Written Vanessa Matthew with research conducted by Erica Koina
As a child, I loved the book The Beast in My Bathtub. I remember it vividly and smile warmly at the cover every time I see it. The main character, a little boy named Lewis, was afraid of bath time. He told his parents of the beast in his bathtub, but they didn’t believe him, so he faced his fear alone. As an adult, I see how wrong this was now because it forced him to lie, but he made peace with his fears by the end of the story.
According to Harvard Business, stories are one of the most powerful means to influence, teach, and inspire — forging connections among people and between people and ideas. For example, a brand story, part of brand messaging, can influence, teach, inspire, and align your brand with stakeholder values to connect your brand to how people see themselves.
Therefore, don’t make it about you to positively impact your audience with your story. Instead, make it about the primary target audience you look to bond with and help. Your marketing will leave a favorable impression on your audience by approaching story development this way.
Strategies To Tell Your Brand Story
So, when building your brand story around your audience, you should first understand your audience’s life, what they feel, and who they are. Your audience wants to feel connected to the brands they engage, and part of being able to do so is in their ability to resonate with your brand. Therefore, you want to use your brand story to give your audience a chance to see what their life can be like by working with you.
After you understand your audience’s life, put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what do they want, need, and why. From this perspective, you will understand their challenges and how your company can solve them.
Brand Clarity Improves Brand Storytelling
To leverage brand storytelling, once you understand your audience’s challenges and journey, you can find ways to weave in how your brand can help them reach their goals. But, for this to work, you must have a clear message. Without clarity, you lose the opportunity to show your audience why your story should matter to them.
Therefore, it is vitally important to create your brand story with the challenges that stop your ideal consumer from achieving the success they desire in mind. Comprehending such challenges will help you empathize with your target audience and their everyday struggles. Your compassion will also help them to resonate with your brand.
With your consumer as the hero of the story, you can show a tangible transition of their problem and the solution that your company could provide through them. One company that has done well at making its consumers the hero of its story is Warby Parker.
How Warby Parker Used Brand Storytelling
According to Emma Bullen, author of the article, 11 of the Best Brand Story Examples, Warby Parker had a campaign called “How Warby Parker Glasses Are Made.” For this campaign, Warby Parker focused on making people care about why they exist by making the consumer instrumental to the message. Just check out this video to see how.