Powerful brand stories are authentic and connect your audience to your brand based on the values you share with them in the brand story and their desires, needs, and aspirations. For more outreach, innovative brand stories convey empathy, create experiences and demand urgency, whether in marketing videos, posts or social media. 

A brand story is important because it helps your audience and customers understand who you are, what your business is, and why your business exists. It explains your mission, vision, purpose, and values to your audience and engages your potential customers who reason with you. 

When the audience relates to your why, they develop an emotional connection with your brand and are more likely to buy from your business. This is a significant driver of brand engagement and loyalty for corporate branding. 

What should a brand story include?

A brand story communicates your brand identity and design to your customers and general audience through a narrative structure.

To achieve this, your brand story narrative summary communicates your business’s key brand identity. So, your brand story should include the following: 

• History
• Purpose
• Mission and vision
• Core Values
• Target audience 

The brand story communicates these elements through a narrative structure that brings your brand story to life and engages the audience. 

In addition to these, the brand story should also have the following features in its communication for it to be effective: 

• Empathy: Structuring the narrative to make your audience see themselves in your brand story. 
• Engaging and attention-grabbing: Establish a distinct voice or persona for your brand story to make it instantly recognizable.
• Authentic: Telling a brand’s story begins with telling its truth. Be honest about your values, unique features, and challenges.
• Relatable: Use a narrative that your audience can relate to. Avoid using industry or technical jargon that your audience cannot relate to.
• Consistent. There’s no point in creating a wonderful brand story that’s at odds with the rest of your brand. Make your brand story with the rest of your offering to make it stick to the audience’s mind.
• Provoke action: What’s your CTA? Find a place in your story to place your call to action and push the audience into becoming customers.

How to Write Your Brand Story

Brand storytelling is an art. How you deliver your brand story will determine how it resonates with your audience or how the audience engages with it. So, you need to be strategic and deliberate in delivering your brand story to shape your brand narrative. 

Here are the three steps to write your brand story together with brand story examples: 

Step 1: Define and understand your audience

To tell a compelling business brand story, you must first define and understand your audience. 

One way to do this is by creating an archetype or persona that embodies the traits of your target audience. Get their age, name, profession, interests, and more items that define a persona. You can get this data through market research, customer listening, or statistical analysis.

Think of your audience as the protagonist of your brand story. What are their behaviors and interests? What are their needs? What challenges or problems do they face? 

Brand storytelling example: Google

The best brand story example is Google, a company that has realized the importance and benefits of storytelling for a targeted audience. 

In 2023, Google published a case study discussing how it developed its "Telling our story" Initiative. This initiative responded to people’s current view of products and services based on their potential to solve a problem, not the name or features of the product.

But that’s not all Google has done. Everybody now says “Google it” when they are searching for something on the Internet. Google used both conversion and emotions to target their audience: the digital people, anyone who wants to search for something on the Internet. Their targeted campaign made the Internet almost similar to Google.

The company’s brand is known to anyone who wants to search anything on the Internet because they know if they Google it they’ll find it. 

Step 2: Tell a brand story that supports your brand values

More than ever, thanks to technology and ease of getting information, customers care about brand values that give your brand identity. Examples of company values that a brand story can tell include:

• A commitment to customer experience 
• A commitment to diversity
• Respect for the environment
• Kindness to humanity 
• Commitment to employee well-being, such as work-life balance
• Sense of community 

Brand narratives help companies clarify these core values for audiences/customers and with a messaging framework that ensures a consistent voice across storytelling marketing.

To write an appealing brand story, you must first understand and outline your brand’s foundational beliefs. If your brand has multiple core values, your brand narrative can contain different stories, each focusing on a specific brand conviction. 

Brand storytelling example: Airbnb

Airbnb is an example of a company that tells its brand story with a focus on its values. Airbnb is successful because it uses its core values to shape how hosts create memorable stays for their guests. 

The company incorporates real stories and reviews from guests and hosts into its brand narrative using personal accounts and the core value of “champion the mission and be a host.” These are great stories because they are user-generated content (UGC), user content, content by users, etc. making them authentic and trustworthy.

Image source: If Airbnb could launch anything in 2022, what would it be? 

This strategy aligns with its reputation as a service and a customer-centric business telling its audience that they “can belong anywhere” as long as they find a host. "Be a host" encourages hosts to have genuine hospitality and create memorable guest experiences. Through personal accounts and inline with the mission, this value encourages hosts to support Airbnb's mission to provide authentic, local experiences for guests. 

Step 3: Be consistent with your brand narrative

The secret to a successful brand story is to stay consistent with the story. 

First, brand storytelling requires you to be authentic with the story to stay true to your brand’s identity. Whether in email marketing, social media, website, video, or a review site, you need to be consistent in your brand story. Second, the brand narrative must be consistent. So, you must highlight your brand's purpose, uniqueness, and what you want the audience to remember.

Your audience should feel like they know your brand. This means they’ll know what to expect from your brand each time they see a communication. 

Your brand story will be strong when your brand narrative and voice are cohesive and consistent.

Be careful not to feel pressured to jump into trends, use colloquial language or use internet slang, unless it aligns with your brand.

Brand storytelling example: Apple

Apple is perhaps the best brand when it comes to brand consistency. First, Apple's name alone carries a world of meaning in technology and innovation. 

All this stemmed from Apple’s brand promise, ‘Think Different,' which promises creative thinking and a difference in what Apple offers its customers. Apple’s branding story focuses on emotions about class, lifestyle, imagination, innovation, quality, passion, and power to the people through technology. 

All aspects of Apple's communication revolve around creating a singular perception of its brand in consumers' minds— think different. Everything from the marketing communication to the company’s product packaging delivers the same message of “think differently” to its customers, ensuring fluent engagement with the brand and minimizing potential confusion. 

Image source: Why Apple's 'Think Different' campaign worked so well  

And this strategy has paid off. Apple has ranked among the most valuable brands globally for years. Almost everyone would wish to own an Apple product. 

What's the importance of having a brand story?

An effective brand story will connect you to your target audience, support your marketing efforts and inspire your customers to take action. Here are the benefits of having  a brand story: 

Makes your brand memorable

In a sea of sameness, you need to be unforgettable. 

Having a quality product or service is no longer enough. You also need to talk about it in a way that differentiates you from the crowd. That’s where brand storytelling comes in.

Instead of throwing reviews/testimonials, facts, or statistics at your audience, telling them why you’re unique, focus on making your brand real, thoughtful, and memorable through a brand narrative. 

The brand story has to simplify information and provoke emotion so that your audience will think about you every time they want a product or service from you.

Builds customer loyalty

You don’t just need customers; you need a tribe. Your tribe is a group of loyal customers who resonate with your brand through your story.

When customers connect emotionally with your brand, they become loyal. 

Take Apple, for example. While they sell technology, they’ve made their customers feel that owning their product depicts class, boldness, and bravery to think differently from the crowd. Equally, Tesla’s customers also feel the need to support the environment and sustainable energy.

The two companies’ brand loyalty came from their brand stories through a deep emotional connection in conversations, media posts, marketing, and other channels. 

Improves sales

The simple hack is this: Once your audience knows, trusts, and likes you, they will more likely buy from you. 

Positioning yourself in the minds of your audience is a guarantee to increased sales. Take the example of AI tools that get an easy time in sales because users like and trust that they can help them. For example, this AI pitch deck is interactive and integrates with a bunch of tools, so it's much more engaging than a PDF. Users who know and trust the tool have no problem subscribing to its plans.

Fits well on social media

Brand storytelling is a cornerstone of any social media marketing strategy. Every post on any social media platform—Instagram, TikTok video, or YouTube Shorts—builds on your brand narrative.  When your audience resonates with the brand narrative, they identify with your brand. Isn’t that the essence of social media? 

Conclusion

Brand storytelling is about using narrative to create emotional connections with your audiences. 

A strong brand story should be distinct, relevant to your audience and brand values, memorable, and consistent. 

Using storytelling allows you to build trust with a buyer, which creates brand loyalty and more sales. 

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