Why Does Your Brand Exist?

Hint: The Answer Should Be a Story

If you’re a business owner, then you already know your brand tells your story. Your brand is the reason you started your business, it tells clients what you stand for and the value promise you make for them, and if done well – your brand story evokes a powerful and emotional connection with clients… So much that they could never imagine their life without your brand. After all, isn’t passion why you started your business in the first place? Your brand story should evoke that same level of passion in your clients. First things first, let’s clear up some semantics…

Brand Story vs Mission Statement:

Your brand story and mission statement are not the same thing – and yes, you DO need both! They often get confused because they both have to do with why you do what you do. The difference between your brand story and mission statement are the audience and function.

Your mission statement describes what your company does from an internal perspective, usually encompassing your values and aims. It is intended for employees, co-owners and partners. It’s short and simple and not necessarily unique to you (there are probably others with the same mission statement. And that’s not a bad thing!) The mission statement alone doesn’t evoke a strong emotional connection or loyalty to a company, that’s where the brand story comes in.

Your brand story is externally focused and is intended for clients, buyers and customers. Your brand story is everything that came before your mission statement. Think about it this way… do you have an employee who is still with you after all these years and iterations, the failures and blowups, the successes and wins. The one who breathes your mission statement and repeats it to you when you forget… yes that person! They know your brand story, they know YOU, they believe in your why, they believe your promise. Your brand story is a layered collection of stories: it’s what gets you out of bed in the morning, it’s your personality and it’s unique to only you, it’s compelling, passionate, emotional and is consistently growing your business. The good news is, you already have a story. The challenge is how to use it to grow your business.

Deploying your brand story requires a digital marketing strategy.

You Have To See It Before You Believe It.

The best way to captivate your audience and tell your brand story at the same time, is through video. Humans love watching videos because our brains process video 60,000 times faster than text. Videos make us a feel something – about 90% of the total information transmitted to your brain is visual.

Once you see it, you believe it. And once you believe it, you BUY it.

Video Marketing Is On The Rise.

Having a Brand Video on your landing page can increase your conversion rate by 80%, according to EyeWideDigital. Brand Videos keep users on your website, and when Google – who owns YouTube – recognizes that you have good and engaging content, your rankings with search engines go up. See what we’re talking about with this client website.

The Marketing Rule of Seven’s Best Friend: Social Media

Remember, your prospective buyer needs to hear and see your marketing message at least seven times before they buy from you. This is why The Marketing Rule of Seven and Social Media are BFF’s. Social Media Users can view, like, comment, share, repost, tag and save your Brand Video after seeing it just one time – so you can imagine what happens when you put some digital ad dollars behind your video across multiple social platforms. You guessed it, people see you.

According to TechJury 2021 Video Consumption Statistics over 500 million people watch Facebook videos every day and 93% of businesses gain new customers as a result of branded video content. WebNus.com reports that 55% of consumers watch videos before making a purchasing decision and 51% of respondents stated that their purchasing decisions were influences by social media ads.

The Takeaway

Rate your brand story on a scale from 1 – 10.

• 1 being “Ummm, what brand story?”
• 5 being “It’s OK, but it doesn’t fully capture my WHY. I’m getting lost to my competitors.”
• And 10 being “My competitors are modeling after me and the competition is irrelevant.” Hint: If your brand story is a 10, you’re not reading this blog.

Whether you’re a 3, 5 or 7… DES Marketing can help. We are brand storytelling and digital marketing experts. Together, we create a brand story that makes your competition irrelevant… and then we take care of the rest because after all, you have a business to run!