How to Create an Authentic Brand Story Through Trust
Storytelling is very popular with clients these days. Brands know the power of stories and we help tell it by transforming our client’s online presence and building trust.
Trusted brands like Kit Masters and Leech Lake connect with their audience through realized power of their brand story, built over time, within their respective industries.
But what’s in a story and how does a brand develop authenticity? A true measurement based on a trusted feeling, craved by loyal customers of the brand.
Your Brand Stories Should Create Trust
There is good reason for the popularity, as stories are influential in the way humans communicate. Their descriptive power triggers a response in the brain in deeply affecting ways. Reading a story delivers an experience like no other, giving our imagination an opportunity to step into the writer’s mind, taking us to a new place and time. Even if for a moment.
In this process, a speaker and listener share a story that allows their brands to interact in a dynamic way.
How Do You Capture the Personality of Your Brand Story That Builds Trust?
Brand stories are not ads or sales pitches, but rather a story that’s inspired by people. Creators. Influencers. The very presence of people venturing on the saga of growth and success. Many times, businesses get lost in a biography of an individual…a story “about us”. But your brand story is not that, it’s the personality that drives the story. It’s how an entity evolves it’s personality into a brand.
You build trust with your brand by building trust with people. A personality-driven brand story is a way for your customer to connect with a real person.
A company’s origin story may be more involved with a historical past with lots of layers and complexity. At its core is a simple, straightforward concept that involves a problem, solution, and success. This is how the company solved the problem at hand and defines who they are as a brand.
Simple is best. Every story follows a simple three-part model with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is the problem you’ve identified that needs to be solved. The middle is the solution. And the end is your success you produced. Not the end of the road…but rather the beginning of your new adventure! Simple stories build trust.
Focus on Why Your Brand Exists
Why does your business exist? The answer is your brand story.
A shoe company can exist to make money, but that’s not their story. A company tagline of “one for one” tells their customers that every purchased pair of shoes is matched with a donated pair of shoes to someone in need. Now, the shoe company exists to improve lives. This is simple, yet so much more meaningful than a complex story about profit.
Connect with Your Customers Through Your Story
Your story builds trust by connecting with your customers. When you relate to your customers and they relate to you, your customers begin to understand you. They engage with you. For example, an outdoor adventure company connects with active, adventurous people. They connect and inspire an outdoor lifestyle with a mantra to “never stop exploring” and a brand story that backs up this ideal.
When a brand story is successful, the customers will be more than part of the story. They will buy the story – they contribute in a financial way to support the cause, feed the success, and ensure the story is carried on. When a customer purchases your product, it’s important for them to feel they are buying the brand story that defines what that product is. When they customer owns the story, they trust it.
Very few companies do this as well as Patagonia. They bring the brand story to a whole new level.
How to Get Other People to Tell Your Brand Story
Now that you know what the story is, we need to know how the story gets told. When a story is done right, others will appreciate and engage – and share. As the story takes care of itself, you can give your story a boost to ensure it is being heard:
- Build your brand with personality and grow your reach
- Be active and engage on social media
- Tell your story every, encouraging your customers to tell the story
Stories are a vehicle for building trust and belief. When people hear your story in more places, it reinforces their trust. And when they start telling your story themselves, they trust it even more.
How Do You Tell an Authentic Brand Story?
- Add personality with the brand’s persona at center stage
- Simple is best, experience tells us so
- Focus on why your brand exists…simple and meaningful, like… exists to improve lives…or to inspire adventure
- Let your story connect you with your customers showing how you relate with them
- Customers are buying more than your product, they need to feel they are buying your brand story
- Encourage customers to be storytellers of your brand
Is a Logo the Same As the Brand?
The simple answer is no. A logo is the visual element that represents the brand. But the brand is a combination of all tangible and intangible assets that represent the business identity and is part of the bigger picture. Without the brand and the story behind it, the logo wouldn’t have any real meaning. Your logo is part of how you tell your brand story.
What Is the Process To Create a Brand Story?
Step 1 is to write about why you started your company, based on the problems you identified and solved. A great brand story has a short beginning, middle, and end that is engaging and emotional. If people make an emotional connection with your brand’s persona and identity, they will find you relatable, and be more likely to trust your brand.
We’re excited to hear your story and be the next to help tell it.
