All businesses that want to be easily recognized, known, and loved need one thing in common — effective brand management. However, despite the importance of branding for businesses and organizations, brand management is revealed to be the second most undervalued marketing skill, according to marketers. In fact, 43.1% of marketers believe that brand management isn’t given the attention it deserves by businesses.
Today, brand management is essential in helping businesses stand out in a crowded market. By employing effective branding strategies, companies benefit from having a loyal customer base that enjoys engaging and interacting with their brand, creating a sense of community. In this post, we’ll look at why storytelling is essential for brand management and share some tips for improving your brand stories:
Why storytelling is essential for brand management
Managing a business means going through numerous ups and downs. One of the most common pitfalls for businesses is that their brand or presence tends to become forgettable over time or as products and services stagnate.
In a previous post discussing how businesses can create a memorable brand, we highlighted how storytelling has become one of the most effective tools for communicating and interacting with the customer. This is because storytelling has become a primary way to communicate complex and relevant information, both essential for marketing a business’ brand.
At its core, storytelling for brand management creates a fun and engaging way for customers to interact with your business, as a good story is bound to make customers project themselves into your brand’s story. When companies tell stories that customers can relate to, these customers are more likely to want to buy their products or services.
Today, various forms of storytelling, such as anecdotes and testimonials, have become critical elements of marketing and advertising to help build trust and loyalty between businesses and customers.
Tips for improving a brand’s storytelling
While storytelling remains a popular means of brand management for businesses, many still fail to establish lasting connections with their customers. Below are some tips to improve storytelling for your brand:
Hire a brand manager
Good storytelling requires consistency and vision. Many businesses today employ a brand manager to help oversee marketing initiatives for a brand. A brand manager is responsible for ensuring that your products, services, and product lines resonate with current and potential customers while maintaining the brand’s overall story.
Essentially, brand managers work with marketing teams to help maintain a business’s public image and ensure brand consistency through social media and other business content. Having a brand manager on your team can help ensure your brand management strategy remains true to your business goals and vision.
Adopt emotive marketing
Every good story should make its audience feel something. Whether it’s anger, sadness, joy, or other emotions entirely depends on your marketing strategy, but nothing harms a brand more than indifference. Today, emotive marketing is used to influence customer perceptions, decisions, and actions.
Different emotions can significantly influence consumer behavior and decision-making processes — even negative ones. For example, inciting passion can fuel brand loyalty, while surprising your audience can make your brand more memorable. Even anger can be helpful for awareness campaigns or cause-related marketing strategies.
At the end of the day, incorporating storytelling elements into your brand management strategy can do wonders for your business. It can be easy to get lost in the numbers and focus solely on developing products and services, but remember that humans are inherently drawn to stories and narratives. The ability to evoke emotions and reactions from storytelling can help make your brand stand out in a competitive market.
