Back on February 26 we celebrated “Tell a Fairy Tale Day“. Now I am not sure how or where this celebration came from, however, I saw it as a great opportunity to share from an entrepreneur’s lens how important storytelling can be for your business. Story-based marketing has been growing by leaps and bounds, changing the way prospective customers see business and connecting with them in all new ways. These new connections can help gain sales and customer loyalty. Here are a few to consider.

Your Brand Story Is Important but It Is Not All About You

Your brand story tells why you got into business and what drives your efforts, but it is not only about you. It is about the effect your story has on your target audience. You want them to feel an emotional connection that will make them eager to join your mission. For example, a lot of people admired Steve Jobs because he founded Apple in his parent’s garage. He had a vision of success and followed it, even when he lost control of the company for a time.

You may have gone into business just to start a college fund for the kids, but consider what your wider concerns might be – such as going green, helping with animal rights, and so on. Then your mission will be about so much more than just making money.

Your brand is not just about shopping; it’s about enhancing lives, so anything you can include in your story that emphasizes this should resonate with your audience. Here is mine

You Won’t Always Have Control of the Stories Told about You

As soon as reviews and testimonials start to come in and get published on sites like Amazon or comments are made on social media, your brand’s image, and reputation, and people’s perceptions, can change significantly – and not always for the better. If this happens, don’t turn a spark into a forest fire. Just redouble your efforts to get honest, positive reviews to drown out any negativity. Get them from real people. Don’t write them yourself in an attempt to fool people. It will make things that much worse if you get caught.

On the upside, consumer-generated content that is positive will help with content creation and give an authentic ring of truth to your sales materials.

 

Consistency

Your story should be consistent across all your channels. Who are you, what do you do, and what motivates you to do it? This is where you can apply that copy and paste technique.

Different Voices, Same Story

Anyone in your company can contribute to the storytelling. They can talk about where they get their ideas to help people, why it is so great working for a green company, and so on. This is particularly effective when it comes to recruiting efforts. Hearing directly from current or past employees

Multimedia

Offer written stories, video and audio. Encourage your customers to record their testimonials. Consider giving them a few questions or prompts to help get the ball rolling. A good friend of my Steve of Rapport 24/7 designed an app that does just that – grab your customer’s testimonials in a video.

Include Images

Everyone loves good images that support what the text is talking about. Use images, memes, infographics and more to make your stories stand out. If you are short on images try Unsplash and Pexels which are free.

Authentic

Your story should feel real, honest, and authentic – not hype. If your content isn’t getting passed around a lot, chances are it might not feel authentic enough to your target audience. Or perhaps they feel they have seen it before and your story is a bit stale, or not unique enough. Some people struggle with identifying their authentic self – if so, here is a daily affirmation I provide to entrepreneurs to help them be true to themselves and their business.

Storytelling can take your brand to a whole new level. Use these best practices to make the most of this form of marketing.

Don’t have your biz story yet? Connect ambitious go-getters who want to become profitable and successful entrepreneurs so that they can launch the small business they always dreamed of. Join here: bit.ly/smallbizsociety

Please share your thoughts and ideas directly in the comments. You never know how your words will connect with others that visit my site. Remember, being a business owner doesn’t mean you have to do it alone:)

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