Every business owner wants profitable products and services. Statistics and qualifications can be persuasive, but they’re not inspiring. To make your business memorable and emotionally engaging, you must connect with your audience by crafting a story about your brand. Here are some key tips to keep in mind when developing a storytelling content strategy.
Clarify Your Mission
Build your brand’s foundation on a story to instill a greater sense of purpose beyond simply making a profit. When mapping out your vision, it’s vital to outline what your product or service aims to accomplish. Divide your mission statement into three parts:
- Action: What does your brand do when serving customers? Choose a word like “empower,” “coach,” “assist” or “inspire.”
- Target audience: Who are your customers? Your product or service might be geared toward millennial entrepreneurs, misunderstood women in the workplace, forward-thinking company executives or first-time homebuyers. Whoever they are, try to capture their essence in a few descriptive words.
- Takeaway: How does your target audience benefit from your product or service? Depending on your customers and what you offer, you might provide monetary savings, more time to spend with their family, a safer work environment or more sales.
A complete mission statement sounds like this: “Our goal is to empower misunderstood women in the workplace to create a safer work environment for themselves.”
Here’s another example: “We hope to coach first-time homebuyers on how to save time and money when house hunting.”
Relate to Your Target Audience
Create personas of your target audience that customers can relate to. One way is to outline a problem your audience deals with before they find your product or service. Then, explain how your company solves this problem.
For instance, an insurance broker’s audience is comprised of people who fret about the potential for financial ruin if disaster strikes, as well as people who overpay for incorrect coverage. The broker can transform stress and high premiums into peace of mind and savings. Tell this story so your audience feels more connected to your brand.
Identify Your Core Values
If your brand has a vision, it also has values. These are your non-negotiable beliefs that your target audience likely shares. Identify three to five core values that you’ve built your business around, such as “sophistication,” “meaningful human connections” and “self-discovery.”
The purpose here is to humanize your brand by creating conversation starters that spark interest and engage your audience emotionally. Your values will also become the foundation of your content strategy. Just remember to convey your values indirectly. Your audience should absorb what you stand for without the need to spell it out.
With your mission, target audience and core values defined, you’re ready to develop language, visuals and communication styles that tell your cohesive brand story. John Manlove Marketing & Communications can help you develop a storytelling content strategy to fire up people’s imaginations and inspire them to act. To learn more about our services, please call us today at 281-487-6767.