How to Write a Compelling Brand Story: A Guide for Entrepreneurs
Every entrepreneur has their own story to tell of how their business came to be. And it’s not just for mealtime conversations. It’s also a powerful tool for building brand identity and image, finding an audience, and building a supportive brand community.
What is a brand story?
You would think that the term brand story is very self-explanatory — a story of the events that transpired that led to a brand or business coming to life. You would not be alone. Many business owners take this definition and run with it on their business websites, to unfortunate results.
Yes, a brand story usually includes a narration of significant events, but it is more than that. It is also a means of connecting with your audience. As in any ‘story,’ it shouldn’t just be a recounting of history but also a sharing of thoughts, values, insights, and goals. By the end of the story, you should have been able to establish who you are as a brand, a.k.a., your brand identity.
Otherwise, you’ll end up with a lackluster narrative that nobody ever wants to read.
And that would be a loss as a well-written brand story comes with some pretty amazing perks. (More on this in the next part!)
Why do you need a brand story?
A brand story comes with certain advantages that make it a must for every business wanting to make it out there.
- It introduces your business (i,e., brand identity) to the world. This is especially so if you’re just starting an online business, or a business in general. No one knows about your brand yet. Sharing your brand story addresses that.
- It helps establish your reputation (i.e., brand image) depending on what you include in your brand story. In telling your history, you can share about your practices, connections, and accomplishments. This is important, especially if you’re doing business online, where business owners must differentiate themselves from scammers and nuisance websites, in addition to other online brands.
- It helps you connect with customers that are more likely to show support and purchase from your online store. Many first-time business owners struggle with finding the right audience or potential customers. A brand story is an avenue where you can explicitly share your brand’s unique qualities including its products, style, mission, and advocacies. In doing so, you are more easily able to connect with your target audience.
These are just some of the many reasons why a brand story is considered an essential part of a successful business strategy.
How to write a brand story
When you’re meeting a person for the first time, wishing to make a significant connection, you share your story to find touch points. It’s the same way for a brand story, but this time, it’s your brand wishing to make a profitable connection with your target audience.
Some of the best brand story examples, like that of Human Nature and Levi’s, read just like exciting narratives, with their highs and lows, problems and resolutions, and of course, awe-inspiring highlights.
So how do you write a brand story? You have to plan for three things:
Style
Every entrepreneur has their own story to tell, in a voice that is uniquely theirs, and to a specific audience in mind. As such, there is no one prescribed style to use in writing a brand story. However, there are some considerations that will help you style your brand storytelling for the best results.
1. Determine your target audience to determine the appropriate writing style. When writing a brand story, you are communicating information and emotion. But different types of people have different levels of comprehension and preferred mediums of communication. This is where determining your target audience or customer from the get-go will help
Ask: Whose problems are my products and services solving? With whom does my brand want to be associated?
Find out their demographic, their hobbies, and their interests.
Are you aiming to attract a Gen Z market? Then go for a more recent vocabulary, use lots of multimedia (especially videos), and highlight social responsibility in your narrative. Are you aiming for Boomers? Then go a little old school, avoid using slang, and focus more on lifestyle improvement.
2. Establish your voice. Your brand voice refers to the manner in which your brand communicates with your customers. If you’re marketing yourself as a fun and youthful brand, then your voice should be consistent with that. Perhaps use hashtags or emojis. As your brand story establishes your brand identity, take the time to establish your voice as well. Ensure that your voice works well with your target audience.
3. Make your story an easy read. Regardless of who your target audience is, very few will take the time to read an overly complicated brand story. Make it accessible by avoiding unnecessarily highfalutin terms.
Make sure you use enough spaces in between blocks of text. And strategically mix in multimedia to spice up your narrative.
You can also cut up aspects of your story into different website pages, so you can have a more focused discussion if necessary.
See how Apple styles up its brand stories so well with an innovative, multimedia website design, a smart yet accessible voice, and a presentation of its long history and values, with pages for Education, Environment, Inclusion and Diversity, and more.
Structure
In any story, having a well-defined structure improves clarity. A smooth progression of events will help your readers understand not only the When, but also the What, Why, and How of your business journey.
1. Have an introduction, body, and conclusion. Ease your readers into your narrative/s by having the familiar introduction, body, and conclusion story structure. Apply this to your main brand story as well as your other brand narratives, if you choose to cut your presentation into parts.
The introduction’s purpose is to spark interest and push readers to read more. This could include anecdotes, quotes, and a peek at the brand story’s highlights.
Meanwhile, the body is where you put the meat of your story. Share all you need to tell here.
As for the conclusion, this is where you make sure to leave the readers with a distinct impression of who your brand is. Reiterate highlights, restate goals, and share your brand promise. Leave the readers with something to look forward to from your brand.
2. Share events in chronological order. History is always most clear when shared in chronological order or from start to finish. Sure you can try and play around with your narrative/s, but you can run the risk of a misunderstanding that could leave readers questioning your brand’s authenticity.
Readability is key to efficiency in writing your brand story, and for content marketing in general. While writing events chronologically is not a hard and fast rule, it is generally preferred.
See how Muji does structure so well, complete with a timeline.
Content
After deciding on your style and structure, your next focus should be writing your content. This is your actual brand story, so make sure it has all the components that would help define itself from the competition. It should be inspiring, persuasive, and most importantly, truthful.
When branding your business online, lay your groundwork on authenticity rather than deceit or else risk getting canceled. Remember, there are no secrets online.
1. Share your vision, mission, and values. When you start a business, it often begins with a vision from a mission you want to accomplish as demanded by your values. These three are such integral parts of your business’s creation story and brand identity. They are the building blocks on which you built your brand, and the signposts that decide your direction. They affect all aspects of your business model from your products to your logo, design, theme, and even marketing style.
These also serve as important touch points with your customers. If your values are family-oriented, for example, and your vision and mission include providing quality products at affordable prices to families in need, sharing this information will help attract customers that believe in your cause. It will also help said families in need to identify you as a reliable provider.
Your vision, mission, and values should be consistent and must be reflected in your products, pricing, marketing, and all other aspects of your business to be considered trustworthy and authentic — an important note as 90% of customers are said to consider authenticity important in choosing which brand to support (Stackla, 2019)
2. Share the past, present, and future of your business. Your brand story is your business journey. Sharing your past and identifying your roots help readers understand your motives. It also serves as bases on which to compare your success today.
Your present shares your current endeavors which you can persuade your readers to support. It upsells your current brand activities and their value. Here, you can also subtly brag about what you’re currently doing well. Just won an award? Share it!
Your future shares your plans for your business and your customers. It tells your readers and potential customers that you are continuously aiming for growth and improvement, and that supporting your brand now is an investment that will positively affect their lives someday. Share your goals and your plans to make them happen. The more concrete and executable your plans are, the more believable they are.
3. Connect with your target customers by sharing relevant thoughts, insights, and experiences that humanize the brand. Don’t just go through the steps of starting a business. Everyone knows that already. And that’s just cold and boring!
Why not share some interesting anecdotes that helped define your journey? Did an angel investor give you the chance of a lifetime, without which you wouldn’t have been able to start, so now you’re dedicated to hiring employees with promise even without experience? Were you finally able to donate a million dollars to a charity close to your heart?
Tell what your brand has experienced instead of just rattling off common events and idealisms. Go ahead and share the insights that helped you better understand the plight of your target customers. Show that you empathize with them.
Moreover, don’t be shy and name the people behind the brand, and those that were relevant to its formation and development. Doing so makes your brand more human and relatable. Prove that you’re not run by robots.
4. Share how your products benefit your target users (…and the world). Why are your product and brand relevant to your customers and the world? This is a key question you can answer in your brand story.
Identify the problem that your brand aims to address and the solutions you’re providing through your products, services, and brand activities. Doing so establishes your brand’s value.
5. Add matching multimedia visuals. Don’t limit yourself to plain text. Video, images, infographics, and even podcasts are great ways to tell your brand story. Adding these different types of media to your brand story website page and other brand platforms (ex. Youtube channel and other social media platforms) makes them more exciting and less dull.
Take advantage of available technology, especially if you want to endear yourself to the younger market. Just make sure that each piece of content matches your business brand online to avoid mixed messages.
6. Update your story as you go. As long as your business is in operation, your brand story is not yet over. Update what you’ve uploaded to make sure it reflects all the important events of your business journey as well as your new milestones and accomplishments.
And as you build your brand community, get them to co-write your brand story for you! Use their reviews, testimonials, and other user-generated content (UGC) to help build brand trust and establish authenticity. It’s showcasing your brand in action. And it’s very effective marketing too with about 57% of customers preferring to see user-generated photos and videos from the content brands put out (Stackla, 2019)
Check out Nike’s exceptional brand storytelling through their About Nike page. It shares the brand’s mission, its journey, its impact, and its customers’ amazing brand experiences through a compelling multi-page multimedia presentation.
Your brand story can be just one or two paragraphs long or can take up multiple pages of your website. Regardless of its length, if written with the correct style, structure, and content, it’ll be able to give off a sense of authenticity, build your identity, and upsell your brand.
There is truly no limit to creative brand storytelling.
Share your brand story on an international platform
You can have a great brand story, but without the right platform, it can remain unread, its potential put to waste.
Give your brand story an international platform on which to thrive with Cafe24! The no.1 ecommerce platform in Korea now offers a global platform that lets online entrepreneurs all over the world open an online store to an international market. Potential customers are in the billions!
Cafe24 also lets you customize your ecommerce website design through coding, through a drag-and-drop theme-building app, or through the downloading of free and paid themes. You will be able to feature your brand story and present your products in brand-appropriate style, guaranteed!
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