Dave Sutton April 26, 2021 According to these business statistics, more than 20% of small businesses don’t succeed within their first year. Even more fail in their second year. What might have helped them stay alive? Strong strategic marketing. More specifically, good brand storytelling.
A major part of marketing for small businesses is the brand story at the heart of the strategy: the six-second story, the why-what-how. But believe it or not, many out there—especially young or cash-strapped businesses—just don’t see how brand story materially impacts their business success. They think branding is some big-ticket fantasy that lives only in the minds of Coke and Disney—but they are wrong.
Here are a few reasons why brand story is so critical for small business.
It Helps Small Businesses Reach More Customers
Marketing just refers to all your combined efforts to promote a brand and sell your products and services. Whether you’re offering shoes, digital products, or services like plumbing, you need to think of ways to tell the story of your small business to reach more potential customers.
In the marketing world, there are the two ways of telling your brand story:
- Digital Storytelling: Some examples include brand storytelling via social media, video marketing, and content marketing. These channels are used not just to let consumers know that a particular product or service exists, but to communicate the story that compels audience engagement long-term.
- Traditional Storytelling: Offline or traditional brand storytelling methods include ads in newspapers, radio, and print collateral like flyers, brochures, store displays, and banners. This category also includes direct mail marketing.
It Helps Small Businesses Maintain a Steady Stream of Profit
Many small businesses stop marketing once they see good traffic in their brick-and-mortar store or online store. Doing so can hurt your business over the long term, and establishing a powerful brand story will help you maintain our marketing operations at an affordable level over time.
It’s vital to have a continuous marketing campaign so that more people will discover your business. Having ruthlessly consistent visibility online or offline helps keep your monthly sales high and your audience growing.
It Helps Small Businesses Establish Good Customer Relationships
Storytelling for your small business is one way to establish a long-lasting good customer relationship. If your customers see that you’re doing your best to stay consistent while also keeping up with the changes in the industry you’re in, they’ll stick with you.
Check out the following marketing ideas to help your small business establish good customer relationships:
- Content Marketing: Share your story by creating a blog on your eCommerce website. Guides, tutorials, FAQs, and other helpful web content appeals to consumers.
- Social Media Marketing: Use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media platforms to engage your audience in your story. Review and respond to comments professionally to show consumers that you’re concerned about their needs and feedback.
- Video Marketing: Videos are visually attractive to all age groups. Use this marketing tactic to tell your story in a way that inspires, motivates, and educates your audience.
It Helps Small Businesses Build Partnerships
If other firms are compelled by your brand story, they will be more likely to partner with you. Business partnerships can be a great help in business success, especially for small shops.
Influencers are another matter. Influencers are social media personalities with lots of followers and, yes, they are probably too expensive and not really relevant to your small business, but remember that influencers can also be local professionals with vast local clientele such as doctors, lawyers, academes, and freelance workers.
It Helps Small Businesses Establish Trust and Credibility
People need trust to keep using your product or service. This is one of the main goals of takin the time to establish a credible and moving brand story. It can be quite challenging for a small business to climb up the ladder where big companies currently reign. Great brand story is, really, the only way to get to the top. One great and affordable way to help encourage audiences to trust your business is by using good marketing practices, such as white hat SEO.
The Takeaway
A powerful brand story is essential for small businesses to reach more potential customers. By telling a simple and clear story that resonates with your customers, you’ll establish long-lasting customer relationships and loyalty. Also, you can build better local partnerships to draw more clients to your store. A small business with a compelling story will have a steadier revenue flow for many years to come. Give your small business the boost it needs by making brand story an integral part of your marketing playbook.
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