Three tips for manufacturers looking to tell their brand story

Everyone has that uncle who tells -- and retells -- the same story around every Thanksgiving table. When it comes to your company and brand storytelling, don't be that uncle.

Naturally, sharing your brand story is a critical way to drive awareness and ultimately sales. But if you've been in business for awhile, it can feel like you're constantly relaying those few favorite anecdotes over and over again. That feeling is compounded when you post news and updates on your company's social media accounts, blog, and website. I get it -- it's hard to figure out what else to talk about while driving public interest. And, if your business is fairly niche, how do you tell stories that are relevant to and garner attention among a wider audience? How do you think of fresh news to share?

These are questions that businesspeople in every industry face, but they can seem especially pertinent to manufacturers in the B2B space.

Over years of working with brands ranging from startup to seasoned, I've found a few ways to help brands uncover offbeat, interesting story angles. It takes some digging and a lot of creative thinking, but these stories are within reach.

Answer questions. Whether it's a friend, family member, or bona fide marketer, enlist someone from outside your company to ask you questions about your brand. Innovators and C-level executives live and breathe their business -- often making them too close to have a sense of which details of their business are interesting to a wider audience. So it's important to hear what questions an industry outsider asks because it can help uncover fresh story angles. Often, the details that seem most obvious to the people in the business are really fascinating to those without the same background knowledge.

Think about the human elements of your brand. For example, what hole in the market did the founder seek to fill when he or she started the company? What big failures has the brand (or the people who lead it) faced? Who are the main characters in your brand story? The audience reading your website and social media channels may not feel connected to a story about the production details of a widget, but they can connect to the authentic, human elements of a brand story. Telling the stories of people can drive interest in the brand, and can forge a connection with a wider audience.

Consider what you're an expert in. Of course, at the top of that list will be the industry you work in. But think deeper. Are you an excellent leader? Are you developing a completely new process for running a business? Or are you an expert in something unrelated to your business, but of interest to a wider audience? These story angles may not be solely focused on your brand, but they give depth to the human behind a brand, and ultimately draw in potential customers.

Aubrey Gordon is President and Founder of Sprocket Communications, a Denver-based public relations and social media agency that creates provocative, award-winning campaigns. Learn more at www.sprocketcommunications.com.