Bringing your business to life in your brand story

Ever struggled to articulate what your business is really all about? You’re not alone.

Telling your brand story well can be a tricky task.

There’s no point using words worn thin by over-use (let’s face it, passionate, proactive, integrity and honesty should really be in rocking chairs on a sunny veranda in the Home for Retired Adjectives by now). You need to find words that say something that makes your story go from beige to showing your true brand colours.

Where to start?

In a world where B2B businesses are seen online, and often transacted with online, we sometimes forget to think about how our brand is actually experienced.

And that experience can be created – purposefully – through our brand story. How? By going back to bricks and mortar and creating your ultimate brand experience. And once you have done that, bringing that experience to life in your brand story becomes a whole lot easier.

Imagine you own a shop. Bear with me, I’m not proposing you rent a spot on your local High Street, although the proximity to that coffee shop is tempting. But imagining your business as an actual, physical space helps imagine what the experience of your brand is all about.

It will help if you draw it (promise). Draw a shop front, a shop door, and put your name over the top. Congrats, you are a shop owner. Don’t think about the rent and rates, it’ll do awful things to your blood pressure.

As you draw, doodle and ponder, ask yourself these ten questions:

• What do you put in the window to catch the eye of the customers you really want in your business? You can think of objects that represent an aspect of your business, or you can put words or phrases as your window centre piece?

• What will your window prompt people to think / feel?

• What in the window will be the most persuasive thing to get people to come inside?

• Once they are in the shop (which is the inside of your business, just in case you have got lost in the shop metaphor) what do your customers first notice?

• What do you put on the first shelf that will make them look closer?

• As they browse what you offer, what one or two emotions do they feel?

• What can they smell?

• What music is playing that best represents your business and gives them the right experience?

• How would you most like them to describe the experience of walking round your business?

• What can you offer them in your shop that they can’t get elsewhere?

There are lots more questions you can ask yourself when thinking about your brand as a physical space (and perhaps your brand is not a shop, but a field, or a restaurant, or some place else) but jotting down your answers will give you lots of words and phrases that capture the experience you are trying to create for your customers.

Weave some of the most important, potent descriptions into your brand story to help set your story apart and really bring to life for your audience what it looks, sounds and feels like to work with you.

Your brand story creates a picture of your shop front to entice people in. Don’t leave it to chance, otherwise before you know it, there’ll be a dead wasp and a half-naked mannequin in the window and customers will just walk on by.

 If you want help creating a brand story that stops potential customers in their tracks, why not talk to me about a Brand Story Cultivator, where we work together creatively using the Story Wheel to build a story you’ll be excited to share, that will truly represent what you are about and will stick in the minds of your prospects. Email me here.