Speaker 1: What's up Brand Builders, Stephen Horahan here at Brandmasteracademy.com and in this video, I'm going to share nine brand storytelling strategies that you must leverage within your brand. So you can show your audience that you understand their story and align your brand with the idea of a successful journey. Now, if you are new to the channel and you are interested in building brands that go beyond the visuals with strategy, psychology, and storytelling, then you're in the right place. Make sure you hit that subscribe button and the notification bell and you will be well on your way. Now, there are countless ways that brands can use to tell their audience that they have a solution for their problem and most brands go about this through push marketing. So they'll pay Google or they'll pay Facebook for the privilege to get in front of that audience and when they do, they'll talk about features or benefits. Now, the problem with this approach is our tolerance for it. We have no tolerance for this kind of approach, this kind of push marketing anymore and there's a term called banner blindness, which is essentially the term to describe how we scroll past ads without even seeing them, without them even registering or leaving any kind of imprint. If you want to engage with your audience today, you need to do it like a modern brand and modern brands tell stories. Now, the reason that modern brands tell stories is because neuroscience has told us that storytelling is the most effective way to communicate because it's ingrained in our DNA. It's been passed on for millions and millions of years. It's the way we've transferred information from one generation to the next for millions of years. So our DNA makes us gravitate towards it. And if your brand can tell a story of a journey of success that aligns with who your customer is, well, then they will gravitate towards that story. So in this video, I'm going to give you nine brand storytelling strategies that you can take into your own business. So while your competitors are pushing your audience away with their marketing, you're pulling your audience in with your storytelling. Strategy number one, highlight their challenges. So what are the biggest problems and the biggest mistakes that your audience comes across on their journey to success? What are their limiting beliefs? What is it that they don't feel that they're capable of doing? And what is it that's standing in their way right now in order to get to that success? What's stopping them from being successful right now? So highlight what those challenges are. Strategy number two, show understanding. Now, in highlighting their challenges, you've already gone a long way to showing that you understand. You've shown an intimate knowledge of what those obstacles are. And just in doing that alone, you've already shown that understanding and that empathy. And you cannot underestimate the power of empathy when your audience or just anybody in general, when they feel understood, when they feel that the person standing across from them hears them and they know what they're going through and they understand those challenges, then they immediately feel that they trust that person or that brand. So if you're able to show understanding, then you cannot underestimate the power of that empathy. And this will go a long way to earning that trust. And we tend to do business with people or brands that we know, like, and trust. And once you show that empathy, once you show that understanding, you'll have gone a long way to earning that like and that trust. Strategy number three, support their beliefs. So what is it that they believe? What is it that they believe about themselves? What is it that they believe about the industry or about the wider world? And how can you show an alignment to those beliefs? So you might be able to create some content or share some content or raise a story, raise a point of view. And this will really show that you have aligned beliefs with them. And if they feel that your beliefs and their beliefs align, they will feel a connection. Strategy number four, honor their values. So what is it that they hold dear? What is it that they hold dear in the way they hold themselves, in the way they behave? What are their values? And can you align your brand with those values? And you can take out characteristics here as well. So you will find brands that will put values on their website, like honesty, integrity, respect. But when it comes to storytelling, really what you're trying to do is you're trying to align your brand with values that your audience holds dear. And you can do this through characteristics. You can do this through sharing content, through sharing articles that talk to those values. So do they value resilience or determination or kindness? What do they value and how can you align yourself with those values? Strategy number five, turn up the emotion. Now, remember that your audience is on a journey themselves. That is the story really that you're trying to tell. They're trying to achieve something. They're trying to succeed and they will come across many challenges. They'll have a picture in their head of what success looks like and what failure looks like and that draws out their fears and desires. So focus in on what they fear and what they desire and turn up the value of those emotions. So you can use this through stories of your own clients. Maybe you have customers and clients that have gone through the whole journey and they've come out the other side and you have their story of success and you can talk about the trials and the tribulations and the challenges that they've gone on to really draw out those emotions, draw out those fears and draw out those desires. Strategy number six, use detail generously. So have you ever read a book and you've come across a passage and it feels like you're there, it feels like you're there within the moment, the story feels tangible and if you have, if you've really experienced that before, that's because the author has gone into a huge amount of detail and they've really set the stage there. They've talked about the smells and the sounds and they've given you a real tangible feeling of what the environment is like. And if you're able to do that within your stories, then you can do the same as those master authors. You can really draw in your audience. So when it comes to the journey that they're on, the challenges that they go through and the fears and the emotions and the desires that they go through, if you're able to really fill in that detail, well, then they will feel the same way as you do when you're reading a really, really engaging book. Strategy number seven, demonstrate transitions. So the journey that your customer is on has a starting point and it has an end point and somewhere in the middle, there is a corner that they need to turn. They need to go from one state to the other state and turning that corner is a big part of that and that is the transition. So what were they not able to do before that they're able to do now or what epiphany did they have? What transition did they go through? So really take the time to understand what your customers go through and talk to your customers, talk to your existing customers who have been through your full service or your full product or who have experienced all of that and talk about the transition that they have gone on. What corner did they turn? And if you're able to really put a sense of tangibility on that transformation, then that will really hit home. It will really feel that you're talking to what they need to overcome, what that challenge is that they need to overcome. So really identify what that transition is that your audience goes through and talk to that transition. Strategy number eight, celebrate successes. Now, the only reason that your audience would engage your brand is because they want to achieve some kind of outcome. Now, obviously this outcome is different for every brand, but nonetheless, no matter who your audience is or what your solution is, your audience wants to achieve some kind of outcome. They want something at the end of this transaction that they have with your brand. So really focus in on that detail. What is that outcome that they want? What does it look like? What does it feel like, sound like? And what impact will it make in their overall lives? So really focus in on the outcome that they want to achieve and paint in the picture of that outcome with great detail. And strategy number nine, story sharing. So this is all about user-generated content and you do have a lot of modern brands today leveraging this strategy and leveraging it to great effect. You've got the likes of Coke and GoPro. So you might remember Coke when they came out with all of the names on the cans and had that spread like wildfire through social media because it involved their product and it gave their customers and the wider public something to talk to. And the same happens with GoPro. They get their users to post their content and they really incentivize them to do that. So how can you do the same? How can you go to your existing customers, those who have been through those success? How do you incentivize them to post user-generated content and share their own stories? Now, if you can pull this off, this is really, really effective because this comes from a place of success. It comes from a place of authenticity. If people want to share their stories, then it's because they've achieved something. It's because they've experienced that outcome. And your future customers looking in are looking at that outcome and that is the outcome that they want to achieve. And if they see somebody else, somebody that is just like them achieving that outcome, then that becomes really tangible. So this is a potent strategy if you can incentivize your existing customers to share user-generated content. Now, smaller brands tend to trip themselves up when it comes to storytelling. Now, although they are drawn towards storytelling, they love the idea of storytelling, they believe that it's reserved for the bigger brands like Nike or Coke or GoPro or Red Bull. But storytelling is not about having a massive budget and about being able to produce high-quality video or really highly produced video. It's not about that at all. It's about the stories of the individuals. It's about the stories of people achieving some kind of success. And there are countless ways that you can tell those stories. And if you could break the journey of those stories down into micro-stories, then you have multiple opportunities that you can use to tell stories on different platforms, to tell stories on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, wherever it may be, on your blog or on your YouTube channel. So really take the time to understand the journey that your audience is on because that is the journey that your customers are interested in. They want to hear a story of success that aligns with their own journey. So really understand the journey of your audience, the journey of your customers, where they're trying to get to, what they're trying to achieve and tell that story. Now, if you've made it to the end of this video, no doubt you have an interest in storytelling and I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear what your experiences are. Do you map out a brand storytelling framework for your own clients or do you do it for your own brand? Do you tell stories for your own brands or do you have examples of brand storytelling that you love that you'd like to share? I'd love to hear from you. If you've got any challenges or questions around brand storytelling or how to develop a brand storytelling framework, let me know in the box below. I'll do my best to answer all of those. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up, hit that subscribe button, hit the notification bell as well. It'll let you know when I've got new videos coming out. If you want actionable brand strategy tips and techniques, then head on over to brandmasteracademy.com and get yourself signed up for the list. It is free and I do keep some exclusive content for that list as well. So get yourself involved. But I would really love to hear from you about your experiences and challenges when it comes to storytelling and brand storytelling. I'll do my best to answer all of those. Until next time, brand like a master, tell stories, and I'll see you in the next video.