Authenticity in Action: How Small Brands Can Tell Better Stories
In a world where everyone claims to be 'authentic', true authenticity has never been more valuable.
A brand is built of many things: visual identity, marketing, values, products, services, and customer service. These all weave together to form your brand, but ultimately, your audience needs to know three things: that you understand them, you can solve their problem and they can trust you. With a crowded market space, it can be tempting to cast your net wide and appeal to everyone, and ultimately find yourself standing for nothing.
This is where authenticity can set you apart and make you:
Resonate with your target audience
Build loyalty with your client base
Grow your business
Real World Impact
Authentic storytelling enables purpose-led brands to make a difference in their sectors and communities. This is an important part of Studio Lawen’s work, as we use storytelling to create space and make a difference for our clients. The power of an authentic story is demonstrated in our brand work with Curistica, a boutique clinical innovation consultancy, who have focused heavily on their brand and purpose in their first year of business. By getting clear about their what and why, we have created a strong brand strategy and identity for them, which has played a significant part in attracting clients who are aligned to their values and seen them nominated for MedTech Consultancy of the Year award after their first year of business.
Understanding Your Core Story
What’s your ‘why’? You might have many responses to that question or you might just have one. Either way, this is the starting point of your brand story. Your whys might be a mixture of personal motivations and results-led objectives, but in that list will be the core story that drives you - and will connect with your core audience, too. It is these key moments in your journey that make you genuinely different and will enable your audience to connect with you and your offering.
Practical Storytelling Frameworks
Your ‘why’ is important but a successful brand also looks outwards and positions their audience centrally in the narrative. You need to be asking yourself the questions that your audience will be asking themselves, such as does this solve the problem I have and is it easy for me to choose this company?
So, how can you evidence this through storytelling? You layer up your storytelling pillars to include:
Brand story: how and why do you do what you do?
Vision story: draw your customer a picture of the future they could be part of
Impact story: show us that this has had real world impact, or demonstrate how you will create that impact
Customer stories: tell us that this has been approved by another person who’s not part of your business
Team stories: give us confidence that your team are going to deliver what I need
Physical spaces: how are you telling your story in your physical space? This is where your team and your audience will literally feel your brand and be immersed within it, so you need to ensure your spatial design is aligned to your brand. If you need help with this, get in touch to discuss our spatial design services.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Over-polishing your story: is it too good to be true? Showing a bit of grit goes a long way
Trying to appeal to everyone, and therefore appealing to no-one
Copying competitors' narratives, meaning you’re not differentiated in the market place and you will lack credibility
Focusing too much on features over impact: does it matter to you or does it matter to your client base? These aren’t the same thing
How can you bring your story to life?
You and your team need to understand your brand before you can shout about it. By creating a brand book that consists of a strong strategic, visual and content identity, you now have a guide for all your decision making, from content to business development, and it allows your team to all sing from the same hymn sheet.
Develop a sustainable channel-specific content strategy that incorporates all of your brand touchpoints, from physical spaces to client presentations to social media. This will ensure each interaction with your brand feels authentic, consistent and trustworthy.
One of the benefits of being small is that you can be nimble. Use a test and learn approach to your content and analyse your data and metrics to see what resonates with your audience, allowing this to inform an iterative content strategy.
Common Questions & Solutions:
"But my business isn't interesting enough..."
There is always something interesting about a business that is solving a genuine problem, it is just a question of digging into what that is and telling a story around it. This is where working with Studio Lawen is really valuable as our position as an independent brand strategy consultant gives us objectivity and allows us to quickly piece together the salient points.
What makes your business interesting may be what it enables others to do rather than the business itself. For example, Sugru as a product may not seem intrinsically interesting to a wide audience but what it does is: a revolutionary product that allows you to fix virtually anything, effortlessly, and allows you to stop wasting money and contributing to landfill by fixing the previously unfixable.
"What if my story isn't unique?"
Your story doesn’t need to be unique, per se, but it does need to be interesting and authentic. You need to dig into the detail. What is it about your story that is authentic to you?
Perhaps you’re staffed by customer service experts who come from a diverse background with one unifying goal: they are driven by the need to help others solve problems.
Did the idea for your business come to you in an unusual way or have you taken an unusual path that has given you a unique perspective?
"How much should I share?"
Think strategically as each piece of your story needs to have a purpose in this content-heavy world. Think to yourself, what does your customer need to know and what will each piece of information lead them to think? Focus on purpose-led transparency and how being open about your mission can build trust and community. If you are worried about oversharing, remember Coco Chanel’s advice “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off”
