Telling Your Brand’s Story

Jen BegealJLB Hart Mediajen@jlbhartmedia.com914.231.5471

What does story mean?

Stories have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation, and instilling moral values.

When you tell your brand’s story you have to think in terms of the overall narrative including the history, marketing objectives, executive background, and service or product.

What makes a good story?

How do I tell my story?

Before you begin, ask yourself these questions:● Who is my audience?● Where do they spend their

time? ● Why should they care about

my company?● What am I providing for

them?

Know your audience

What are their habits?

Making assumptions based upon market data and observation you can determine where your core audience or clients spend their time.

Consider what types of devices your audience are using - mobile, tablet, laptop, PC as well as the TYPES of content they consume; from cat pictures to hard hitting journalistic articles, understanding their viewing habits will help you craft a story that resonates with your audience.

Make your story accessible

Making a story accessible means making it understandable by your audience. There are 7 archetypal themes that recur in every kind of storytelling, using one of these themes (or a mix of them) makes your brand’s message easily understood by your audience.

The 7 archetypes are:

● Overcoming the Monster ● Rebirth ● Quest ● Journey and Return ● Rags to Riches ● Tragedy ● Comedy

Stories convey meaning and are symbolic of the world around us, use too many symbols and the meaning is distorted.

… and spreadable

To be clear, spreadable is not viral; viral is non-active participation, whereas spreadable requires action on the part of the audience. If your audience is in love with your story, they will share it.

Stay positivePositive messaging is very important to both spreadability and brand trust.

Never use a negative message to try and sell your brand. Think about politicians, would you rather vote for a candidate who has a positive message or one that spends their time trying to smear their opponent?

The tone of your story is everything.

Measure your results

Wash, rinse, repeat.

If it works, keep doing it, if it doesn't, evaluate what is working and what isn’t and try again.

Case studyProject: The Last Crop

First Challenge: Create awareness and build an engaged audience around a documentary film about sustainable agriculture and land easements.

Second Challenge: Activate the audience during the film’s crowdfunding campaign to spread the film’s message and increase donations.

Research who your audience are, what they do and what they are passionate about.

Overcoming the Monster

“Corporate farming and land grabbing has driven many farmers from their land driving up the price of available land making it unaffordable for young farmers. This film focuses on a family who are trying to change that. "

Build your community

We set out to build a community that would appreciate, identify and engage with the story of our farmers and their struggle.

Tell a good story

We began the campaign by telling a story about our farmers and the loss

of farmland across the country

Make it spreadable

We posted messages that were simple and

meaningful to our audience.

Always be positive

We found that positive quotes, even if they had

nothing to do with farming, resonated with

larger audiences.

Measure your resultsThroughout the campaign we made changes to our messaging based upon our audience’s interactions with our social media channels. In the end our work paid off resulting in:

● Over 9,000 engaged Facebook fans over the course of 6 months on a budget of $600

● 900+ Twitter followers● Raised $56K during crowdfunding

campaign ($6K over our initial goal of $50K)

Thank You!

Jen BegealJLB Hart Mediajen@jlbhartmedia.com914.231.5471