Use this storytelling template as a guide to creating your brand stories.
What is brand storytelling?
Brand storytelling is a method of using narration techniques. First, to grab your audience’s attention and second to keep them engaged.
Amanda Lundin, Social Media Manager at Mynewsdesk, asks Content Marketing Manager, Christopher Van Mossevelde, to explain brand storytelling. Watch the video above.
Why is storytelling essential?
Stories are captivating and memorable. They also help us communicate complex ideas and situations in an engaging format. Or, stories enable us to convert the ordinary into extraordinary, depending on our level of storytelling skills.
Do you want to know how to use storytelling in a press release format?
What should a brand avoid doing?
Bear in mind that honesty is the best policy. Don’t misguide your audience into believing mistruths. Add flavor to whet their appetites but don’t deceive them.
Also, follow the principle of “Show, and don’t tell.” Immerse your audience into your world and help them draw their own conclusions. Don’t spell everything out for them.
Apply these techniques for brand storytelling
There are two approaches to storytelling.
The first approach
Explain the ‘Why?’ of your business and brand. As Simon Sinek, the management consultant, advocates:
People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”
Products and services can change based on market conditions. But the ‘Why?’ of your business, especially if it’s linked to something higher, endures. It’s about conveying to the world what it is that makes your business tick.
But don’t forget that you exist because of your customers.
If you make it all about you, you may very well alienate your friends. Nobody likes that obnoxious person at a dinner party: The one who only speaks about themselves and shows no interest in others.
The second approach
Make your customers the heroes and pass on their stories.
This follow’s Donald Miller’s story brand framework. In theory, you have a customer who encounters a problem or challenge. They then meet you, the brand, who shows them the path to success.
As Donald Miller explains, successful brands communicate the clearest. Also, they are the ones most capable of answering:
How can I make my customer survive and thrive? And how can I explain in it in a way that doesn’t confuse them?”
An example of brand storytelling
Hövding, a company that produces airbag helmets, did a smart campaign called Give a beep. The company made cycling enthusiasts in London, the hero of their story. By equipping 500 cyclists with flic buttons and an app, they created a heatmap of dangerous spots. They aimed to influence local authorities to improve the roads.
How does that follow a story framework?
Problem: Cyclists are in danger.
Aide: Hövding is here to empower you, the cyclist.
Hero: London Cycling Association and its 500 members.
Happy ending: Local authorities commit to using the data to improve road infrastructure.
Check out this blog post to get more examples: Storytelling for brands explained.
Conclusion
Storytelling is a powerful technique to get an audience’s attention and involvement. Also, the principles of a great story are always the same, and you can apply these to your brand.
If you take the Simon Sinek approach, try to identify why your brand exists before the what and how you do things. Or take Donald Miller’s framework, create stories about how you help your customers win. Above all, show your audience how great you and your customers are, without telling them you are. Good luck!
