Today, I’m looking at brands that do extraordinary storytelling. I’ve been down this road before - but doing it all over again because I think it helps to take a look at some great examples every now and again. I’m hoping it will prove inspiring to those who struggle with storytelling within their own content strategy.
Storytelling in business can take many forms, as we shall see. It’s not always about telling a nice little story on your About Page and then forgetting it existed or that you even wrote it. A nice little tale of woe and overcoming personal challenges and then that’s it - a shame the rest of the website is so borrring, don’t let that happen to your business.
I’ve chosen three, and for me, two are leaders when it comes to storytelling, seasoned in the art of creating a sense of inclusion and a world where their way of thinking is the only way, providing the reader with a sense of belonging and connection. While the final one is probably the only SaaS/tech company I’ve found that illustrated perfectly how to tell a founder story with a timeline of actions stretched across years, without boring the reader, and at the same time keeping it short.
Tech seems to struggle with story, but it’s not always necessary to have a dramatic storyline. You just need something that raises the bar firmly from mediocre and jargon-heavy to relatively interesting, trustworthy and open, helping to plant you firmly apart from the rest. It’s also a much better way of illustrating trust quickly. Build relationships by all means, but create a trusted, story/product-led brand and you have a far better chance of making a sale rather than agonisingly creating endless posts on social media and chatting to people via DMs. Yes, these can work but also work on your brand, your story, and of course your website.
Brand storytelling is all about connecting with prospects and turning them into customers. Storytelling can also be used to express what you stand for and act as a unique tool for sharing your values, showing how they align with the reader.
It’s all about creating a special narrative, almost like you’re speaking code to your target audience that will penetrate their outer shell and send a clear message that you are the brand for them, one that no one else will understand other than your prospects.
Let’s start with Guerlain.
Gurlein is typically associated with luxury fragrances and for a while, this was all they did. That is until they branched out into skincare and makeup.
The French brand speaks of opulence and luxury, and stories run straight through the brand and every page of its website. The brand goes as far back as the 19th century and each scent has a story behind it that inspired each particular fragrance. I love spending time on there, and my first port of call for fragrance is always Guerlain. This is because the story behind each product makes me feel special in a way that no other fragrance product can.
It isn’t just about creating a picture of the type of person that might wear the scent - up until recent times, someone white, blonde and tanned and expensively dressed, it’s about the images the story of each scent conjures up inside me whenever I read the story. And their stories are about other people, people who may have loved and lost - just like any one of us.
Their scents may be expensive, but they’re for everyone, not just the rich and good-looking. Not everyone will agree, but clearly, I am part of Guerlain’s target audience, I love a good perfume - but I need to feel inspired by it before I get my card out.
Nike has turned storytelling on its head. We all know the Nike brand, the famous minimalist tick and the expensive £200 price tag for their shoes.
But what Nike does is different to what a lot of brands do - and that is to tell other people’s stories instead of their own. Nike was founded in 1964 and in 45 years has become one of the most influential brands on earth. They make billions.
What Nike does is a stroke of genius, by creating endless stories that are about other people. Any one of those other people could be you. They will have worked hard on people’s needs, wants and desires. What keeps them up at night, what preoccupies them? What did they struggle with, what is it they had to overcome to be where they are now? The hero is you, the reader. And Nike do this perfectly by using the same techniques that all good stories use and changing them, so they’re about the readers rather than simply about the products or the brand itself.
Finally, we reach Jotform. At last a SaaS company that has a good About Page with a slick history timeline, a paragraph about their team, their ethos and values and a short section on the CEO of Jotform, Aytekin Tank.
Could it be better? For a SaaS company, it’s quite possibly enough. There could be more, but if you take a look at their website, their ethos and inclusivity are reflected in their web pages, they’re helpful and expand clearly on how to use their product. They even have a beginner’s page - with a free book on how to use Jotform. This is jargon-free, which is good if it’s aimed at those who may not get the hang of new apps right away and need their hand-holding. This is refreshingly different to a lot of SaaS websites which are not always good at explaining their product to their audience without relying on heavy jargon and clunky meaningless sentences.
So there are three examples and I hope you found them inspiring. What you find is that storytelling can work on your About Page - and that’s fine BUT the ethos and values should run right through the rest of your copy. It’s a feeling, a vibe, it’s about taking people with you, creating stories about you, but really about them, so they feel included and want to be part of the world you’ve created. You can create stories in your case studies, your testimonials and your emails as well as on your web pages and in your blogs and ebooks - even if you’re a corporate, a SaaS company or a perfume retailer - tell like it is, for you, for them for the hero in all of us.
I hope you find it helpful.
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