The art of spinning a story about your brand

“Sell me this pen” is an iconic scene that most everyone remembers from the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. A few moments earlier, we also see Leo DiCaprio delivering—with inimitable cockiness bordering on contempt—a sacred business maxim. “It’s easier than you think. They all want something, for nothing.”

This reveals a few concepts that are sacrosanct for every good marketer, irrespective of the company type, size, product, or any other factor.

Whatever you are selling – product, service, company, yourself – sell with heart, and sell it with a story that captures attention.

Every marketer has to be able to engage their audience with content and facts, yes, but the narrative also plays a big role.

As the scene continues, Leo demonstrates how his buddy sold him the pen. He creates a sense of urgency in the buyer, convincing him that he needed that particular pen at that moment. He tapped into the buyer’s unique requirements, and tailored the pitch to pique his interest towards making the purchase.  This demonstrates another important rule of marketing: you must constantly remind your audience about why they need what you have on offer.

Here’s a six-step guide to marketing and selling your product.

  • Identify your product
  • Identify the associated emotion
  • Get to know your buyer before forming your pitch
  • Create a demand for your product
  • Approach your customer(s) i.e. your target audience
  • Spin a story to market your brand

From selling a pen to selling B2B cloud software, these steps apply.

If your customers need something that you have, you need to convince them as to why they should choose you amidst the cacophony of similar products in the market. How do you do that? By being visible and creating a brand recall value. And how do you create that? By identifying the emotion associated with your brand, creating a pitch around it, and sharing that story with every last bit of conviction.

You have to be out there, clashing cymbals, handing out reminders, and advocating your product to the target audience, without trespassing or wearing out your welcome.

Weave a story into your branding campaigns, and you will amplify your chances of making it to the top two brands in your industry.

People remember brand names only because of the story behind it. They take note of the way it has been packaged in smart advertising, and the product/service has trickled down into their daily lives. After this, the purchasing and engagement actively begins.

The evolution of marketing stories, woven into brand campaigns

The foundation for the stories you need are already around you. The skill lies in not only identifying them but in using a seed of an idea to grow a thicket of trees.

Identify the channels that you need to keep an eye on, and keep close tabs on it. It is also crucial to know what your competitors are saying about you, about themselves, and what the customers are saying about both you and your competitors. If you can identify the customers’ pain points, you can tailor both your story and solution from that thread.

Grab attention. Identify your pitch. Build your narrative. Stay relevant.  

Check these boxes and more often than not you will have a campaign that stays relevant and creates an impact.

Freshworks has demonstrated this through various marketing and branding activities.
The most recent such activity has been the successful gatecrashing of Dreamforce which began when we scoured social media and found the moniker ‘Failsforce’ being used by disgruntled customers. Our team used that spark to ignite what became a blazing fire.

Adapting to a changing audience

With gatecrashing, guerrilla marketing, and other such strategies, you can give run-of-the-mill campaigns an innovative twist. However, you have to spin your story around the entire activity, so it doesn’t seem like a stand-alone event but supports the larger story you are building about your company. 

It is equally important to follow up with the story and all the supporting characters you have created. Reiterate your story by giving the characters regular appearances in the form of videos, radio spots, blog posts, twitter handles… there is no limit to your creativity. Constantly remind your audience of what your campaign stands for.

Tailor your pitch around these factors, and you will find yourself with the slice-of-life, honest image that most audience will be able to remember and seek out.

Question the assumptions and rattle up some norms to arrive at brand stories with an everlasting tagline.

Give your audience the consumable and engaging content that they hunger for. Put your think tanks together and drum up ideas that will go down in history. Fly a blimp! After all, the sky’s the limit.