Brand Storytelling For Beginners

Your brand is more than your product – It’s also about the experience.

Brands and businesses exist for all sorts of things imaginable. But in a world with limitless options to choose from, what makes a brand stand out?

How can consumers differentiate or remember one from many others?

By Creating Amazing Stories and Doing Storytelling.

Consumers don’t just want to know about the features and benefits your product can provide them. While that’s important (and satisfies their logical side), most purchase behaviours are actually emotional.

Storytelling is a wonderful way to deliver an emotional impact whilst projecting your brand personality. A well-executed story has the ability to leave lasting impressions, communicate meaning and create personal connections with its listeners.

It’s time to hit the books and script your business narrative.

Also Read: The Art of Digital Storytelling in Content Marketing

Here are 4 Best Tips For Beginners On How To Do Brand Storytelling

 1. Do Your Research

As per Script Consultants (script.com.sg), Just like writing a novel, planning and preparation is needed before an outline is able to take shape. In this case, its about knowing your business’ direction and what intended outcome the brand wants to achieve. Gather details, observe or ask around for information related to the company to build a solid foundation.

Also, some stories appeal to a person more than others. It is important to find out what suits your target demographic and product offerings. Get out on the street, and gain a perspective of what readers think. Reach out to find out what themes might grab their attention. Once you have enough information, it’s all about clarity from chaos.

2. Remember Your Creative Writing Components

Now, its time to dig out your rusty creative writing skills from back in those schooling days. The key to a good story is unlocking your reader’s imagination. People read to escape from reality, immerse themselves in an alternate, self-created world.

So, give them the tools to visualise by providing the necessary details.

Keep these 4 basic components in mind to create a compelling, believable storyline :

1. Character Development: Yes, it matters whether your main is a guy or girl – along with many other factors that make up a authentic role consumers can relate to. Details such as quirks or personality traits helps audiences distinguish one character from another, and also provide a sense of realism to the plot.
2. Vivid Description: You can keep your storyline concise and to the point, but audiences need more information for picturing out a scenario; People don’t just want to know what happens straightaway – that’s boring and forgettable. Descriptions are needed to build suspense, emotions as well as an atmosphere to the story.
3. An Overarching Action: In order to spur action through your story, your narrative needs a plan of action too. This is the reason why people read synopses on the back of book covers or on TV magazines; Users expect something to happen when engaging with your storyline. Keep in mind your overall story arc and how the characters’ situation or actions will lead to achieving it.
4. Emotional Depth: A story that is able to elicit feelings, whether positive or negative is an effective one. Likewise, reading an emotionally charged story makes people want to do something to resolve those emotions, which can be worked to spur action towards your brand. Add emotional responses in your character plot, or make eliciting a response the aim of your storyline. High arousal feelings, such as anger, fear, humour or surprise are much more effective at garnering attention.

Also Read: 3 Content Marketing Secrets To Increase Website Traffic

3. Establish Structure

With these essential components in mind, structure is all that’s needed to give your storyline a purposeful direction. If you have a unique plot you want your brand to follow, great! But if you aren’t confident that your outline might roll off in a way that audiences can appreciate, a progression pattern is a reliable method for laying the groundwork.

You can’t go wrong with these 5 story patterns that are always popular with the crowd.

• An Underdog’s Tale: A mediocre, unassuming character takes on an impossible giant. People can relate to the character’s realism, and the protagonist’s ultimate success against the status quo reminds and inspires audiences to do better.
• A Monomyth: Essentially, the hero’s story; Character ventures into unknown territories and survives, coming out stronger and wiser. This is a great format for imparting valuable brand lessons.
• A Moment of Discovery: Elements of novelty and surprise are effective at garnering attention. A story about how you/ your storyline’s character stumbles upon something exceptional, and the journey to making the world better with it is always uplifting.
• A False Start: Again, this pattern works on the surprise factor, by breaking the audience’s expectations of how a story should progress. A narrative starts innocently typical, but switches up with something totally unforeseen. This format is great for imparting personal struggles or experiences.
• A Transformation: Whether it’s a rags to riches story or something out of A Christmas Carol, the idea of a disliked character learning things the hard way and ultimately struggling to seek redemption is often a heartwarming way to educate audiences.

4. Choose The Right Platform

When you’ve got your story down pat, there are many avenues your brand can use to communicate to audiences. However, different formats have different limitations; For example, text-based platforms like blogs and email newsletters provide more leeway in descriptive imagery. But when it comes to videos or infographics, these descriptions often have to be summarised or translated into actual visuals to convey the message.

Also Read: Best Social Media Storytelling Platforms You Should Know

Conclusion:

Depending on your needs or consumer preferences, tailor your content to suit the features of the selected platform. It’s also helpful to note the different nuances in each type of media. Videos have to take into consideration colouring and aesthetics, scripting and physical movement. Audios require attention towards a speaker’s tone and pausing. As for text, the writing style, pacing of words and text length affects the story’s readability.