Special Promotional Feature

By Ben Baker

From the time we were young, we have all been raised on stories.  Stories, in part, have defined who we are and where we come from.  They have allowed us to believe, to grow and to think critically. They help us to understand and engage with the world around us and give us analogies that we can relate to, to help us explain what we see, hear and feel in our everyday lives.

Your story is the way your brand is remembered when you are not in the room.  It reminds people both inside your organization and without of what you stand for, where you came from and where you are going.

Stories are powerful!  They help create a shared identity and bind employees to an organization in ways that other forms of motivation cannot. Your story gives your employees and your customers a sense of your vision and brings them along for the ride in your corporate journey.

A good story has several factors:

• The story needs to be easy to remember as we live in a world with many competing stories—some better than yours and some not.  If your story is not simple and straight forward, it cannot and will not be retold. There is no point of having a story to begin with if it isn’t embraced and shared.

• It needs to take people along a path. Your story should be logical in its sequence.  It should to tell people where you have been, where you are today, and most importantly, where you are going. This detail seems simple, but is very important.

• It needs to be in the language of your audience. They need to relate to it and feed off of it far more than you do.  A great story, like a great joke, cannot be told by people delivering it from a self-serving perspective. Tell your story in the language of your audience.  Make sure that they relate to it and if they don’t… hone it so it does.

The way you tell the story may be different to different audiences, but the story should remain the same.   Tell a great story that engages your audience and let them retell that story over and over again. I promise, your brand will thank you for it.

Ben Baker is the president of Your Brand Marketing.   For more than 18 years we have worked with our clients to create Engagement Marketing Campaigns.  What does this mean?   We work to tell your story that supports your brand, message, market, value and culture.   We are here for you to help you engage both your internal and external clients, so that people understand what you do, why you do it and give them reason to find you valuable. You can reach us at:    yourbrandmarketing.com.