Building a strong brand is essential for any business. But how do you tell a story about your brand while staying authentic and grabbing the attention of your audience? Here are some of the best brand storytelling tactics with real-world examples to inspire you.
What is Brand Storytelling and Why Does it Matter?
Brand storytelling is a marketing strategy that uses narrative to shape how a brand is perceived and understood by its audience.
Traditional marketing often focuses on product features or promotions. Or you might look into lead generation vs prospecting to create relevant messaging.
But storytelling is a different tactic altogether. A compelling brand story creates a cohesive narrative that resonates with consumers on a deeper level.
One power of storytelling is its ability to elicit an emotional response from consumers. When a brand tells a compelling story that evokes feelings like joy, nostalgia, and even inspiration, it can create a lasting impression in audiences’ minds.
It also allows your business to showcase your authenticity and humanise your brand, making it more relatable and trustworthy in the eyes of consumers. Storytelling is also a powerful tool for building a community around your brand, sharing stories that create a sense of belonging.
Community encourages customer loyalty and creates opportunities for user-generated content and word-of-mouth marketing. Satisfied customers are more likely to become brand advocates who willingly share their own stories and experiences with others.
6 Successful Brand Storytelling Tactics with Industry Examples
1. Use Customer Stories
Highlighting customers’ personal experiences is a great way to engage your audience. This helps you demonstrate how your product or service positively impacts their lives.
For businesses selling on Shopify, leveraging customer reviews can be particularly effective, as these authentic testimonials can be prominently displayed to boost credibility and attract new buyers.
Real customer stories foster a sense of relatability and trust. They allow you to create emotional connections with your audience and showcase the real-world value of your offerings. It’s also helpful for building a brand that prioritises the customer experience and sees customers as humans rather than numbers.
Ruffwear, makers of outdoor performance dog gear, has an entire Stories section on its website. Through blog posts by ambassadors, followers, and customers, they share inspiring, thought-provoking, and entertaining stories. Many of these sell the idea of an outdoor lifestyle as much as the products themselves.
2. Offer Behind-the-Scenes Content
Providing a glimpse into your business operations or creative process can build transparency and genuine authenticity with your audience. This type of content humanises your brand, demonstrating all the care and expertise that goes into your products or services.
Think about content that will be interesting and exciting for your audience. Even technical processes like phone call monitoring or order processing can offer insights. That said, human content that showcases your brand, product, and impact is likely to be more successful at engaging audiences.
If your company wants to show off its ESG efforts, this is a particularly beneficial option. Cornwall-based coffee roaster Yallah Coffee is passionate about advocating for fair standards in the industry and operating sustainably.
By sharing behind-the-scenes content, they show customers that they don’t just talk the talk. They genuinely support suppliers and are actively fighting for more transparent practices.
3. Share Your Founder’s Journey
The personal story of the business founder(s) reveals the human side of your brand and the values and motivations that drive it. You can detail the challenges and milestones of your business to connect emotionally with customers and build trust and authenticity.
Coming up with creative business name ideas can be a pivotal step in this journey, as the right name effectively encapsulates the spirit and promise of your brand.
Your website is a great place to share this information, and you should track website visitors to measure the impact.
Susie Ma, founder of Tropic, uses a timeline to depict her journey to creating the sustainable skincare brand. Brief sections, accompanied by personal photos, detail her influences, inspiration, and efforts to build a community around the brand.
The timeline then moves into awards and branding updates, demonstrating Tropic’s attention to detail and commitment to constantly innovate.
4. Provide Educational Content with Stories
Real-life examples of success or transformation related to your expertise can educate and inspire audiences. For example, a tech company might offer insights into who uses legacy systems or how-to guides for complex software.
To further extend the impact of your storytelling, mastering the art of how to write follow up emails is essential. These emails can be crafted as a continuation of your brand’s narrative, ensuring that every touchpoint with your audience adds to the cohesive story you’re building.
Combining informative content with narrative elements is a great way to engage your audience on a deeper level. It also positions your brand as a knowledgeable authority in your industry.
Food-grown supplement brand Wild Nutrition shares educational content in the form of podcasts. Each episode theme, whether it’s the menopause or immunity, relates to different products the company sells but avoids being overly promotional, instead focusing on stories that are educational and informative.
5. Highlight Your Community Impact
Brand storytelling showcases your company’s positive impact on and contributions to the local or wider community.
Engaging with your community and celebrating this online builds goodwill and resonates with socially conscious consumers. Through effective localization strategies, you can ensure that your brand’s storytelling is culturally relevant and resonates deeply with diverse local audiences. This type of storytelling demonstrates your brand’s values and commitment to making a difference beyond profit.
Considering their mission statement is “We’re in business to improve lives”, it’s no surprise that positive impact is central to TOMS’ content creation strategy.
From the ‘Impact’ section on their website to social media posts, they regularly share photos, videos, and stories from real people, exploring the numerous ways TOMS’ business model does good. This clearly demonstrates to customers the positive impact that their purchases have, building trust and encouraging loyalty.
6. Create Interactive Campaigns
Interactive content and engagement go hand-in-hand. Participatory campaigns and challenges encourage audiences to share their own stories or experiences related to your brand.
These types of campaigns also create a sense of community and belonging among customers. In addition, they boost your brand’s reach through user-generated content.
E.L.F. Cosmetics went viral with its interactive campaign, which took the form of a social media challenge. The campaign goal was to create more awareness about what the brand’s acronym stands for while showcasing the brand’s inclusive values under a key pillar that “e.l.f. Is for every eye, lip, face”.
Showcase Your Values With Brand Storytelling
Many of us are increasingly looking for businesses that have strong values we support. But if your values are hidden away on your website or not in public view at all, how can your customers access them?
Brand storytelling is more than a marketing tactic. It’s a way to connect with your customers on a human level and show them what you stand for.
