How to Sell Your Brand Through Story

Have you ever been introduced to an overly chatty person?

They pause briefly to learn your name, then launch into an extended monologue about their life and interests. After finally "escaping" the interlude, you realize they didn't ask you a single question.

When you meet someone like this, does it raise a red flag?

This pushy demeanor causes you to lose trust in their entire character. The same can be true in marketing when companies spend too much time talking about themselves instead of authentically connecting with consumers. Without building adequate rapport, marketers prematurely oversell or repel prospects for good.

How can you avoid this mistake? By building connections through story.

The Human to Human Connection

Building brand stories sets buyers at ease and creates the best possible customer experience.

Today's consumers prefer an increasingly personalized experience, and sharing your brand through story is one of the best ways to build relationships. Brand stories offer a friendly introduction to your company, building trust with a generation that craves distinct, authentic connections.

Many companies don't think of themselves as a brand or believe they have a story to tell. And that's just not the case! A brand story isn't simply a chronological account of your history, it's a portrait of who you are. Your brand story consists of:

• What your brand says about itself


• What your brand does in the world


• What others believe and say about your brand


• How people interact with your brand

Here's an example of one business bringing their story to life:

Chipotle's Mexican Grill is a brand known for serving "food with integrity." Chipotle has labeled itself "as real as it gets," using only 51 ingredients and no heat lamps, freezers, or microwaves. A recent print ad included the line: "For real foods. For real actions. For real change."

Chipotle seeks to fulfill people's desire for clean eating and to change the way people think about fast food. The core of this ethos includes respect for farmers, animals, and the environment, and transparent displays of ingredients and producers on every menu. Tipping toward satire, the brand's recent 51 ingredient billboard campaign featured this phrase: The only ingredient that's too hard to pronounce at Chipotle is "Chipotle."

Finding Connection

On a neural level, the brain actually "feels" a story.

Story-based communication brings greater comprehension and allows your listeners to grow in confidence and receptivity because people buy in to what they trust!

To create meaningful customer connections, begin by intentionally discovering who you are talking to and deliver the message your audience wants or needs to engage with.

Build a narrative that is captivating, concise, consistent, and conversational. Then do your best to share this everywhere! Think of your brand story as a steady IV drip of content, delivered to multiple audiences, over many years, in a variety of formats.

Whether it involves large-scale displays, mounted core values, or social media content, ensure your story stays consistent across mediums. Keeping attributes simple and clear will allow consumers to recognize you in every setting and to feel at home with all that your brand stands for.

Bring Your Story to Life

Stories make life interesting because they fulfill curiosity and craving in every person.

Telling your brand story is mission-critical in forging relationships with a generation that desires to buy into more than just a product, but into a narrative that gives meaning and pleasure to their daily lives.

How to Win Over Millennials with Effective Print Marketing

Millennials and their Gen Z siblings are the first truly digital generations, some learning to swipe a screen before they could wipe their own faces!

Millennials are a particularly powerful bunch, currently holding more spending power than Baby Boomers. By 2020, this group will have a collective spending power of $1.4 trillion. What does this look like in a daily snapshot?

• More than nine in ten millennials own smartphones, and 90% of millennials have at least one social media profile. Of that majority, 52% are active on 5 or more social media sites


• Millennials make up 58% of mobile shoppers and are 2.5 times more likely than the average shopper to be influenced by a mobile app.


• 73% of online millennials believe that internet has been mostly a good thing for society, and they certainly believe their gadgets bring personal benefits: 53% of Millennials said they would rather give up their sense of smell than their technology! 


• While young people love being online, they don't go there to read ads. In fact, YouTube recently hit upon the idea of six-second ads as a way to try and keep fidgety viewers watching.

While online presence can build your brand and increase your web traffic, businesses are finding their digital marketing campaigns are easily lost in the shuffle of online noise. Print is gaining influence each year, with direct mail alone showing strong results among millennials:

• 92% are influenced to make a purchase by direct mail.


• 90% said they would prefer direct mail over email.


• 90% think direct mail advertising is reliable.


• 73% use direct mail coupons when making purchases. 


• 63% responded to a direct mail piece to make a purchase. 

Corner Younger Markets

When you want to reach new generations through print marketing, here are three ways to make your message more effective.

1. Keep it short and sweet.

Young people want answers fast, so keep ads quick and to the point.

Avoid long advertisements, and think about ways to increase visibility. Here's one inspiring example:

Reddit currently has over 1 billion unique visitors per month, but at its conception, the company only had a small advertising budget of $500. Faced with limited options, its founders turned to stickers. Everywhere they traveled, they put stickers on posts and signs. They even gave them out to people with the request to "please sticker responsibly." The sticker campaign paid off and later led to other grassroots campaigns that helped make Reddit enormously successful.

2. Use social proof.

Need an accurate answer?

Phone a friend or poll the audience! Millennials and teens trust friends, family, and testimonies more than the company they're buying from, so incorporate reviews and user content in your ads to demonstrate why other others love your product. Use quotes, pictures, or user benefits others have realized, and you will easily gain influence.

3. Make it tech-friendly.

Use your company website in all print advertising, and consider adding QR codes and scannable coupons to increase digital and offline connections.

Use pictures of people using your products with links to unique online landing pages so you can better track your results. Make it easy for people to access your company online, and your sales will see an immediate boost.

Print to Win

In an ever-changing world, effective companies must learn to translate their products and values to a new demographic.

Be intentional through print, and you will cut through the clutter today.

 

Easy Ideas to Boost Your Social Media Standing

Social media is an increasingly popular way for brands to connect with consumers. Almost 60% of Americans engage with brands on social media between 1 and 3 times daily.

But pinpointing the right strategy for your business can be a challenge. Need inspiration?

Here are three practical examples of entrepreneurs who are jumping off the screen to convert and keep customers through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Edge Body Boot Camp

Edge Body Boot Camp (EBBC) uses both Instagram and Facebook to create a vibrant, friendly social media presence.

EBBC uses social media to create a sense of community by incorporating members into their content. Using photos of individuals holding "I survived" chalkboards, personalized posts congratulate people for things like finishing their first workout, completing a 30-day fitness challenge, or achieving a specific goal over time (pounds lost, miles run, etc).

Takeaways: EBBC uses social media to create brand loyalty and inspire repeat customers. Since pictures on Facebook receive 53% more likes than an average post, this is especially effective for boosting engagement. Add hashtags to your photos and they can be used as clickable links on Facebook or you can link all public posts that have the same hashtag (like EBBC's #isurvived).

Eileen Lanza Realty

Eileen Lanza is a top real estate investor and realtor in the Los Angeles area.

Lanza understands the importance of real-time updates via social media, and leans heavily on Twitter to keep a steady stream of information available to clients. 92% of all user interactions on Twitter are in the form of click links, which can be formatted as a hashtag or as a link to an external website. Lanza often includes both in her tweets: a hashtag at the beginning (i.e. "Just leased in #Larchmont – Spanish style Bungalow . . ." and a second link (which readers can follow for full listings or articles) with an image like this.

Takeaways: Location or event-based hashtags help attract relevant audiences and snag new leads. Images with external web links can grab the eyes and catalyze curiosity in readers.

See Jane Work

"See Jane Work" is a company that sells stylish office and supply solutions for women who want to be successful in organizing their homes, careers, and futures.

As platforms have grown more involved in sales and marketing, revenues for social media sales have expanded quickly as well. See Jane Work uses shoppable Instagram posts (denoted with a small white shopping icon in the corner) to tag products, lead viewers to their website, and to make purchases incredibly easy for users who see something they are dying to have!

Takeaways: Use shoppable posts to showcase products in a natural way through story themes that connect to your brand. "Jane" is a fictional character that embodies everything working women are today, and often shoppable posts show versions of Jane with her own trendy styles and products that are helping her kill it each day.

Keep Your Name Current

Social media can be liberating to individual users but overwhelming to entrepreneurs.

Use these tangible examples for inspiration or plan quarterly content curating sessions with your team to generate ideas and be proactive in your posting. Need help keep your name current and your message fresh? We can help!

Build Rapport with Readers Using Concrete Customer Personas

What is the value of print in an increasingly paperless world?

An international 2017 study revealed print brought readers greater enjoyment, deeper understanding of a product, and more willing engagement.

• 68% of people say they do not pay attention to online ads


• 57% do their best to avoid them.


• Conversely, 52% prefer to read product catalogs in print


• 45% of consumers said they like receiving personally addressed advertising or leaflets


• 46% said they would be more likely to respond after seeing a newspaper or magazine ad (versus viewing the same copy online).

As you craft print messages, how can you build rapport with readers?

A 2014 Edelman Brandshare survey found that the majority of consumers are suspicious of brands' intentions (only 30% believed companies had a sincere commitment to customers). With this in mind, your marketing should focus less on giving information and more on building trust.

Make Your Marketing All About Your Customers

To create the best possible experience so your prospects are ready to buy, begin with a deliberate focus on the audience (not the company) and invest intentional energy to discover who you are actually talking to.

How do you do this?

By detailing exactly who your target markets are: chronicling their pain points, struggles, or aspirations, and articulating how you can provide a delightful solution or experience for them.

3 Steps for Building Customer Personas

Here are three steps for building customer personas:

1. Ask the Right Questions

Building accurate personas means identifying what your ideal customers have in common, how you can address their desires, and how your products or content can solve their problems.

Ask questions like:

• What do my ideal customers desire? What do they need help with?


• What is our target demographic? What are their hobbies or interests? What risks or decisions are they navigating?


• What professional, personal, or family challenges are they facing? What stirs their emotions (like fear, excitement, or pride)?

Focusing on identity keys makes it easier to develop high-level content that set a relevant tone and cuts to the heart.

2. Talk to People

Once you craft sample personas, go directly to current clients (via calls, e-mail, online chats, or through your sales reps) and find out as much as you can.

Test your assumptions, look for common threads, and write down individual phrases or stories people share. Fill in the gaps and gather as much information as possible.

3. Condense and Consolidate

Once you've gathered data, comb through and collate.

Look for common themes like concerns, hopes, desires, challenges. At this stage, craft a rough draft of several marketing personas (at least three to start with).

Brainstorm attributes for each persona, make a succinct list of identity keys, and list connection points your brand can make with these people. Name each persona (i.e. Sarah Student, Soccer Mom Sally, Broker Bill) or add images to make them come alive.

Finding Common Ground

Ultimately, humanized marketing is about delivering the type of messages your audience wants to engage with in mediums they trust the most.

Personas also give you a launchpad for asking the right questions and giving them the power to "win" as they choose for themselves.

In the words of Jeffrey Gitomer, author of The Sales Bible:

"People don't like to be sold to, but they love to buy."

How to Build Trust in Your Team

Once there was a businessman on a routine domestic flight.

Though a seasoned flyer, he felt tense when, shortly after takeoff, the pilot asked everyone to stay in their seats with belts fastened. Moments later the pilot announced there would be no beverage service due to unexpected turbulence. People looked worried, and soon some were shrieking with alarm as a storm bounced the plane erratically.

Nearby, the man saw a little girl sitting all alone, but acting totally calm. When the plane jolted she closed her eyes briefly but eventually started reading, looking out the window, or fiddling with toys until the shaking subsided.

After the flight, the girl waited quietly as others exited. When the man approached and asked how she could be so brave, she said:

"My dad is the pilot, and he is taking me home."

Weather the Storms

Does your team trust that you are taking them home?

When the clouds form and turbulence comes, do your people trust you to guide them through? Building trust may not be on your regular "to do" list, but it can cement a foundation so you can build high and strong.

Here are five tips to increase trust in your workplace or family today:

1. Show your vulnerabilities.

Great leaders are connected leaders, and people relate more with your weaknesses than your strength.

To truly connect with people you serve, it's important to share not just strengths and victories but struggles and setbacks. Admit your mistakes. Apologize. Be proactive about gathering negative feedback. And use your own errors to teach or encourage others.

2. Regularly delegate authority.

Give trust to get trust.

If you run a regular staff meeting, occasionally have others develop the agenda or lead the discussion. No one enjoys a micromanager who constantly takes credit or dominates others. Step back into the shadows and you will build a wealth of relational currency.

3. Be transparent about money.

Sharing financial information can be a huge boon to the bottom line.

However, a 2016 study found that only 25 percent of privately held companies were sharing financial information with all of their employees. Whether your firm is publicly-traded or privately-held, the time you spend explaining and talking about results will allow team members to feel they are a valuable, integral part of your circle. And it helps people understand how they can positively impact the financial performance of the business as a whole.

4. Operate from a visible set of values.

If your firm lacks clear values, define them.

Mount them on walls, design strategic symbols to communicate them, or put a face on them by sharing testimonies of team members who are living the values. People thrive when they have context for their work and its importance to the bigger picture.

5. Don't let difficult issues linger.

When times get tough, the clock on your credibility starts ticking.

Don't allow difficult situations to corner you – instead confront them head-on and get your team involved too. The formation of problem-solving groups can energize your staff and provide opportunities to reward creativity and individual contributions. Groups can be tasked with brainstorming strategies or exploring new models.

If your "difficult issue" is a person, be intentional about heading off conflicts immediately. Be hard on the problem and soft on the person. Be assertive but courteous, addressing specific complaints and providing clear expectations about the response and timeframe needed to resolve them.

Trust is built through daily interactions and intentional gestures. You have many opportunities to gain trust each day. Work hard in the small things and you'll weather storms with confidence!

Use Emotional Marketing to Win Customers

In 2014, an animated film titled "Super Amma" was created to teach mothers in rural India the importance of consistent hand-washing.

Because families had no running water (and typically only used soap when dirt was visible), changing mindsets was a daunting task. The solution? Health officials put together an inspirational animated film starring "Super Amma," a mother who loved and cared for her son, eventually helping him grow up to become a doctor.

Dubbed "an extraordinary tale of an ordinary mother," Super Amma used the powerful appeal of a nurturing mother to forge an emotional connection between regular handwashing and a mom's desire to care for her children. Initially rolled out in 14 villages, the results were better than expected. Six months after the first campaign, 37% of families were regularly washing their hands with soap.

Emotional Connection Rules All

All of us understand the power of emotions.

They drive us to pursue dreams, keep us from making destructive choices, and can easily nudge us in a particular direction when we make decisions.

Marketers can use emotions like vital arrows when advertising a particular product or service. But to build an emotional connection with your audience, you need to understand what's motivating your buyers. What are they hoping to achieve? What feelings are they searching for with your product or service?

According to MEG research, there are three key motivators that affect most buyers: trust, confidence, and empathy. How could you use one or two of these emotional triggers to move your core buyers?

Emotional Trigger: Trust.

Move Customer to Believe: "Acme Company is a company I can depend on. I trust that they'll do what I say."

Trust is a powerful motivator! Share hard facts, testimonials, stories, and convincing benefits to show prospects that placing their confidence in you is a worthwhile decision.

Slogan example: "You're in good hands with Allstate."

 

Emotional Trigger: Confidence.

Move Customer to Believe: "I have confidence that Acme Company has the expertise to meet my needs and the tools to do it with excellence."

When seeking to sell a product or service, your goal is to convince buyers that your marketing claim is credible and so is your company. Move prospects from believing that your product brings results to believing it can bring results for THEM.

Slogan example: "Stronger hair, stronger you. For hair that shines with all its strength." (Garnier)

 

Emotional Trigger: Empathy.

Move Customer to Believe: "Acme Company understands my present situation, and is there to walk me through purchasing decisions and service support after I make a commitment."

It's not about you, it's about THEM. To make lasting emotional connections with customers, show that you understand where they are coming from and demonstrate how what you offer solves their problem.

Slogan example: "Make quitting suck less." (Nicorette nicotine replacement therapy products.)

Use Print to Get to the Heart

Statistics show that emotional marketing campaigns are nearly twice as effective as those that have a rational focus, and print ads that generate an emotional response outperform other ads by a factor of 2-to-1.

When you recognize the key motivators of your audience, identify similarities among those who respond to your brand and speak to their desired emotional benefit.

By getting to the heart of your audience (causing prospects to buy-in to more than just the logical "result" of your product) you go from simply conveying a message to evoking a response.