How to Uncover the Brand Stories Your Ideal Clients Need to Hear

Marketing Tips

Feb 25

Written By brandmerry

How to Uncover the Brand Stories Your Ideal Clients Need to Hear

BY MICHELLE KNIGHT

Today we’re going to talk about uncovering the stories that are going to be the perfect fit and exactly what your ideal customer needs to hear.

Last week, I shared with you three categories to group your stories into to then work into your marketing strategy so you make sure that you're constantly sharing stories through your content creation.

And it occurred to me that you might need a little bit more of a deep dive on how you choose some of those stories. So I want to dive into that today and share with you some of the steps that I walk my clients through so that you can feel really good about the stories that you're sharing with your audience.

Today, we are going to talk about how to uncover those brand stories that your ideal customer needs to hear. Now, before I jump into my little process, we've got to talk about one very important piece of the storytelling process, it's actually not about you.

I know, it can feel like, "It's my story, Michelle. I'm the one creating the content. This is my brand."

But at the end of the day, you are running a business, and your business story needs to contribute to the revenue of your business, i.e. the people who hear and see your stories. We want to ultimately lead them to actually purchasing from you.

So your stories can't just be you sharing cool things that happened in your life and talking at your ideal customer. They need to be very, very specific for your ideal customer, as well as give value to them.

That's why I like to say your stories aren't actually about you or for you, they are for your ideal customer.

So you're going to notice that, as I'm sharing this process with you, that we've really got to know who your ideal customer is. Otherwise, brand storytelling and, honestly, marketing and content creation overall is going to fall flat.

If you find that you don't get a lot of engagement or you post about an offer and nobody seems to care about it, or you're not getting those consistent leads coming in, it's probably because you don't know your ideal customer enough.

STEP ONE: YOU HAVE TO KNOW YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER

So that leads me to the very first step that I recommend all of my clients go through when trying to think of stories that are going to be perfect for their ideal customer, and that is you have to know your ideal customer.

I don't just mean knowing the demographics.
I don't just mean know if they're a mom or not a mom, or any of those things.

Those are cool, they're definitely part of my ideal client process, but they're not the realness of it. They're not the meat of it.

What we really need to understand first and foremost, at the bare minimum, is what your ideal customer is currently experiencing. Your business needs to solve a problem that your audience is experiencing, that’s how you create a brand and business people consistently buy from.

To have a problem solved is why we invest in things, and it doesn't matter what you sell, at the end of the day, whatever you sell needs to solve a problem.

So your ideal customer is currently experiencing something that is a problem for them. You need to understand what that is. We often refer to that as the struggle or the pain that our ideal customer is going through or experiencing. Knowing specifically what that is is going to help you connect with them on a deeper level.

Then, at the bare minimum, you also need to understand what they want.

When they solve this problem, what will happen for them? What will their life be like? What pleasure and desires will they experience? What are some of their goals?

That's going to help you really communicate to your ideal customer not only the fact that your product, your service, your brand, will help them solve that problem and get closer to those desires, but you can also craft and share stories and messaging that connects with what they ultimately want.

This is the bare minimum process, and if you're not crystal clear on what those are for your ideal customer, you have to start there. This is where all amazing copy and content and messaging lives.

And if you find that you're struggling with those pieces, it's pretty obvious that you have an ideal client problem, meaning you don't actually understand who they are. So make sure you take the time to identify those pieces. I truly cannot stress that enough.

After you've followed this first step of getting to know your ideal customer at the bare minimum, you'll have some ideas for stories to share. There might be stories that you have from your own life that you can connect with the pain or the pleasure. That happens for a lot of my customers.

Maybe you can use something that I like to call future casting, where you can paint a picture of what is possible for your ideal customer when they invest in your product or your service.

So this is already going to give you a lot of ideas for stories that you can share as well as ways to create emotionally charged copy that makes your audience feel something because that's the key.

STEP TWO: GO DEEPER

Remember, you need to understand who your ideal customer is at the bare minimum: struggle and desire.

Then great storytelling, great marketing, and great messaging go deeper than that.

This is really about understanding what is standing in their way.
What are those obstacles?
If your audience knows where they're at and what they're struggling with, and they also are pretty clear on what they ultimately want, then why haven't they gotten it yet?
What is standing in their way?

Being able to address those obstacles in your content and specifically your storytelling is really, really important. Then it's also key to understand the objections that your audience is facing. What are their mindset beliefs?
What are the things that are happening in their day to day that they might object to actually investing in solving that problem?

These are those next layer pieces of ideal client work that are going to help you actually sell your product or your service. Now, I'm not going to lie, this step gets easier as you grow your business because you have more data, more clients, more customers, a bigger audience.

You can survey them and ask them these questions and sometimes they'll just tell you, which is really nice.

So you'll have a little bit more of that. If you're just starting out, this is going to take a little bit of work. You're going to have to take some time to really think, what are the internal stressors? What are those internal problems that my audience is facing? And how can I highlight those?

What I want you to think about is that the external things that they would say to you, they would like maybe say to an acquaintance, "Oh yeah, this is something that I'm experiencing and I would really love to have this."

The internal is what they're writing in their journal and the thoughts that are going through their head.

This is the stuff that we tend to Google because we think no one can see our Google history so we Google this stuff. That's why one of my favorite tools is actually called Answer The Public.

It's a free tool with a limited amount of searches every day, but I promise you it's plenty. You can use that to find forums and questions people are really asking in your industry as it relates to what your ideal customer is struggling with or what they ultimately want.

That can tell you those very, very specific things that we would consider more internal, that people are sharing in these forums and discussions and Googling, that you can then use in your marketing.

So this is a really great tool to use.

I actually love using it in the ideal client and market research process. But I also love to check in with Answer The Public and my growing audience, all of the time to say, "What's really going on here?"

This is where you can start to present stories around the mindset shifts that need to happen, or different beliefs that they need to take on, or things that they need to let go of.

For instance, I know that my ideal customer really struggles with time, and that's an external problem that they have and they will tell me, "I don't have enough time in the day."

But the internal is that they're not using their time efficiently. And one of the things that I love to talk about is setting boundaries and having clear schedules and understanding your priorities.

I can create stories around that, that connect with my audience and move them along the buying process so that the time management thing isn't an objection when I then present my offer, because I've already addressed that in my content.

This is something that I can openly talk about and share my story and share the stories of my ideal customers as well.

This is that next layer, if we're really thinking about market research, going a step deeper and really focusing on those internal problems, those internal stressors that we can then carry through into our content.

STEP THREE: THINK OF YOUR STORIES

So those are the two first steps of the process really focused on your ideal customer. Once you have that piece of the puzzle then you can move into step three, which is identifying your stories.

You are the brand so you are the one telling the stories, but at the end of the day, they have to be valuable for your audience. So once you have the information in front of you for step one and step two, then you can look at your own story and say, "This happened in my journey," or, "This is something that I experienced at the grocery store the other day."

I'm telling you, there are stories everywhere. "This is something that I experienced. This is something that I'm seeing online." And then you can clearly say, "And this is why it's valuable to my audience."

In the beginning, you really only have your story. Maybe even before you have client testimonials. But I promise you, I was there too. I didn't have a bunch of testimonials on all my pages. I hadn't worked with anyone before.

But I had my story and I had my own experience and I could share that as a way to build that know, like, trust factor with my audience and highlight those internal stressors and highlight those struggles and those desires, those obstacles and those objections so that my audience really knew that I understood who they are.

That's what it's about, really communicating with your audience that you understand who they are, where they are, and what they ultimately want, and then presenting your offer as a way to help them solve that problem. So using your own stories is a great place to start. I still do it in my business five years later.

I share a lot of client testimonials, a lot of client stories. But I always share my story as well because there are always new people finding me who don't know me, don't know the fact that I started my business with a one-month-old baby, and that entire journey.

It's important that I share those stories to keep connecting with my audience and the different stages that they are going through in their life and their journey.

So this three-step process, repeating this process over and over and over again, will really contribute to helping you create what I call a story bank, which is just a list of stories that you can share, and then making sure that every single story connects to the value.

So if I'm thinking about sharing a story about that first month in business, before I even write that story, I better say, "And this is why it's valuable to my audience."

Again, you're able to do that when you've done the ideal client research, which is why it's so freaking important.

CONCLUSION

So there you have it, it's a simple three-step process for you to come up with stories that your audience needs to hear. But I promise you, when you really focus on these core pieces, the struggle, the desire, the obstacle, and the objection, as well as that connection piece with who you are and your story, then you are moving your clients so effortlessly through the buying process.

You will find that people are just messaging you and saying, "All right, I need to buy from you. I absolutely need to work with you," so on and so forth.

So I hope this was super valuable for you in helping you to really understand how to come up with stories that are going to be beneficial for your audience. Remember, it really comes down to the takeaway of your audience. Every story that you share has to connect to your audience in some way, whether that's education, inspiration, a mindset shift, so on and so forth.

That truly is the key to creating stories in business.

If you haven’t already, make sure that you sign up for the Tell Better Stories Workshop. It's happening on March 3rd.

Go to brandmerry.com/stories to get signed up.

Branding and Business Coach | Michelle Knight of Brandmerry

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P.S. Have you tuned in to The Beautiful Climb podcast? I release new episodes every other Friday on topics around productivity, motherhood, habits, goals and going after the life of your dreams! Check out past episodes and be sure to subscribe at thebeautifulclimb.com