How to use storytelling to market your brand
Storytelling is the most powerful way to share your marketing message
A bold statement, I know, but it's true! At the core of your business lies a story to be told. You have experienced a journey before beginning your brand which has led you to where you are today. Whether it was a small idea spark, a noticeable gap in the market, or something more personal - your journey brought you to a point in life where you decided to start your business.
And that story alone is worth telling.
Once you are comfortable telling that one story, it opens up a whole new world of idea sharing and messaging that you wouldn't have been able to access before. These lessons you've learnt and the experiences you've been through can really help your brand relate to its target audience. People love stories and resonate so well with the messages behind them, so why not share yours!
How to tell your own story
Learning to tell stories, if you aren't a natural storyteller, can sometimes be an uncomfortable thing to do. It forces you to be vulnerable to a certain extent which is something that not everyone is able to do easily - but guess what? That’s okay!
Everyone, even business owners, struggles in some way to authentically show up and tell their story. For example, sharing my health journey with all of you was something I really had to get used to. I was ‘um-ing’ and ‘ah-ing’ about it for a while but then I realised what value you had. Not only did it allow me to talk about my struggles and triumphs but hey, it relates to people who have gone through similar things.
Learning to tell this story was one of the best things I could have done for my business. My posts, stories, and other content about my health journey are the content that has done the best in terms of traction and engagement!
Not only did I learn to tell the story whilst I was living it (and still am) but over time, you start to understand that one experience you go through can be told in different ways from different perspectives. This means that the story you tell and lessons you learn whilst living through that moment will be different from the story you share after you’ve experienced this moment in your life and when you’re ready.
But you might be thinking, how do I even get to this stage?
Well, our number 1 piece of advice for business owners and entrepreneurs who want to begin telling stories is this: get comfortable telling one story over and over again.
Yep, we don’t mean once, we mean telling it again and again and again and again! And before you think that it's annoying or people aren't interested - you need to snap out of that headspace, it’s a limiting belief. As you move through life and gain experiences, knowledge, and perspective, how you see a story or lesson will change and so will how you tell it.
That one story will constantly be evolving, new followers will join your social media pages, new clients will work with you and you’ll begin new business ventures - all of this calls for you to go back to that one story and use it to relate to your target audience!
This is why, at Content Queen, we LOVE to tell stories, it’s such an amazing way to resonate with people and attach a life lesson to the business wisdom you’re wanting to share PLUS our human design tells us we are great at storytelling - so it’s like we were born to do it!
How to structure a story for your audience
Once you’ve got the story you want to share (don’t worry, it doesn't have to be perfect) it's great to know how to frame and structure it so that it is understood by your target audience.
This is how we like to structure stories not only for clients but for Content Queen as well.
Start with the absolute basics. Think of your origin story and map out the who, what, when, where, why, and how - write them out and know them well.
Find that one thing in your business that you want to promote, sell or launch next and see what lessons you’ve learnt, struggles you’ve had or experiences you’ve been through could relate to this.
Write this story down and list the lessons you learnt from it, how you felt, why you embarked on this journey, and what value it holds
Start working this story into the content you love most first. Whether you are better at verbalising it or writing it - start with the easiest ways you can express your experience and go from there.
After you get comfortable doing this, let it bleed into other platforms and content and attach it to that one thing you’re launching or promoting!
This is just one way we like to structure out telling a story but, of course, it also comes down to what suits you and your business best! Remember that all stories have a beginning, middle, and end - so try it out and see where it takes you.
How a writer can tell your story
If you’re a business owner that wants to tell your story but you either don’t have time or need some help in doing so, this is where outsourcing can be your best friend!
At Content Queen we are masters at telling other people’s stories and we absolutely LOVE to do it! Working with business owners to help frame their stories and share their lives is so cool to see, but of course, there are things to think about from both sides of this business relationship when outsourcing is what you decide to do!
For example, when a new client starts with us, we like to first get a sense of their tone. The way they talk, the words they use, their tone, and their expression are all very valuable things that we take in when writing their stories from their perspectives.
A great way to gauge tone is to voice note stories, we LOVE WhatsApp for this! Hearing the story firsthand from clients is an amazing way to take on their very own perspective when writing. So business owners, don’t be afraid to actually speak to your freelancer or writer when you want them to convey a certain message!
While this relationship seems quite simple, the more time you give it to grow, the easier everything becomes. The communication becomes clearer, trust is built, tone is adopted smoothly and the whole process becomes more in tune. Remember that this new relationship between the business owner and freelancer or writer goes both ways and patience is a virtue in this situation!
Creating a space for others to tell their stories to your audience
Another part of the storytelling journey that people tend to forget is the way you can influence others in their ability to tell stories or how others can influence you. This, much like the entrepreneurial world, involves building each other up rather than competing all the time.
Giving someone the space in our content to tell their own story (not always looking for your own gains or something you want out of it) can be so valuable.
Rising tides lift all boats, so being able to recognise someone else’s knowledge, experiences, and lessons and encouraging them to share that with the world is such an amazing thing to do.
How would you open up your business to allow this to happen? Well, you can interview business owners who are in your niche or relate to your weekly theme, you can have guests on your podcast, you can bring in a guest blogger or you can even do story takeovers to just allow someone to share their story. All of these (plus many more) are amazing ways to open up a world of knowledge not just for you but for your target audience as well, and hey, it may even add to your own list of stories as well!
So, once you have started telling your own story, why not open up your platform to others who have valuable stories to tell as well?
Final thoughts
Like we said earlier, at Content Queen we absolutely LOVE stories! We love telling our stories, we love helping others tell their stories and we love hearing stories too!
So if you’re looking to take your content to the next level with storytelling and need some inspiration or guidance before jumping in, why not check out how we do it in the Content Queen newsletter? It's a fun, chill, and educational place where we share tips, tricks, advice, and, of course, stories to help you on your content journey.
If you’d like to join and see what all the fuss is about, click here and sign up!
We’d absolutely love to see you there and share stories together!