5 Noise Breakers for Powerful Brand Storytelling
11:37 am - by host
To help your brand break through the noise, here are five tips with examples of what’s worked and what’s flopped. Did you know consumers get bombarded with an average of 5,000 ads per day (Walker-Smith)? Your best marketing strategy is to build a powerful brand story across all platforms that gives fans goosebumps, makes them cheer, and/or inspires action.
After promoting primarily successful health, financial, technology, entrepreneur and entertainment industry clients, we encourage everyone to create a compelling story FIRST. Yes, you need cool graphics, inspiring videos, and advertising budgets, but if you don’t have the right story, you’ll get nowhere fast.
1. Jazz Up Sleeper Stories – No matter how dull your product or topic seems, there is always a way to make it sound more interesting. One of our Goody PR clients is Tax Expert Tom Wheelwright who runs a Tax and Wealth consulting firm. To reach their ideal audience, we secured a column for him in Entrepreneur. And to create a relevant Entrepreneur Magazine story, we leveraged the Amazon news that they paid zero taxes in 2017 with this headline: How Amazon and Entrepreneurs Can Legally Pay Zero Federal Income Tax. While their editor usually takes three weeks to publish submissions, this story was posted on Entrepreneur within 48 hours.
2. Ignite Emotions in Brand Stories – You want people to remember your brand by making people scream, cry, smile or feel compelled to do something. While working for Motorola’s Iridium Satellite company in Washington D.C., the company went bankrupt because they had the wrong story. They tried desperately to sell $4,000 satellite brick size phones to consumers by boasting about their 77 satellites. When Marketing finally asked for my training team’s help, we changed the whole story to make satellites a must-have for media, maritime, military and crisis management vertical markets whose lives can depend on constant communication. Sales went up 40% in six weeks.
3. Use A Consistent and Memorable Brand Name – To stand out in the clutter online, a memorable brand name is a must. We highly recommend selecting a consistent name and buy the URL.com for press, social media and your website BEFORE you do any marketing. While this approach may sound obvious, many companies are so deep in the details that they forget this part. For example, we worked with a healthcare company named “The Lake” (ok that was not the name, but you get that it was a generic name.) Even though we got “The Lake” great TV interviews, no one could find them because the name had zero SEO (Search Engine Optimization). A simple fix may be to add a number with meaning. For example, “The Lake 21210” with the zip code added would be much better and tell a story.
4. Add Emotional Connection To Tag Lines – To go beyond your name, the tag line and key selling points also need to trigger an emotional reaction. We’re fortunate to work with Warriors Heart, whose tag line is “Strength Through Healing”. Because this residential treatment center is for “warriors only” (military, veterans and first responders), this tag line is perfect and connects to their core audience.
5. Adopt An Authentic Charity – It’s cool to care, and if your company is not supporting a charity or cause, we’ll help you find one with meaning. For example, the first thing we did while working on the launch campaign for Los Angeles tech startup JukinMedia was recommend adopting the Rob Dyrdek Foundation, which provides skateboard parks for underserved youth. It was a perfect match because JukinMedia sells video clips of skateboarders to networks like Comedy Central, The Today Show, and Rob Dyrdek’s MTV Ridiculousness show. JukinMedia’s CEO is now in the top 25 tech entrepreneurs in Los Angeles, and the company keeps growing.
For brand success, it’s always about having a powerful story that emotionally connects with your fans. Take an honest step back to see if your story is working, and/or contact Goody PR for help. We’d love to help you start brainstorming, get creative and have fun building your story! You can do this! Ready?
© Liz H Kelly 2018, Goody PR