How to Tell Your Brand Story: 5 Steps to Stand Out
You can spend twenty years building a brilliant business and still end up describing it in exactly the same way as the company down the road.
“We’re a forward-thinking organisation committed to exceeding expectations.”
Brill. You and approximately half the internet.
The ironic thing is, some of the most impressive businesses are the worst at talking about themselves.
They’ve spent years building expertise, working with fascinating people and collecting stories worth telling. Yet somehow, their website manages to sum it all up as a ‘commitment to excellence’.
That’s where brand storytelling can give things a much-needed shake-up
Get it right, and people start to understand what makes your business special and why they should choose you. Get it wrong, and they’re halfway through your founder’s life story before they’ve worked out what you actually sell.
So, how do you tell your brand story in a way that actually means something?
What is brand storytelling?
Brand storytelling is about giving people a proper feel for your business. What you believe in, what makes you different and why any of that should matter to them.
It’s about bringing a mix of personality, values and experiences into the conversation, rather than leaving them hidden behind a polished logo and a few corporate-sounding sentences.
Together, they help paint a much more interesting picture of who you are and why customers should care.
Once you’ve found your story, the next challenge is to find your brand’s voice and make sure it comes through in the way you communicate.
Why does your brand story matter?
Imagine two businesses offering almost identical products or services.
One spends its time telling you how brilliant it is. The other talks about what frustrates it about the industry, what it thinks could be done better and how its approach makes life easier for customers.
You can probably guess which one leaves more of an impression.
That’s what good brand storytelling does. It helps people understand what makes you different, gives them reasons to trust you and creates something your website, sales team and marketing can all get behind.
The catch? You have to mean it. A lovely story won’t get you very far if the business behind it tells a completely different one.
How to tell your brand story in 5 steps
1. Start with the problem, not your founding date
Most businesses start telling their story in the same rather predictable way.
“Back in 2008, our founder spotted a gap in the market…”
And off we go on a journey through the company archives.
There’s nothing wrong with sharing your history, especially if it’s genuinely interesting. But your customers are probably more curious about why your business exists than the year somebody first registered the domain name.
What was frustrating about the industry? What did you think could be better? What were customers putting up with that they really shouldn’t have been?
Take a financial services business. Maybe it began because its founders were fed up with complicated advice and wanted to make money matters feel a little more human.
That’s something people can connect with. A combined 75 years of experience? Lovely, but it doesn’t quite tell the same story.
Have a go at finishing this sentence: “We believe our industry would be better if…” If the answer feels specific enough that someone might disagree, you’re probably onto something.
2. Understand who you’re telling the story to
Businesses can sometimes fall a little too in love with their own stories. And fair enough, you’ve probably put years of hard work into creating yours.
But the people listening have their own priorities, frustrations and reasons for getting out of bed in the morning. Your story needs to find a place in their world.
So ask yourself:
- What is our audience trying to achieve?
- What’s frustrating them about their current options?
- What matters most when choosing who to work with?
- What would make them trust us?
And before you start putting words in your customers’ mouths, have a listen to what they’re actually saying.
Reviews, interviews and sales conversations can tell you an awful lot about what people value.
Understanding what your customers really think is also a pretty useful starting point for improving your brand image.
And you might be surprised to discover that the things they appreciate most are barely getting a mention in your marketing.
3. Find what makes your business genuinely different
Ask ten businesses what makes them different and I reckon at least eight will tell you about their brilliant people, passion and commitment to quality.
You and everyone else, then.
That’s why our brand discovery workshops at Giant Peach involve a bit more digging.
We want to know what customers actually rave about, what your competitors are getting wrong and what makes your business tick. The really interesting stuff rarely comes wrapped up in a neatly rehearsed company mission.
Some useful questions include:
- When has the business been at its absolute best?
- What do customers repeatedly thank you for?
- What do competitors promise that you disagree with?
- What would customers miss if your business disappeared tomorrow?
Think of it as finding your business’s sweet spot. Something customers actually care about, something you’re genuinely good at and something the competition can’t simply copy and paste onto their own website.
4. Turn your story into a clear message
You’ve found your purpose, got to know your audience and finally put your finger on what makes you different. Excellent progress.
Now you’ve just got to squeeze all that lovely thinking into something people can actually get their heads around.
This is where a clear brand strategy earns its keep, helping you bring all that thinking together into something your whole business can get behind.
A simple brand storytelling framework can help:
- The problem: What isn’t working for your audience?
- Your belief: What should be different?
- Your approach: What do you actually do about it?
- The outcome: What changes for your customers?
- The proof: Why should anyone believe you?
Don’t worry, we’re not suggesting you plaster five new headings across your homepage.
They’re just a handy way of untangling your thoughts and figuring out what you’ve actually got to say.
Find the messages worth remembering
Now you’ve got your story straight, it’s time to work out which bits you actually want people to remember.
These are your key brand messages. The handful of ideas that explain what makes you different, what you believe in and why anyone should choose you.
And no, “we’re passionate about delivering excellence” doesn’t make the cut. Sorry.
The clever bit is making sure those messages have something behind them. That’s where a messaging matrix comes in. Sounds terribly fancy, but it’s really just a way of matching what you say with evidence that backs it up.
For example:
| What you say | How you prove it |
|---|---|
| We make complicated things simple | Clear explanations, intuitive websites and helpful content |
| We know our industry inside out | Specialist expertise, useful insights and relevant case studies |
| We genuinely care about our customers | Long-term relationships, testimonials and actual customer experiences |
Anyone can talk a good game. The trick is having something to back it up.
And those messages shouldn’t just sit in a strategy document gathering dust. They should show up across your website, social posts, sales presentations and everything in between.
Not word for word, obviously. Nobody wants to hear the same rehearsed pitch every time they bump into you.
5. Show your story rather than simply telling it
Here’s where your brand story has to earn its keep.
You can tell everyone you’re approachable, transparent, innovative or wonderfully sustainable until you’re blue in the face. But what happens when somebody actually deals with your business?
If transparency matters, make your pricing and processes a breeze to get your head around. If you’re known for expertise, show people your big brains.
The best brand stories don’t need quite so much explaining. You can see them in the way a business behaves.
Take Patagonia. Its environmental commitments go well beyond a few nice words about protecting the planet. Through its Worn Wear programme, customers can repair their favourite clothing, trade in eligible items and give perfectly good gear another chance at life.
Which is a rather interesting approach for a business that makes its money selling clothes.
That’s a brand putting its beliefs to work.
We’ve seen this in our own work with Casterbridge Wealth. They wanted wealth management to feel a little more human, approachable and refreshingly straightforward.
Our job was to make sure their branding, photography and website reflected that, giving people a proper feel for the business before they’d even said hello.
Where should your brand story appear?
Short answer? Wherever it’s relevant.
Longer answer? Please don’t copy and paste your About Us page into every available corner of the internet.
Your homepage should communicate what you do and why you’re different.
Your About page can explore your background, beliefs and people.
Your service pages should connect your approach to customer problems.
Your case studies should demonstrate your expertise through real examples.
And your marketing content should reinforce the ideas and opinions you want your business to be known for.
And don’t forget your brand identity. The colours, typography, imagery and design decisions should all help tell the same story.
The words don’t have to match everywhere, but they should all feel like they’re coming from the same business.
You’d be amazed how often a website, LinkedIn page and sales deck seem to have never met.
How do you know if your brand story is working?
There’s a wonderfully simple way to find out whether your brand story is getting through.
Hand your website to someone who’s never heard of you. Give them half a minute to have a nose around, then ask what your business actually does.
If they can tell you who you help and why you’re different, lovely.
If the answer involves a lot of umming, ahhing and nervous scrolling, you’ve probably found something worth improving.
Your brand story is already there. You just need to find it.
The most interesting things about your business probably aren’t sitting in a carefully polished mission statement.
It’s in the little things your customers keep thanking you for, the decisions that have shaped how you work and the problems your team can solve with their eyes closed.
That’s where the good stuff lives.
The trick is digging it out, joining the dots and turning it into something people actually want to hear about.
At Giant Peach, we bring together brand strategy, identity, websites and marketing to help businesses make those connections.
Not just to tell a better story, but to build a brand that lives up to it.
Think your business has a better story than your website is telling? Let’s talk about it.