This document provides guidance on how to tell your brand's story. It advises determining who your target audience is and where they spend time in order to craft an accessible narrative. Stories should use one of seven archetypes like quest or comedy. To spread the story, it must be positive and spreadable by inspiring audience action and sharing. Measuring results helps improve the story over time. An example case study demonstrates researching audience passions, building community, telling a positive story, making it spreadable, and measuring fundraising success.

1. Telling Your
Brand’s Story
Jen Begeal
JLB Hart Media
jen@jlbhartmedia.com
914.231.5471

2. What does story mean?

3. Stories have been shared in every
culture as a means of entertainment,
education, cultural preservation, and
instilling moral values.
When you tell your brand’s story you
have to think in terms of the overall
narrative including the history,
marketing objectives, executive
background, and service or product.

4. What makes a good story?

5. How do I tell my story?
Before you begin, ask yourself
these questions:
● Who is my audience?
● Where do they spend their
time?
● Why should they care about
my company?
● What am I providing for
them?

6. Know your audience

7. What are their habits?
Making assumptions based upon
market data and observation you can
determine where your core audience or
clients spend their time.
Consider what types of devices your
audience are using - mobile, tablet,
laptop, PC as well as the TYPES of
content they consume; from cat
pictures to hard hitting journalistic
articles, understanding their viewing
habits will help you craft a story that
resonates with your audience.

8. Make your story accessible

9. Making a story accessible means making it understandable by your audience. There are 7
archetypal themes that recur in every kind of storytelling, using one of these themes (or a mix of
them) makes your brand’s message easily understood by your audience.
The 7 archetypes are:
● Overcoming the Monster
● Rebirth
● Quest
● Journey and Return
● Rags to Riches
● Tragedy
● Comedy
Stories convey meaning and are symbolic of the world around us, use too many symbols and the
meaning is distorted.

10. … and spreadable
To be clear, spreadable is not viral; viral is non-active participation, whereas spreadable requires
action on the part of the audience. If your audience is in love with your story, they will share it.

11. Stay positive
Positive messaging is very important
to both spreadability and brand trust.
Never use a negative message to try
and sell your brand. Think about
politicians, would you rather vote for a
candidate who has a positive message
or one that spends their time trying to
smear their opponent?
The tone of your story is everything.

12. Measure your results
Wash, rinse, repeat.
If it works, keep doing it, if it
doesn't, evaluate what is
working and what isn’t and try
again.

13. Case study
Project: The Last Crop
First Challenge: Create awareness and
build an engaged audience around a
documentary film about sustainable
agriculture and land easements.
Second Challenge: Activate the
audience during the film’s
crowdfunding campaign to spread the
film’s message and increase donations.

14. Research who your audience are,
what they do and what they are
passionate about.
Overcoming the Monster
“Corporate farming and land grabbing has
driven many farmers from their land driving
up the price of available land making it
unaffordable for young farmers. This film
focuses on a family who are trying to
change that. "

15. Build your community
We set out to build a
community that would
appreciate, identify and
engage with the story of our
farmers and their struggle.

16. Tell a good story
We began the campaign by telling a
story about our farmers and the loss
of farmland across the country

17. Make it spreadable
We posted messages
that were simple and
meaningful to our
audience.

18. Always be positive
We found that positive
quotes, even if they had
nothing to do with
farming, resonated with
larger audiences.

19. Measure your results
Throughout the campaign we made changes to
our messaging based upon our audience’s
interactions with our social media channels. In
the end our work paid off resulting in:
● Over 9,000 engaged Facebook fans over
the course of 6 months on a budget of
$600
● 900+ Twitter followers
● Raised $56K during crowdfunding
campaign ($6K over our initial goal of $50K)

20. Thank You!
Jen Begeal
JLB Hart Media
jen@jlbhartmedia.com
914.231.5471