Businesses engage with their audiences on multiple levels, to relay their product to the people they want to cater to. They often resort to extensive (and sometimes expensive) marketing methods – but what truly sets apart great brands from mediocre ones is simple: an emotional connection with the audience.

This is where the term “brand story” comes into play – i.e. a cohesive narrative that relays facts and feelings created by a brand or business. Where advertising is a simple “show-and-tell” of a product, a brand story incites an emotional response from the people, and ultimately adds value to your company.

Needless to say, a thriving business needs an authentic brand story – and so do you.

Here are some tips to help you get started:

Write your past, present and future

We can’t put it into simpler phrases – get sat down, grab a notepad, and write away. Write about how your brand came to be, what it has come to in the present, and where do you want to take it in the future. Add in as much detail as you need in the form of facts, figures, testimonials etc. – because this is you building the foundation of your brand story. You’ll need to make sure your blueprint is accurate if you want your story to work.

Pick out your vision – and enhance it

After you have pretty much dished out a historical account about your brand, it’s time you refined it. Go through it all, and single out your company’s vision: what is your legacy? How do you want to impact the world – do you want to change a certain industry, or do you want to positively impact the lives of your target audience?

Don’t worry about being too eccentric – the bolder, the better. A clear-cut, to-the-point vision can be enhanced with just a sentence; all it needs are the following components:

• Call to Action: What is your brand doing – is it enhancing, empowering, teaching, or changing the game?
• Audience: Who is your brand targeting? The more you localise on a specific niche, the better
• Value: In short – what value is your target audience getting by associating with your brand?
  
  

Build a story around your vision

You have pretty much done all the basics; what you have now is a distilled version of your historical account. Now all you need to do is create a story revolving around it. A good brand story does not stand out because of how lengthy it is – even the shortest stories create the best impact, as long as it gets a point across.

Add quality to your story by making it as authentic as possible; do not mention fabricated details or overly flowery phrases – audiences are smarter than you think, and can easily tell which brands are pandering and which are the real deal.

Last but not least, do not forget to highlight your core values – i.e. the core, concrete beliefs of your brand, made for the audience. This is the part of a brand story that can grab a hold of the people’s sentiments, so they have to be thoroughly thought out.

Start by identifying 2-5 core values, and describe each of them; tell your audience why does your brand believe in them, and how does it hope to address them individually? They have to humanise your brand so that it becomes more relatable – so keep it sweet, honest, and effective. The best kinds of core values are ones that customers can feel without having anyone spell it out for them – so you know you have to reach out for their hearts!

Check out Oscar POS’s own brand story as an example. Despite being a modern, top-notch billing software with other integrated features, our beliefs are simple yet important: to transform a person’s business so brilliantly that they don’t need to miss out on some quality time spent with friends and family.

Ever since the dawn of time, stories have been the most prominent modes of relaying thoughts and sparking conversations. Therefore, its integral to get in touch with your own roots, and give memorable value to your brand with a compelling brand story that’s worth believing.