand) to the victory (solution), and ends with a moral story (brand message). The framework also depends on whether the story is real-life or fictional.
- Make it Relatable for Target Audience
While the brand is the story’s hero, it should not overshadow the target audience. The story should relate to your audience on a more profound and personal level. It should reflect your brand and audience’s similar values or beliefs. If the story resonates with the audience, it will engage with them more.
This requires identifying your audience persona. Find answers to the following questions to build an audience persona:
- What do they want?
- Why do they want it?
- What insight or guidance are they looking for?
- How can your brand fulfill audience expectations?
Remember to tell the story for the audience’s benefit, and not the brand’s. This is an essential consideration in how to be a better storyteller for your brand.
- Make Story Memorable with Emotions
Emotions play an integral role in purchasing decisions of customers. They engage the audience at a subconscious level and build an emotional connection that a rational mindset can’t. They help the target audience to seek positive associations with the brand. They are what make the brand memorable. Hence, emotions are central to brand storytelling.
Make sure that you use emotions such as joy, sadness, humor, fear, anger, surprise, and anticipation in the story. Airbnb, the online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts, uses the art of brand storytelling through content writing in the best possible manner. It has an entire section on its website dedicated to stories from its community. Each story has its own set of emotions and connects with the readers on a personal level.
These days, you can use powerful content writing tools such as Instoried to amp up the emotional context of your stories. Instoried’s AI platform dynamically ascertains the emotional engagement quotient of story content. It then gives intelligent recommendations to increase audience engagement. Instoried also checks your written content for plagiarism. If you want to analyze your headlines or generate appealing headlines for your story, then Instoried is helpful on that front too.
- Make it Visually Appealing
When it comes to brand storytelling in marketing, it should have solid and attention-grabbing visual content. Visuals add aesthetics and a pop of color to the story. They provide an immersive experience to the story. Visual storytelling could include photos, infographics, charts, videos, GIFs, memes, motion graphics, or any other visual imagery. However, make sure that visuals enhance the context of the content rather than overpowering it.
- Weave Brand’s Personality into Storytelling
Good storytelling in advertising or content writing is the one that reflects the brand personality. It will then set the brand apart, make it more recognizable, and build an emotional connection.
A brand’s personality is the human characteristics of your brand. What kind of brand personality does your brand have? Is it sincere, authentic, bubbly, quirky, dependable, youthful, fun, sophisticated, competent, exciting, or something else? For example, Apple Inc has an innovative and competent personality. The beverage brands Coca-Cola and Red Bull have exciting and youthful personalities. These brands are successfully able to incorporate their personalities into their storytelling campaigns.
Conclusion
Brand storytelling is a powerful tool to tell your target audience about your values and engage with your products or services. A good, inspiring, and authentic story always stays in the hearts and minds of people. When the story is compelling, you can rest assured that your brand becomes memorable. Summing it up, develop a framework based on your target audience persona, add relevant emotions and visuals for appeal, and use the brand’s personality to create a perfect story for your brand.