WHAT IS A BRAND STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK?
A brand storytelling framework is a document that outlines your storytelling strategy in a way that is simple and clear and easy to understand. It’s not shared externally with your customers. This is an internal planning support document. The only time you’d share it externally is if you’re working with external third-party content partners, or content creators and you need to ensure they understand your framework so anything they create isn’t off-brand.
BENEFITS OF HAVING A BRAND STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK?
- It gives you focus and clarity.
- Identifies priority areas of greatest impact.
- Gives you a guideline that everyone in your organization can abide by, which helps reduces push back later because you align up-front with your team, key leaders and decision makers.
- Give you peace of mind, knowing what you should be talking about, or what you want to test talking about, to see if it works. Helps you focus when distractions come up. And when these distractions happen, it’s never the intent to get derailed. But, I find it's easier to get distracted when teams don't feel grounded and focused on their core priorities. Or, perhaps as the content leader, you don’t feel empowered enough to push back because you haven’t had these larger alignment discussions yet and there is some gray area of confusion.
- As a communications professional, you don’t want confusion. If your brand is confused internally, your external messages to your audiences will also be confusing. It may be that you’re all over the place talking about too many varying things so your audience isn’t clear about what you stand for. What you believe. And, people buy from brands they trust. So, you need to communicate your brand in a way that resonates and is trusted by others.
5 Essentials Every Brand Storytelling Framework Needs
- A clear objective explaining what you want your brand storytelling to accomplish. Why are you even pursuing brand storytelling in the first place? Is it to more emotionally connect w/your audience to drive sign-ups? Is it to increase repeat & referrals? Is it to expand reach and position yourself as a leader in your space?
- Your storytelling pillars - what are you going to talk about?
- Who are you talking to? Visually outline who your target audience is. Remember, you’re talking to a person. Personify them and be clear about who they are, how they think, what Qs they have that you can see from consumer research, social listening and SEO insights.
- Tone clarification & examples
- Content calendar headline examples to bring everything to life for internal stakeholders.
AFFORDABLE BRAND STORYTELLING BLUEPRINT POWERPOINT TEMPLATE
A more focused and aligned brand storytelling marketing strategy is right around the corner! If you’re looking for a quick brand storytelling framework template to plug and play, I’ve got your back. I created this affordable PowerPoint template, with the above five essentials, to help you easily and quickly create your own brand storytelling framework. All you have to do is follow the prompts, update with your brand's info, and bam—you have your own brand storytelling blueprint to follow and use for team alignment. LEARN MORE
GET YOUR FREE OUTLINE of 5 ESSENTIALS EVERY BRAND STORYTELLING FRAMEWORK NEEDS
Not sure what your brand storytelling framework should contain? Want to double check that yours isn't missing something? Receive my free list of the 5 Essentials Every Brand Storytelling Framework Should Have pdf. It’s available to all my email subscribers by signing up here.
LINKS MENTIONED IN EPISODE
- Brand Storytelling Blueprint PowerPoint Template here
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Panus is a brand storytelling marketing strategist, podcast host, Minnesota mom, and owner of Kindred Speak, LLC, a remote consultancy that helps corporations attract upper-funnel leads that drive bottom-funnel results through storytelling. Her mission is to add value to the world by humanizing brand+consumer connections. Her online courses teach content professionals inside corporations how to think like Editorial Directors to drive stronger results while enjoying their jobs more. She’s spent the last 20 years helping brands including Sleep Number, Starbucks, Nestle Waters, Christos Bridal, Game Crazy, Cone Inc, and others, speak a kindred language with their audiences, driving brand advocacy and millions in revenue and brand engagements. Learn more at www.kindredspeak.com.
