Selling Your Story, Not A Product

Humans, by nature, are storytellers. We live for the stories told in movies, books, and television shows, and even the stories that play out in our daily lives. What we don’t realize, however, is just how much those stories influence our thoughts, feelings, and actions.  

Think of any commercial or ad poster that you find memorable. Why do you think that specific promotion came to mind? 

You most likely thought of an advertisement with a cute puppy, a trademark spokesperson, or a funny plotline. You didn’t just think of the product or service by itself; the product or service you thought of was directly connected to the story that sells it. 

That’s because that brand’s advertisement helped you relate to their product or service emotionally. The story of their advertisement is the link between their brand and your heart, making it easier for you to justify making a purchase or clicking their “Book Now!” button.

So, to make your product or service stand out from the rest, you must create a memorable brand story. You have to write a narrative that proves your product or service’s worth and humanizes your brand so potential customers can justify going with your brand over someone else’s. 

This is true whether you’re writing emails, Facebook ads, social media captions, blog posts, website content, or any other customer-facing copy.

Strategies for Building Your Brand Story

The question becomes: how do you build a brand story?

It can be daunting to sit down and decide how your brand will be presented to the world. The story you produce will be associated with your brand permanently, so you have to be careful when selecting plotlines or mascots. 

But building your brand story doesn’t have to be hard! Here are a few strategies you can use to create a story that benefits your brand, your product/service, and your prospective customer.

Step 1: Plan Your Messaging

It’s impossible to create a believable, cohesive brand story if you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with it. Before considering your story arc, write down your main goals surrounding your product or service. Think about:

• Who do you want your product or service to reach

• How your product or service can help prospective buyers

• How your product or service can resonate with your target market

• What your product or service offers that competitors don’t

Pinpointing your message goal is the first step towards creating your best brand story, as it will allow you to craft a narrative that resonates with your target audience.

If you’re unsure where to start, our expert team at Noetic Marketer can help you figure out your best digital marketing strategy! Visit our digital marketing page to see more about how we develop your online presence. 

Step 2: Write Your Story

Once you have settled on your target audience and message, it’s time to create your story arc. A story arc “is a literary term for the path a story follows. It provides a backbone by providing a clear beginning, middle, and end of the story”. While this term is more commonly used within literature, the idea of the story arc aligns with the way a copywriter writes a promotional narrative. 

Your audience will be more likely to engage with your work if they feel like they are a part of your brand story. The story you craft should center around three main aspects to make that happen.

Aspect A: The Problem

Every story has a basis within conflict. If television shows were only about perfect families with perfect lives, and nothing ever went wrong, we would get bored and stop watching. The same concept applies to the promotional narrative arc. 

However, your story outline will differ from the typical fictitious story arc, as a promotional narrative does not start at the beginning of the action. Don’t bore your audience with unnecessary scene-setting. Instead, jump right into the exciting part of the story: the problem. Following the “problem first” format will ensure your customer is engaged immediately. 

Aspect B: The Hero

The part of the hero in your story needs to be played by your prospective customer. To convince your audience that your product or service is what they need, you’ll have to show them how your brand fits into their life.

The prospective customer has to be able to feel as though your promotion speaks to them. To accomplish this, you’re going to have to do some research. Learn about your audience’s needs and wants, and decide what emotions best suit your story. Use these emotions to choose what kind of problem your hero is facing within your story. That way, your customer is emotionally connected to the issue and will want to know more about your solution.  

Aspect C: The Solution

This is the section where you introduce your product or service and show your audience why they need it. Remember not to paint your brand as the story's hero; your product or service is merely the tool your customer (the hero) will use to solve the problem. 

Ultimately, the end of your story should act as a “moral-of-the-story” reminder, showing your audience that if they engage with your brand, all their problems will be solved. Utilizing AI writing tools can be extremely helpful when writing stories that follow the problem-hero-solution arc.

Step 3: Draw From Real Life Experience

Creating your promotional narrative places your reader at the center of the action. That means your story should be based on what already exists. 

A story pulled entirely out of thin air can come off as unrealistic and, therefore, unrelatable. You should target changing the customer’s story to show them your product or service solves their current problem. Doing this will demonstrate to your audience that their want for your product or service is justifiable, as the solution it provides applies to their daily lives. 

Step 4: Make It Unique

Your brand won’t be the first to associate its product or service with a story. Thousands of commercials and advertisements use stories to make themselves memorable. The effective ones, however, approach this story from an angle that hasn’t been seen before. 

Your story arc aims to create something unique, setting your product or service apart from every other similar advertisement out there. Remember that what works for someone else’s promotion may not work for yours. That’s because each product or service aims to get its audience to view its product in a certain way, depending on what type of emotion would benefit them the most. 

Step 5: Remember Your Audience

Ultimately, your audience is the most crucial aspect of your brand story. The people reading or watching your promotions are the people that are going to make that purchase or click that “Book Now!” button.

You must maintain a relatable, authentic voice within your promotion to resonate with this prospective audience. Here are some ways to create a credible persona through your story.

Option 1: Emotion

To maximize its effectiveness, every brand story will need to utilize a different set of emotions. Consider how you want your audience to feel when they think about your product or service. 

Something else to think about is the tone in which you talk about your product or service. Try not to use too many exclamation points or exaggerate your punctuation, as it will cheapen the message behind your story. It’s important to tailor your language, images, and punctuation to craft an appropriate tone for your brand. 

Option 2: Relation

When you’re really passionate about your product or service, it can be easy to focus too much on how the brand is presented rather than how it’s being received. How your customer interacts with your brand depends on how you interact with them. 

To establish a good customer-brand relationship:

• Don’t overexplain - Your customer will get bored if you try to tell them every detail you think is relevant. Make your story snappy and to the point so your customer can walk away with a straightforward, memorable message. 

• Allow your story to be accessible - No one will resonate with something that feels out of touch or as though the result isn’t attainable for them. Focus less on your story's “selling” aspect and more on the “relating” aspect. Never fabricate where you can relate. Overall, you must write for your prospective customer, not your product. 

Want to make sure your brand story reaches a broader audience? Check out Noetic’s Guide to Writing Content That Ranks on Google.

Conclusion

So there you have it - five steps to build a brand story.

Of course, there's no one-size-fits-all approach, and every brand's story will be unique. But keep these principles in mind, and you'll be well on your way to creating a compelling, cohesive, and effective narrative that will resonate with your audience, resulting in more engagement and, hopefully, more leads.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful!

If you want to discuss building a brand story in more detail, schedule a 30-minute consultation with one of our experts.

About Noetic Marketer

Noetic Marketer is a full-service digital marketing agency with roots in both Ottawa and the GTA. We specialize in creating and optimizing digital marketing campaigns for higher education, e-commerce, professional services, and contractors.

As digital marketers, we strive to find solutions to every company’s lead generation challenges, creating personalized marketing strategies that suit the specific needs of our clients.