There’s a reason why stories are just so popular in our culture. No matter what your background is like or how old you are, we all enjoy a good story. The same goes for your business. Your story gives your audience a personal connection to you and helps them see you not just as a faceless entity, but as a group of people who matter.

If you want to strengthen this emotional connection between you and your audience, then you’ll need to create an effective brand story. Here’s how.

What is your story?

Before you get started, decide on what your story is. There’s a reason you got into the business, what is it?

Maybe you run a restaurant and saw a gap for a well-run family friendly restaurant in your area. Maybe you got into creating custom jewelry as you couldn’t find what you wanted anywhere else. Whatever it is, make sure that you convey this in your story. You can often find out what your businesses story is by looking back at why you got started and how you’ve evolved. For family-run or local businesses, your story is likely very personal and heart-warming.

Create your characters

You’ll have seen larger than life characters used in advertising campaigns all over the world. These are effective, but you don’t have to spend thousands to get it right.

In fact, you could be a character all on your own, as the business owner. Alternately, the buyer persona of your audience could be the character that you create and appeal to. You need to look back at your business and decide if any members of staff are your key character, or if you and your business partners can identify one key customer who should represent you.

Look into what’s being said about you online

Of course, you’re not the only one who can talk about your business online. Others will have opinions and certainly write about them. That’s why your business should be tied into your brand story as closely as possible, to avoid any disconnects.

If you find any less than favorable talk about your brand, there are ways of dealing with it. Brand Yourself is a great way that can help you handle these issues when they arise. It would only take a quick google search and a scan over some review sites to figure out what your reputation currently is.

Build the narrative into everything you do

No matter where you are online, your narrative should follow you. It’s an essential part of your branding strategy, as important as your logo or the colors you use. That means that your writers need to be on board with what you’re trying to do.

If you need to find good writers to help you with your branding, try looking on freelancing sites such as Big Assignments or Upwork. This means that you need to make sure that once you’ve decided on your story, you disseminate it across your staff.

Look at what the competition is doing

You have competition, and they’ll be trying to develop their own brand story. What are they doing, and how can you learn from them? Keep tabs on what they’re doing, and look at how successful their tactics are.

Tools such as Rapportive and Mention can help you do this.

Build a relationship with your writers

If you’re hiring writers, try to hire the same team to work on everything that you’re putting out there. Doing this means that your message is cohesive and that your writers are all on the same page. The best way to do this is to hire them all from the same place, such as Write my assignment. This way, you’ll build up a relationship with them and keep the story going.

Be authentic

If you’re telling a story, make sure that you’re living it. If your story is that you’re a family restaurant that values the time families have together, the make sure that you’re working under that ethos when you’re running your business. If you don’t, it can make you look inauthentic and insincere.

As you’re trying to create an emotional connection with your audience, this is to be avoided. This means that you need to make sure that the people who are involved in deciding on your story are involved in the day to day running of the business and make sure that your story reflects reality.

Always proofread and edit

No matter what you’re writing, you need to ensure it’s properly edited. This is because it makes you more professional, but also it makes your story more believable. If the reader is fighting through spelling and grammatical errors, it’ll take them out of the story.

If you need help, there are some tools out there. Academized is great for editing, and Easy Word Count can help you edit your work yourself. Another popular tool is Grammarly, which can make sure that your writing across all levels, including emails and social media, is the best possible quality.

Your brand story is more important than you’d think. If you plan and use it properly, you really can create an emotional connection with your audience. Give it a try for yourself.