Start Crafting Your Compelling Brand Story.

In this blog, I delve into how your brand story is your chance to tell your clients who, what, and why your business will make their life easier! It's that simple, but it's also very hard to master.

Building Your Brand’s Story. 

I look forward to telling your story.

I work with independent businesses, makers and creators; all have wonderful, charismatic personalities (even the ones who introduce themselves as introverts), and they offer creative products or experiences that enhance the lives of those interacting with them. 

In a world driven by instant dopamine hits derived through social media, it can be hard to build meaningful content that builds your brand’s story chapter by chapter, especially with you are a one-person-band running the whole show! If you have a small team, many voices want to pile in to help, which is great in some respects, but it does mean that your product or service can get lost in the array of tones and stories. 

Writing through regular blogs and newsletters allows your customers to get to know you in a consistent, slower manner. As with all great relationships in our lives, we know that it is better to build a house on solid foundations, rather than the shifting sands that move around with the tides, although days playing on the beach are always great fun! This is, in fact, how I see brand building. 

Funky Sand Castles.

Playing with sand is great, but building on it isn't so much!

Tick-Tock, Instagram, and even Facebook, shift with the tides, with the content on these platforms acting like sand castles. Don’t get me wrong, I love the silly reels about cats and knitting, but they do not drive me to the local yarn stores that create them, or prompt me to change Finchley’s pet food (tuna is his crack!). However, once or twice a week, I am interested enough by a video to click on the websites and read their blog, or send it to a friend who does go and purchase the latest hand dyed merino yarn. 

This is not an uncommon use of these platforms by the way, and I find this sad that so many small business owners invest a lot of time, money and effort into producing them. A reel can take around an hour to film, edit with voice overs and music, write, and then post. Photos are beautifully produced, taking time to create and then curate. And this is all wonderful, but each one is like a surfer paddling out to seek the wave they can ride into shore; the elusive viral post! 

The other important thing to remember about social media is that it is not free advertising. You have to put a lot of time and creative effort behind it, and you may even employ someone to help create them as part of their role within your company. And let us not forget the ‘Boost Ad’ button that we have all fallen pray to! So yes, you are paying for advertising on Instagram and Tick-Tock.

My Six Tips For Your Bricks And Mortar. 

A beautiful space is well maintained.

I am not talking about high-street shops here (although I do write for some beautiful ones!), I am talking about the bricks and mortar that build your on-line presence. Your website. Yep, that thing that lurks in the back of the mental shed that no one really wants to interact with as it needs a serious glow-up! 

Websites very rarely need a full revamp (and I would argue that even less need tens of thousands to be worked on), but they do need regular care, much like your own bricks and mortar home. 

• Homepages can often read like an early 2000s trifold leaflet; re-writes to engage your customers are the key to starting off your re-model. 

• Cobwebs need to be swept out in the shape of products that have been ‘out of stock’ for the past three years. 

• Five year old blogs should be either edited to fit your new writing styles, or simply deleted with fresh ones taking their place. 

• Photos and videos should be current in both season and theme (and are an easy win for content updates).

• Mailing-lists should be curated and updated, with addresses that bounce taken off your register. 

• Your bricks-and-mortar website is where your business lives; it’s where you reside. If you cannot edit it, care for it, clean it, or maintain it, look at getting a provider who offers you an easier way of managing your on-line residence, like Wix or Squarespace. 

Investing in the care and repair of your business should be part of the monthly running costs; a clearly defined item in your budget that allows for both the (let's face it) dull maintenance, as well as the beautifully created, limited edition, print runs and mail-outs. 

A Fresh Way Of Looking At Interiors

Adding the vibrancy around your work is a joy!

Once you have built your bricks and mortar content and the maintenance routines are in place, you can now start adding the finishing touches; the pretty bits that make your business shine, which takes us back to the social media side of things. 

Once the consistent part of your business is going out in a reliable manner with schedules that clients can come to expect, the social media then acts like the perfectly chosen hanging plants that give oxygen and fun to the corners of your work space. They add the sparkle and creative outlet that you enjoy, but they are not the centre of attention, as they do not add to your daily takings in the way that your deeper work does. 

To be honest, if you don’t have time or money to care for the walls and foundations of your brand, you don’t have the budgets for the pretty accessories. 

To change the metaphor slightly, I view your brand’s story like a grand house with a reading library; it takes a while to walk around the rooms, gaze at the tapestries, and enjoy the rose garden with books that offer you knowledge about the people who care and tend for the place you are staying. Allowing your business to unfold chapter by chapter keeps your clients with you; they are here for you, as much as your products! 

I look forward to sharing more thoughts about how structuring your brand story can reinvigorate your work in the next blog, and wish you a great week until then. 

With joy in the telling, 

Jenny xx