Digital Marketing - Study Notes:
Steps to creating your brand story
The steps to creating your brand story include:
- Know who you are: Define your brand personality and stay true to your brand.
- Understand your goals: Be clear on why your brand does what it does and the purpose of your goals.
- Find your story: Use your brand personality and goals to inform your brand story.
- Identify your audience's knowledge level: Make sure you've identified your audience adequately and understand what they will respond to emotionally.
- Map story elements to personas: Always map your story back to your customer personas to make sure that it resonates with your target audience.
- Craft your story: Use the information you have gathered to write your brand story.
- Share your story: Share your story with your target audience and the wider industry.
- Engage with your communities: Engage with your audience and invite input from them.
Tips to identify your brand story
It can sometimes be difficult to know where to begin to identify your brand story. Here are some tips to help you:
- Focus on your audience and their needs.
- Stick to a single message in the narrative.
- Use facts appropriately. Be clear and try not to leave room for confusion.
- Create characters in your story who reflect your audience.
- Develop dramatic tension in your plot where possible.
- Structure your story for easier comprehension.
Will Francis
Will Francis is a recognised authority in digital and social media, who has worked with some of the world’s most loved brands. He is the host and technical producer of the DMI podcast, Ahead of the Game and a lecturer and subject matter expert with the DMI. He appears in the media and at conferences whilst offering his own expert-led digital marketing courses where he shares his experience gained working within a social network, a global ad agency, and more recently his own digital agency.
Connect with him on Twitter (X) or LinkedIn.
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
- Identify the benefits of using personas in content marketing
- Critically analyse the relationship between buyer personas, target audience and content marketing
- Systematically analyse techniques for sharing and promoting content and for measuring content performance
