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What Makes a Brand Story Powerful?

Writer's picture: Laura Hope GoldstoneLaura Hope Goldstone

Updated: Sep 15, 2020

Savvy content marketers will tell you that Brand Storytelling is powerful when it is engaging. That seems like an obvious one, so let’s uncover the layers and get to the heart of the matter: What makes content engaging?


Think about it this way: What do YOU find engaging?


You may describe engaging content as:

  • Educational

  • Relevant

  • Relatable

  • Valuable

  • Timely

  • Emotional

  • Concrete

  • Specific

  • Understandable

  • Well-done

  • Accurate

  • Eye-opening

  • Exciting

  • Unique

  • Memorable

  • Actionable

  • Designed in an interesting manner

  • Provided by a trusted source

Engaging content provides some amount of value to the reader; in other words, the reader must walk away feeling positively different after interacting with a brand’s content in order to deem it engaging. Let’s examine a few of the most engaging content qualities from a storytelling marketing perspective.


Educational content


A resource that instructs a reader on how to do something properly or provides a new perspective or framework to apply is both informative and actionable, and gives the reader something valuable – either a new thought to consider or a new technique to try.


Of course, the reader will only be interested in educational content that is relevant, polished, and credible. If content contains typos, the reader may immediately discount the sentiments behind the words. If content isn’t founded in experience or data, or provided by a reputable source, the reader may not know whether he can trust it enough to abandon his thoughts for these new ones or to apply it in his life and face the consequences himself.


Emotional content


If you are a B2B marketer or a technical writer, you may be wondering how hard facts can be emotional. But all stories can tap into readers’ emotions in some ways – not necessarily in the way you are thinking.


Emotional content doesn’t necessarily mean that a blog post has to make someone cry; content can appeal to positive emotions. If you’ve ever welled up at a touching commercial or cried during a movie, you know that content can make you cry and tap into your emotions. And now you know that the reason is that the content tells a powerful, emotional story. But if you ever felt invigorated or excited by a content asset – maybe you found a resource on a topic you had been searching for all year, or maybe you read an article that made you feel empowered to apply its insights to your work – then you have been the recipient of emotional content. In other words, the story being illustrated in that content resonated with you by tapping into your emotions. Storytelling marketing leans on content appealing to readers’ emotions and making readers feel something as a result of engaging with it; emotional content is the deliverable you must create if you want to reach and resonate with your audience.


Note that emotional content works best when it is authentic, driven by strategy, and supported by a strong story. Fear-mongering content (“do x or you won’t reap benefit y,” “do x so you don’t get left out,” “people who don’t do x are suffering,” etc.) is NOT authentic; it is not just appealing to emotions – it is abusing them in order to make a sale. There are more sincere ways to appeal to readers’ emotions (and, yes, sell your product). Give your readers some credit – they know when content is just trying to shame them into buying something, and even if they can’t acknowledge it explicitly, they deserve enough respect to receive authentic communication.


Bonus: This is why graduation speeches, rally speeches, presidential speeches, and other examples of successful public speaking engagements circulate the Internet for years, are included in textbooks and studied in communication classes, and stand the test of time: They tell powerful stories that appeal to your emotions, they resonate with something within you – something you can relate to, and they make you feel something, leaving you a changed person versus before you interacted with the content.


An intriguing design


Design can do wonders to support strong storytelling and engage readers. Effective design complements the content; superb design elevates it. There are many ways to portray a single thought; if you have the resources and time, leveraging design skills will help your content resonate more effectively with your audience.


The reason is that design provides a positive user experience for the reader and brings life to your words. Additionally, design adds to the psychological elements of storytelling. The reader may have an existing schema of a particular topic, and it may be difficult to abstractly challenge that schema, but design can tap into the psyche and appeal to the senses in additional ways that may enable your point to be made more effectively. A reader may remember the colors and pictures in an infographic more readily than the specific statistics within it; as such, a strong design can make content more exciting and understandable, which leads to it being memorable and engaging.


Note: Design is often seen as a bonus - a nice-to-have element, but not a need-to-have element. In novel writing, this may be true - you may not have control over the illustrations in your book. But you can design your words in another way - you can design the layout or format. The way you structure your story matters. Consider these questions: What happens in the beginning, middle, end? Do you shift perspective? Do you jump around the timeline or progress linearly? Do you aim for cliffhangers at the end of chapters? Do you provide a stream of consciousness for one of your characters? Are your chapters long or short? Do they have titles? etc. These are all innovative ways to use design elements to support your writing. And, of course, if you are a content marketer, design complements and elevates your content, adds credibility and professionalism, and is required to achieve brand cohesion across your company, thus deeming it more important than just "nice-to-have."



...And that's not all

Powerful, engaging content can take many forms, and the reason behind its successful may vary depending on the reader's mood, job, interests, and other factors. The list at the top of this blog post is very substantial, but it may not be 100% exhaustive. If there are other qualities of content you find engaging or other adjectives you'd use to describe content that storytelling marketers have created effectively, we want to know. Comment below to continue the conversation around what makes a Brand Story powerful!


Storyhaven will examine more elements of powerful brand storytelling and storytelling marketing, as understanding these tenets and sharing how to apply them to your own lives is part of our mission. We hope you found this post helpful and will tune in for the next one soon!



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