How to Tell Your Most Compelling Brand Story

Your brand identity is your company in the eyes of the world.

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In today's competitive market, it is essential to have a brand identity that resonates with your target audience, clearly defines your values and differentiates yourself from competitors. To effectively communicate your brand identity, it is important to first clarify these aspects for yourself. Only then can you provide a cohesive understanding of who you are, what you do, and how you can solve their problems and meet their needs. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Make time for introspection

Before you can share your story with the world, you have to fully know and understand it yourself. A bit of introspection can go a long way in defining who you are and how you want to present yourself.

Take some time to answer these questions:

• What is your company’s overall purpose/mission? What’s the best way to convey this mission through your brand?
• What are your brand’s values and what does it stand for?
• How do you want your brand to be perceived by your clients and the general public? 

Know your clients

In addition to answering the questions above, conducting some research about your clients can also hold a significant impact on your brand. Many would call this building a "Buyer Persona", where you can gather information about your clients and meet them where they are. Below are some questions to consider:

• Who are your typical clients? What is the majority of your clients' age/gender? level of income? location? level of education? (this can be helpful for content marketing) and professional status?
• Who are your nontypical clients?
• What are your clients' pain points and challenges?
• What platforms do they use to gather information? What is their preferred social media network sites, influencers/thought leaders?
• How does your "Buyer Persona" prefer to purchase goods? How frequent should you expect them to come back and buy your services? What would help them decide on coming back? What stops them from coming back?
• How can you alert your clients to other ways that your brand can meet their needs? 
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Online analytics is an extremely helpful tool in order to learn more about your clientele. Additionally, comments, feedback, google reviews, emails, and texts can provide insights into your client base and their relationship with your brand. Social media platforms, such as Instagram, LinkedIn, and even TikTok, can also be valuable tools that provide essential data about your most loyal followers, as well as untapped audiences that you can target with focused efforts. 

Another way to improve online visibility is through search engine optimization (SEO) and backlinks services. These services can help businesses to rank higher in search engine results, resulting to an increase in website traffic, and ultimately attracting more clients. 

Is everyone at your business in alignment?

When improving your brand identity, it's essential to ensure that everyone in your organization is in alignment with your brand values, messaging, and goals. This means that everyone, from the leadership team to front-line employees, needs to understand and embody your brand identity consistently.

Introduce design templates to provide your team with a unified understanding of your brand identity, as well as your company’s overall vision right from the start. Having templates for every type of presentations, meetings and all types of branded assets and content will help avoid missteps, produce efficiency, promote a cohesive company image and offer key information your staff needs to know.

Zoom in on your focus

When you think of Nike, you might think of quality sports footwear, even though the company also sells apparel, accessories, and equipment. When you think of Coke, you might conjure up an image of a classic bottle or can of this iconic soda, but the parent company, Coca-Cola, also supplies brands like Powerade, Fuze Tea, Dasani, Minute Maid, and Sprite.

Your brand identity may revolve around one type of product or several types. In either case, you have to narrow your focus and create promo materials that don’t confuse the consumer. If you try to promote all your offerings at once, you may end up spreading too thin and with a puzzled audience.

When discussing how to make the most of marketing, Virgin Group founder Richard Branson recommends keeping your message simple. “If your business is focused on solving a problem that everyone has, it stands a really good chance at being successful,” he notes. He recommends finding a way to communicate your organization’s top values in a simple, concise manner. Figure out that one thing that makes your business stand out and write your brand messaging around that.

Determine what problem you are solving

Speaking of solving problems, think more closely about the top solutions your organization provides. It could be a problem that everyone has, as Branson talks about, or it could be a specific problem that a niche group experiences. Perhaps your brand helps teachers maximize classroom effectiveness for better student outcomes. Or your brand helps industrial kitchen staff members increase productivity while enjoying a safer work environment. In these niche cases, you want to create a clear brand identity that targets the groups you serve.

First figure out the demographics you’re serving and what specific problem your brand can solve for them. Then incorporate both their problem and your solution into your marketing messaging to develop a brand identity they feel confident turning to for support.

Avoid doubt

When you are giving a presentation to any interested parties, it’s important that you don’t create doubts in your audience’s minds. Poise yourself as an expert in your field by providing messages that make sense, backed by data that are reliant. Check and double-check your presentation materials to make sure you have not given conflicting statements, statistics, or messaging.

For customers to do business with you, they need to be sure of many things, including the fact that:

• They can trust you.
• Your brand will live up to your claims.
• Your products or services will solve their problems.
• You are open and transparent.
• They will have a positive experience with your organization.
• You are available for support.
• You are approachable and easy to work with.

Choose clarity

Sometimes business owners and marketers try to be extra clever. They work hard to create memorable slogans that are smart and sophisticated. If you can pull that off, great! But far too often, getting too clever comes with a cost – the price you end up paying is loss of clarity.

If your branding message is so witty and nuanced that people visiting your site or watching your presentation can’t figure out what, exactly, you do, then you’ve missed a valuable opportunity to inform and convert. When you’re tempted to get clever, test it out before you decide to go with it. Run your message by several people whose judgment you trust. If they’re confused or put off by it, scrap the idea. Come up with a simpler, clearer message instead.

Turn to the presentation specialists

If you don’t have the skills or time to create the kinds of presentations that will position your brand clearly in the most professional manner possible, consider working with presentation specialists. They can benefit you in many ways, including:

• Helping you tell your brand story in the most compelling way
• Ensuring that people who watch your presentation will get key messages and a consistent picture of your brand
• Presenting your company brand in an ultra-professional manner
• Simplifying your message so that people who hear it will be clear about who you are, what you do, and how you can help
• Providing the right balance of informative details and enticing visuals to keep the viewer engaged
• Helping create design templates to help your business to improve on efficiency and uniformity
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If you’d like to learn more about how a presentation expert can help you craft a compelling brand story and deliver it in a highly effective way, check out the services that we offer to learn more.