Writing Your Brand Story
Crafting your brand story isn’t a once-and-done activity, it’s living and growing and changing as you do. The experiences that are important for you to highlight might change as the stage of your business does, the tone and voice you use could change as well.
People don’t just want to see the ‘perfect’ world online any more.
More and more, people are coming to social media and websites to decide why they should want to work with you, buy from you, and support you over similar options. How do they decide this? They want to know what your values are, how are you got to where you are, who helped you get there, the sort of person that you are, and whether they could see themselves working with you in the long run.
When you’re writing your brand story you have to keep this in mind. It’s no longer just about dates and places, people want to hear anecdotes they want to hear about your mistakes and the crazy things that you did wrong but that got you where you are today.
5 tips to write a badass brand story:
Why did you start? What problem were you trying to solve? And what goals were you wanting to reach?
Try to think of the first time you thought of your business.There was something that made you want to start this business. Maybe you felt the need to help people, or you saw a situation and thought ‘I can fix that’, or even ‘I can do this better than that’. Set the scene, many of the people who want to know your story won’t necessarily have known you when you started. Explain the people the situation and the challenges in a way that a stranger would understand.
The Big 3 Moments
From where you started to today, your business has likely gone through a few changes and faced a few challenges. Think back and try to nail down 3 pivotal moments - times you were up against a challenge and you overcame it; times you were surrounded by great support and emotion; times you shifted focus or priorities in your business; or times you reached your goals. These are the things that people are able to interact with and feel even though they weren’t there in the moment.
Create Connection
For each of your three moments, think of the ways that your audience can connect. For each point:
-What lessons could they learn?
-What similar situations would they have been in?
-What problems are they facing that they can relate to this?
Your Business Mission
Now you’ve gone over how you got here, reflect on where you business is today. Think about the goals that you want to achieve, and the people that you want to provide for, and how you are showing up to do these. What has changed? Even if your business looks different, do your core values still look similar? Looking at where you have been and where you are wanting to go, in under 1-3 sentences, write down the purpose of your business and how you will serve your customers.
Pull It Together & Connect Your Mission With Your Story
Now is the fun part - tidying it up and pulling it all together! Through doing this activity, you should be able to see all the parts of a story coming together - you have the hero (you!), seeing a problem and realising that you could have the solution. You have the challenges and triumphs you face that your audience can relate to. And you have the resolution - your business today and where you’re heading in the future!
When you’re able to connect your mission to your story you’re able to get your audience really excited. They are able to see what you’re about, and whether you are the business that is going to be able to help them take next step.
