Have you ever reached the middle of a joke and realised that you’re missing some important information?
It happens to everyone (truly, it does) but at the time it’s disheartening. You’ve lost your key message and the attention of your audience.
Stories are integral to a brand: they promote connection with your audience and they have a tendency to linger long after the event or activity has been completed. This is public relations and marketing in a nutshell. If you can’t tell your story, your chance to promote your product/organisation is over before it has begun.
What’s the best way to avoid this problem? Practice your story and make sure it’s a part of your overall strategy.
Step one: What is your organisation about?
If your organisation sells pillows then don’t talk about the way a good duvet makes your bed more comfortable. Focus on the value of sleep, how important it is for everyone’s mental health and how an incredibly comfortable pillow contributes.
Step two: What is your strategy?
A strategy is establish after you define your stakeholders, your deadlines and your intention. As a maker of the world’s most wonderful pillow, you probably want to focus on people that get minimal sleep and wish they had more, such as: parents, night workers and early-twenties job searchers.
You want to give yourself a deadline and a way to observe the effectiveness of your strategy. Perhaps after three months you could assess the amount of sales, profit over expenditure and how well customers are connecting by social media and face-to-face interaction.
Step three: Build a story
Work on your narrative. Develop an introduction, a problem, a climax and follow through to a solid conclusion. That’s story writing 101.
But, and this is the important part, does the story fit with your company? Does it retell Sleeping Beauty or the Princess and the Pea? Does it discuss a joy of a new parent sleeping well for the first time in a month?
So,once you’ve built the story and practiced it a dozen or so times (don’t forget to practice, it really does get you closer to being perfect), you just need to distribute appropriately. If you’re wondering about that – check in next week for a post on choosing the right social medium for your business.
We all love a good story, just make sure it’s the right one.
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