10 Smart Methods to Tell Your Brand Story and Grow Your Audience
May 24, 2023 - 12 minutes readYour essential guide to brand storytelling in the digital age
As an eCommerce or retail business owner, connecting with your audience and improving customer loyalty should no doubt be high on your priority list.
In today’s digital world, one of the most powerful ways of boosting brand awareness, growing your audience, and connecting with that audience on a deeper level is by telling your brand story.
Did you know? As humans, our brains are wired to respond to storytelling. Connecting with an engaging or interesting narrative releases oxytocin, a hormone commonly associated with trust.
Brand storytelling is the best way to showcase your values, shine a light on your products or services, and keep your customers coming back for more.
There are so many creative and impactful ways to tell your brand story in today’s world—and we’ll share some of the best in this article.
1. Work with user-generated content (UGC)
Without a doubt, one of the best ways of telling your brand story is by using your customers as inspiration.
In the modern age of retail, most consumers trust the thoughts and opinions of their peers above all else. By inspiring or encouraging your existing customers to share content related to your brand through social media or tell an interesting story related to your niche, you will spark engagement, build trust, and expand your commercial reach.
Gathering UCG will give you the most original and authentic content to weave into your website’s landing pages or marketing campaigns—the kind of content that will build trust while putting your brand on the map.
Read: How to scale your business with user-generated content for practical tips on creating customer-driven brand storytelling content.
2. Sweat the smaller stuff (or words)
When we say sweat the smaller stuff, we mean that it’s possible to inject a little brand storytelling into your website or app’s microcopy.
User experience (UX) or microcopy refers to the smaller, more functional words you often find when navigating a web page or mobile app. Naturally, the words you use to navigate a customer through their web or app journey must be clear and functional, but there’s plenty of room for injecting a little brand personality into the mix.
By leaning on your brand’s tone of voice and making sure your microcopy tells a logical story as your users go through each stage of their journey, you will stand out from the crowd.
Read: Essential UX and microcopy writing tips to drive conversions and increase sales for top tips on ‘sweating the smaller stuff.’
3. Lead with a little audio
If you’re looking to get extra creative with your brand storytelling efforts and make your content accessible to a wider audience, working with audio formats will prove effective.
Audio transcripts
First, adding an audio transcript option to your web content or blog posts will allow people to listen to your brand storytelling efforts rather than reading the words on-page. Many consumers will find this format more engaging and easier to digest. Audio transcript options will also make your content more accessible to neurodivergent users or customers with visual impairments.
Podcasts
In recent years, podcasts have emerged as one of the most popular vessels of acquiring knowledge and enjoying entertainment. By developing podcast content, you will give yourself a platform for digging deeper into your brand story in a way that’s exciting, conversational, and brings your product offerings to life. Retail and eCommerce podcasts like Rethink are incredibly well subscribed—get your brand on the virtual airwaves and you will see your brand reach soar.
Read: Essential guide to creating an entertaining podcast for your business to bring your brand storytelling content to life.
4. Add a little emotion into the mix
Whether it’s for an about us page, a landing page, or an article, adding emotion to your content will transform your brand storytelling efforts from average to astounding.
Humans are emotionally-driven creatures and by leaning on a specific feeling or sentiment, you will make your brand story sing. You should set your emotional tone depending on your storytelling subject matter or your brand’s voice (are you stoic and serious, relaxed, conversional, funny…the list goes on). Doing so will make your content far more memorable, while also compelling your audience to share what you have to say with their peers.
Read: Our study of four powerful emotive marketing campaigns to inspire your brand storytelling content and communications.
5. Create a mini series
Another powerful way of crafting brand stories is creating a mini series of videos, emails, articles or blog posts.
Producing a themed series on a particular piece of subject matter linked to your brand or niche will not only give you plenty of inspirational content to share across your social media channels—it will also boost your search engine rankings and showcase your expertise.
Your mini series could be focused on:
- A trending topic related to your niche
- A behind-the-scenes glimpse of your business
- A series of interviews with respected voices in your eCommerce or retail vertical
- A two- to four-part story on a related concept or subject linked to your brand. A chance to create content with stunning visuals and build a deep-dive narrative that sparks interest and builds anticipation
Airbnb runs an ongoing mini series based on stories surrounding some of the brand’s most exciting new accommodations, an initiative that has proven wildly popular among most customer demographics.
Read: Our step-by-step guide to creating thought-leading content for your business for professional advice on making your mini storytelling series stand out from the crowd.
6. Work with influencers
Influencer marketing is one of the most powerful forms of brand storytelling. Next to UGC, today’s shoppers look to influencers for tips, advice, and assurance on the products or services they spend their money on.
Sparking up a relationship with influencers in your retail or eCommerce vertical will empower you to create an inspirational storyboard of social media content that showcases what your brand is all about. With your chosen influencer at the forefront, the story of how your brand came to be, or series of events that led to your exciting new range of products will become all the more powerful. Your customers will be far more likely to engage with your stories and share them with their peers, earning you a healthy return on investment (ROI) in the process.
Read: How to work with influencers to boost your eCommerce success to get your first campaign off the ground.
7. Get creative with your paid advertising content
Get it right and your paid advertising campaigns will expand your brand reach while boosting your sales and conversion rates.
From paid Facebook or Instagram ads to Google carousels or visual search placements, telling a tale with your ad copy will hook your audience in and compel them to interact with your content.
To craft a compelling narrative with your paid ad copy, you should set out a clearcut beginning, middle, and end. With your miniature narrative in place, you can split your copy into separate buy interlinked ads (a little like the mini series concept we covered earlier) or create an image carousel that represents your story. You could even condense it into one powerful video-based ad.
Your video would drive your story and your ad copy would provide a powerful summary of the subject matter, complete with a call-to-action (‘discover more’, ‘get in touch’, or ‘visit page’, for example) that guides your customers to the next stage of the journey.
The bottom line here: Applying brand storytelling techniques to your paid advertising copy is likely to increase engagement rates significantly. So, get creative.
Read: Four effective paid marketing techniques for retail and eCommerce business owners to get those creative juices flowing.
Bonus brand storytelling tips
We’ve covered the main techniques—now here are some bonus tips to try:
- Host a pop up launch event (virtual or in-store) where you can tell your brand story to customers directly and showcase new products.
- Ask everyone in your business to share content or storytelling ideas to benefit from fresh angles and perspectives.
- Add a strong storytelling twist to your about us page copy, as well as any brand bios for third-party marketplaces you use to sell your products.
Final thoughts
“Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.”—Dr. Howard Gardner, professor at Harvard University
Storytelling is one of the most effective ways of connecting with your audience. Not only will telling tales humanize your brand, but it will get your messaging across in a way that no other medium can. As you can see, there are so many ways to share your brand story in our hyper-connected age.
We hope these brand storytelling tips guide you on your journey to success. For more advice fit for the modern business age, check out our guide on working with ChatGPT.
