Brand Storytelling: How to Craft a Story That Sells
According to Shopify Lead Writer, Dayna Winter, “a brand story contains many of the same elements that draw you into your favorite book or film. And it’s a story that serves a similar purpose. It has characters (you, your customers), a conflict (personal or customer pain point), rising action (your journey to solve that problem), and a climax (the launch!). Most importantly, it leaves the reader or viewer with a feeling.”
With this in mind, this month’s blog strives to focus on exactly how brand stories can successfully spark consumer interests and sales in 2023. The resource used as a blueprint for this publication is titled “Storytelling in Branding: How to Craft a Story that Sells in 2023” by Dayna Winter, and can be found through the link located at the end of this blog.
What is Brand Storytelling?
Brand storytelling is a marketing effort that blends facts, values, and feelings together to explain the intricacies and purpose of a respective brand, and what sets them apart from competition. In other words, a brand story serves as “the north star for a growing business, a beacon that guides what a company does in addition to what it says. It can act as the foundation of brand guidelines that, even as you scale, keep your mission, message, and voice consistent.”
Brand stories are more successful when they are compelling and transparent. When these two values are appropriately received, the audience is more likely to complete the brand’s desired call to action (ex: shop, join, donate, etc.). Luckily, in this day and age, it is easier than ever to get a message across as the number of communication channels and formats have increased tremendously (See List Below). However, despite the format, the most successful brand stories are those that are visual, as they allow a brand’s audience to apply themselves to the story.
Social media bios and posts
Website About page
Website homepage
Product page
Product packaging
Email communications
Blog or publication
Podcasts
Video
Shipping materials or package inserts
Internal brand guides
Staff hiring and training (job descriptions, internal learning resources)
Interviews and press materials
Why Should You Use Storytelling in Branding?
Stories resonate with people, and according to neuroscientists, can impact brain chemistry to generate positive feelings. In branding and marketing, these positive feelings can be represented through connecting emotionally with customers, building authenticity and trust, and letting your customers shine.
Connect Emotionally With Customers
To reiterate, storytelling uses its ability to emotionally connect with consumers to provide more than just a product or service, and instead, offer them an experience. In doing so, brands are able to convey that they value relationships rather than just sales, making the audience feel something, and in turn, evolving interested individuals into customers.
Build Authenticity and Trust
Relationships between humans take time to build, and the same is true for brands and their customers. In fact, within the marketing industry, “relationship-building [still] requires the elements of spending time together, sharing experience, having conversations, and building trust over time.” To accomplish this and start relationships that can evolve overtime, brands must take into consideration the opinions of their target audience, and give them the ability to help make business and product decisions.
Let Your Customers Shine
It is important to show customers that your brand cares, and that they are a main priority. In fact, businesses are more successful when they position themselves as “the structure upon which customers write their own [story]. If they see themselves in the brand’s struggles and triumphs, they cast themselves a role in the center of your brand’s story.”
Brand Storytelling Elements
Below are elements of storytelling that are deemed to create the most compelling narratives, and can be used for any communication channel format such as a brand’s about page, or campaign commercial:
Exposition: characters, setting, and details that help the reader visualize the story.
Conflict: a crisis or tension point that may change the course of the character’s path.
Rising action: the lead-up to the climax.
Climax: the defeat, rebirth, or aha moment; the inception of something new.
Falling action: also called dénoument or resolution.
*For more details on brand storytelling elements/formats, and best practices, please reference the source provided below*
References
