The Power of Storytelling and Narrative Branding

As a professional that has devoted her life to studying creative design and producing creativity, newness, and branding, I have been called a ‘brand expert.’ But what is that exactly? The pedagogy of branding is a fluid practice. A brand must be fluid as well; moreover, the only constant in branding today is change, or more poignantly, continually developing. So every day, I choose to be a brand scholar by studying brands and their products. I hope you see this in BEAU MONDE’s myriad articles and presentations.

A brand expert must study brands and their CTPs (Customer Touch Points) on a consistent basis. To be a brand expert, one must hypothesize, analyze, and conclude on a progressive continuum. Every day, I have new opportunities to experience people and their brands. I have devoted and will continue to devote, countless hours to not just knowing what a brand is, but really being able to prove and put into a logical formula: the art of a top brand.

In this article, I reveal a 4-step process that can help you to utilize the practice of Narrative Branding by crafting your story, finding your tribe, re-defining your story in a narrative style, and utilizing the power of that narrative across your CTPs and products to ultimately grow your brand. If you’re not the best writer, fear not, there’s a bevy of resources out there - Liz Ash being one of them! So here are my 4 Tips on how to start from the beginning if you think you want a re-fresh you can apply these at any point in your career. Good luck!

The Power of Narrative Branding (Step 1)

There are myriad ways for brands to express their “story” and capture their audience. As a business owner, you have a personal story that can enhance your brand and attract an audience. A successful brand illuminates the relationship between the “how” and the “why” with the precision of a lawyer’s memo, an essay’s thesis, or a surgeon’s incision. Moreover, developing, nurturing, and illuminating your business’s value proposition (a three-sentence maximum who, what, when, where, why, and how) is imperative to communicate your brand. Here’s what we did for award-winning artist Stefan Rurak:

“Stefan Rurak furniture defies conventional boundaries. Founded by the artist Stefan Rurak, his Brooklyn-based atelier merges modern conceptual design with time-honored craftsmanship. The results are evocative, one-of-a-kind furniture that are built to span generations. Stefan Rurak Studio crafts furniture that transcends utilitarian ends and becomes art.”

A brand expert or fan wants to know about you and your brand in as few words as possible just as your customer does. You get 6 seconds (so they say) of a person’s time when they hit your website, so it must be very clear what and how you will keep them longer.

What is your product, service, or brand? Adjectives that stimulate the senses are important here. Where and when did it originate? Why did your brand originate? What problem does your brand solve? Who are your brand’s target audience/true fans? How do you know all of the above?! Who are you with respect to the said brand? Why are you doing what you are doing? Why does your brand exist? Why should I listen to you? Why should I - a prospective customer - care?

Find Your Tribe (step 2)

This isn’t as difficult as it may seem. Think about who your target audience is and define each different variation of your customer if you can by using “personas.” These can easily be started by taking a look at your analytics on your website, and social media pages. Start with rough outlines of who a potential client is by defining that client in a thorough way.

Name, Age, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Location, Career, Mode of Transportation, Favorite websites or magazines, values, hobbies, etc.

(For example, I am going to make one persona to represent one of my target clients: Her name is Dani, she is from 18-35, she works for herself in a creative field like Styling, she travels by car, she lives in Los Angeles/New York, she attends events in her industry, a lot of her time is spent with clients and designers BUT more of her time is spent in the car/traveling (this is key for me to understand and utilize by way of advertising on subways or highways etc).

Can you see Dani now? (Well, the infamous Kardashian stylist is a real client, check out the website and identity I created for her here.) The pieces of information presented above are the most important to establish, but they may seem rather mundane so once your “outline” is established use your resources to go deeper, reach out on social media and ask questions, and provide Educational, Entertaining, and Engaging content ( THE 3 E’s ) on your social media feeds. And then use analytical tools to flesh out your persona further:

Dani loves fairytales, numbers, art, and networking, she’s a social savant maybe even in a ruthless way. Dani is intelligent in the art of superficial style as her job requires: she frequents fashion/lifestyle/streetwear blogs, her Instagram Feed, and studies new releases of lines of fashion and related news on the regular.

Share Your Story in Life Vignettes that Show Authority (step 3)

Write about your personal experience and show off your expertise. By writing your own personal stories, your ideal audience will gain trust, begin to like you, and will connect with you on a new level. Why? Because they will see themselves in you and will want to experience a transformation in their lives or overcome a problem, just like you did. You can achieve this by writing blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, eBooks, and more…and sharing your personal stories throughout. Relate out to your audience and see which “struggles” they could currently be going thru that you can help them with! Sharing your story with authority is so important. As usual, after you post you analyze, which of your vignettes or little life moments are resonating most and with whom? Let’s do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, strengths).

Start to Develop Posts and Products that Help (step 4)

Create posts and products that either offer help thru relating, or that will help your audience navigate thru their current dilemmas. Remember, ideally your product will show thru your own personal narrative how you were able to identify a certain dilemma, address that problem, and then solve that problem. You don’t have to solve problems in one e-book or course. Simply offer one solution to one problem, and take your client through a step-by-step process to get from point A to point B. By sharing your own personal story of transformation, your sales pages will write themselves, and your ideal clients will be happy to purchase from you because they know that you’ve been where they are or that you’re someone that has helped other people who have been where they are and you were able to get from distress to success in a beautifully collaborative way.

Bottom line: people make buying decisions on like and trust. By sharing your personal stories of transformation, you can build these like and trust factors much more quickly. Now is the time to share your story. What are you waiting for?