Don’t Make This Mistake With Your Brand Storytelling

VisibilityBranding

Jul 30

We are wrapping up the four-part series on Storytelling over here on the Brandmerry Blog and my weekly show Mondays With Michelle.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve covered:

+ Sharing Imperfections in your Personal Brand Storytelling
+ Why You Should be Repeating Your Brand Story and Messages Online
+ 5 Examples of Brand Storytelling to Incorporate in Your Marketing Strategy

And today, we’re wrapping it up with the #1 mistake you might be making in your brand storytelling and how to fix it!

Because by now you know how important storytelling is for business and if you don’t here’s a recap.

So here we are talking about the mistakes so you can avoid them.

If you prefer to watch or listen to this blog post, scroll down to access the full video.

Storytelling in Business

It’s important to understand that telling a story for business is different than just telling a story to your friend.

At the end of the day, when you are telling stories in business, and as a brand, you're doing so to make money. The goal is to sign clients or to sell a product, but at the end of the day, you want to incorporate storytelling to increase your revenue.

So, your stories need to be strategic and calculated to lead to the sale.

It doesn’t mean you lose out on authenticity, it just means you take the time to do the prep work to share a story that sells.

One of those pieces, which happens to be a mistake so many brands make, comes back to their audience.

BRAND STORYTELLING SECRET WEAPON

When you are telling stories in business they are for your ideal customer, they are for your audience...they are not for you!

You're not buying your own stuff, so the story is not for you.

The ultimate goal is to attract your ideal customer and dream audience, build trust, build brand recognition, brand affinity and ultimately tell stories that sell.

The beautiful thing is that you can use stories at every single level of the buying process. Whether someone isn't aware of their problem.
They're aware of their problem.
They're aware of a solution to their problem.
They're aware of products but haven’t made a decision, you can incorporate stories to move them along.

So no matter where your ideal customer is in the buying process stories are an excellent marketing strategy.

You might tell a story about your situation…
You might tell a story about your transformation…
You might tell a story about your values…
But if you're not tying that to your audience, it becomes a cool-story-bro situation.
It becomes a “that's nice” situation.

WHY YOU DON’T WANT TO MAKE THIS STORYTELLING MISTAKE

The cool-story-bro situation is not a situation you want to be in.

It results in a little heart and maybe a comment, but nothing more.

It doesn’t lead to sharing your content or saving it and coming back to it as a top resource.
It doesn’t lead to DM’s and authentic conversations.
It doesn’t lead to sales.

Because when we’re talking about engagement on social media, hearts and likes don’t tell us anything. It doesn’t necessarily translate into sales and revenue for your business.

The goal, as a business owner, is to inspire your audience to take action and that’s what you want your stories to do.

You want your audience to take action, to subscribe to your email list, to visit your website, read your blog, buy your product, or sign up for your high-level program.

We want our stories to motivate our audience to take action.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR BRAND STORYTELLING ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE

Entrepreneurs and business owners tend to write their stories about them and struggle to tie their message directly to their audience.

They don’t take into consideration if the story is relevant to their audience and if it’s valuable...this is where the mistake is made.

Anytime you’re writing a story, choosing a photo, writing a social media post, writing an email and more you must consider it from the perspective of your audience and the value it provides.

Donald Miller of StoryBrand introduced the concept of the Hero and the Guide as it pertains to marketing.

The idea is that so many brands and businesses are positioning themselves as the Hero. You don't want to be the Hero, you want to be the Guide. Your audience is the Hero.

The Guide is the person that helps them, that supports them, that inspires them to take action and then leads them on that journey to a solution to their problem.

Your audience is the Hero, but so many business owners are writing stories about themselves and putting themselves in the role of the Hero, this is a mistake.

Here’s an example I made on social media.

4 years...⠀
...4 headshots 😂⠀

When I look at these photos I see the same woman but not really.⠀

I see what really happened behind the scenes.⠀

The tears that were shed and all the emotions in 2016 while in a Target dressing room to find the right dress to hug my 8-month postpartum body and spirit.⠀

I didn't feel ready for that photoshoot, but I did it anyway.⠀

To the woman in overalls who made the bold decision to represent a different face of entrepreneurship and a brand. ⠀

A less polished and more "everyday", simple and authentic brand. I mean who wears overalls in a brand shoot...this girl 🖐️⠀

I've grown over these 4 years and what you see today is lightyears from the woman I was just 4 years ago.⠀

As some would say I'm owning it and IDGAF 😜⠀

It's just a photo, sure, but this is why I love what photos represent.⠀⠀

Growth.
Authenticity.
Moments in time to reflect on and say, "Look how far you've come!"⠀

I encourage you to do the same today. ⠀

See how far you've come and be proud of the growth ♥️⠀

Happy Sunday friends.⠀

- mk

In this post I’m sharing what happened behind the scenes, I’m sharing my story and I’m talking about how I didn’t feel confident to have my first photoshoot, but I did it anyway.

I talked about owning my voice, and stepping more into my role and showing a more everyday simple and authentic brand, something you don't typically see on the internet.

I talked about how I've grown over the last four years, and I talk about the representation of this photo.

Now, I could have stopped there. That would have been a story. But it would have been a story about me, it wouldn't have been a story about anyone else.

It wouldn't have been a story with my ideal customer in mind.

So instead, all I did was add a simple line to the end. I said, “I love what photos represent.

Growth.
Authenticity.
Moments in time to reflect on and say, "Look how far you've come!"⠀

I encourage you to do the same today. ⠀

See how far you've come and be proud of the growth.” And at that moment an entire story that was centered around my experience, turned around and provided value and action to my audience.

Every single word I wrote, in this story, had my ideal customer in mind.

I know my ideal customer doesn't always see themselves in the brands and big mega businesses that they see on the internet.

I know they're looking for something a little bit more real or raw.

I know that my ideal customer is growing and has grown and wants to see this growth in the long term.

And all I had to do was say a simple sentence at the end to bring it back to them.

Do you see how I could have stopped and it would have been 100% about me, but then I was able to position myself as the guide to offer advice to my audience.

HOW DO YOU WRITE BRAND STORIES FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

How can you write a social media post and tie every single word back to your audience?

Two words...MARKET RESEARCH.

Your ideal client research is non-negotiable, please stop skipping it.

The beautiful thing about ideal client research is that it doesn't stop. You don't do it one time. You're always learning. You're always listening. You're always having conversations.

And yes, of course, the more clients that you have, the bigger your business gets, the easier it is because your audience is more accessible. For instance, I can message a bunch of my Academy students and be like, “Hey, guys, really quick question. What's coming up for you? What's a struggle that you have?”

Market research becomes a lot easier when you have the clientele. but there are so many ways that you can do it, in the beginning, using the internet.

You can use YouTube, Pinterest, personal conversations, reading comments on blogs, reading forums, posting in Facebook Groups, searching in Facebook Groups, there are a million ways that you can find out what you need to know about your ideal customer.

And although we are talking about this specifically as it applies to storytelling, you probably picked up already that this applies to every aspect of your business.

You have nothing. If you have no one to buy from you.
You do not have a business, you have a product that doesn't sell because people aren't buying it, and so knowing your ideal client, knowing the language that they will use is so important as it plays a role in all of your marketing efforts.

But when we're talking about storytelling, it will make or break it because it will either put you in in the friend zone (aka cool-story-bro situation) or the relationship zone.

The friend zone sounds like…
… “Oh, she's cool. She tells good stories. I like her, she's fun to follow.”

While the relationship zone (aka business zone) sounds like…
… “I connect with her. I want to buy from her. I want to do business with her and tell all my friends about it”

See the difference?

CHOOSING YOUR STORIES IN BUSINESS

Choosing the stories that you tell in business should be based on your audience.

It’s not just about turning it back to them with your words, including a quick little sentence at the end, it's not just about using language throughout the ties to your audience, it goes back even further with choosing the stories that will resonate most with your audience.

The more that you understand your ideal customer, the more that you will be able to say, “Here's a bunch of stories that I have. Here's how it's valuable to my audience. Amazing. Now, when I write that post, these are the things that I want to tie in about my audience. And here's the call to action!”

It makes marketing and more specifically storytelling easy.

CONCLUSION

Everything in business comes back to your audience.

It’s about growing your audience, nurturing your audience and converting your audience. Those are your three goals. As a business owner, if you do that you will be golden.

And storytelling is an excellent way to do that.