What is a Brand Story?
Starting a business isn’t easy. There are so many different things to think about, from your company name, to whether you’re going to be a limited company or sole trader, even down to how much you will charge for your products and services. But to me, the main thing – the very first thing you should think about – is your brand story.
Whatever type of business you start, there will always be a reason why you’ve chosen that path. Perhaps you’ve found a gap in the market whilst practising your hobby, or maybe someone bought you a sewing machine as a gift and you realised your life-long dream of making dog clothes! Whatever the reason, there’s always a story.
But why do I think this is so important? When starting a business, one of the obvious things you have to think of is the branding. A lot of people think this just relates to the logo, the colours, the fonts; but it’s so much more than this. Your brand encapsulates every single thing about your business which makes it unique. It’s the way you speak to your customers, the look & feel of your website, the particular words you use to describe your products. A good business maintains a thread throughout everything they produce so that anyone who sees it will know which brand it is.
The best and most effective way to build your brand starts with your brand story. Let’s take a look at mine.
I’ve been working in marketing ever since I first started my career in 2009. I found it such an interesting industry, always changing and evolving, and always relevant. I knew I wanted to be a part of it and have always been a very vocal advocate for how good marketing can transform a business.
Along with many others, my business’ brand story began when I got made redundant. After a couple of days reeling, I realised that this event didn’t make me or my skills worth any less, and even better than this, it didn’t make me scared for the future. It was actually the push I needed to focus my attention on something I’m passionate about – showing businesses how much they can grow using simple and effective marketing techniques. And so here we are!
Your brand story doesn’t have to be ground-breaking; it doesn’t even have to be that unique. All that matters is that it’s yours and that you use it to build a company which is ground-breaking and unique. Telling your story helps your customers understand the identity behind your company and the products or services that you sell, and ultimately this will make them more likely to return. People like to be able to relate to the things they buy and the people they buy them from.
In addition to this, ensuring that your ‘brand thread’ is tightly woven around everything that you do will make it easier for you to grow and develop your business into new avenues, ensuring you remain relevant and successful.
The three steps to writing your brand story are as follows:
Make notes! Write down everything you can think of which brought you to the point of starting your business. This can be messy, it can be bullet points, it can just be words written messily all over a piece of paper. This is your starting point.
Start making sense of it. Make a timeline – lay out your points in a way that’s easy to understand and follow.
Once you’ve got a timeline that you’re happy with, it’s time to add the narrative and build it into your brand story.