Author: Franz Malten Buemann

By nature, all examples of good copywriting are creative in one way or another. Whether through simplicity, complexity, or pure genius, each of these examples shows why copywriting is a craft.

Last year, a buzzword ripped through the content marketing space that most marketers were surprisingly thrilled about and eager to implement. Shockingly, it didn’t start with “virtual” or end with “intelligence”. Instead, it was what attracted most marketers to the industry in the first place — “storytelling”.
Content marketing’s steady adoption of storytelling is an exciting new opportunity for content creators. The human brain is wired to respond to well-crafted narrative — neuroscience proves that storytelling is the best way to capture people’s attention, bake information into their memories, and forge close, personal bonds. Your audience is programmed to crave and seek out great stories — that’ll never change.
However, since we’ve spent the majority of our careers optimizing content for algorithms, it can be challenging to flex a creative muscle that’s slowly withered away from inactivity and, in turn, move people emotionally and sear your brand into their memories.
So, to help you strengthen that creative muscle and write compelling stories again, we’ve created a guide about the fundamentals of brand story structure and provided examples of three small-to-medium sized businesses who have leveraged their brand story to resonate with huge audiences, despite their comparatively small size.

What is a brand story?
A brand story recounts the series of events that sparked your company’s inception and expresses how that narrative still drives your mission today. Just like your favorite books and movies’ characters, if you can craft a compelling brand story, your audience will remember who you are, develop empathy for you, and, ultimately, care about you.

When HubSpot first started, we noticed traditional, interruptive marketing didn’t appeal to consumers anymore. Due to the digital age, people were in complete control of the information they consumed — and they were sick and tired of receiving direct mail, email blasts, and cold calls. People wanted to be helped, so we started creating educational content that aided people in solving their marketing problems.
Today, we’ve built a passionate community of inbound marketers, expanded our inbound marketing approach to the sales and customer service industries, and strengthened the inbound movement more than ever before.
This our brand story — a simple, digestible narrative that explains why HubSpot began, and how this reason still serves as our purpose today.
How to Write a Brand Story
1. Highlight your story’s conflict.
Check out the following story. Does it resonate with you?
A girl wearing a red-hooded cloak is strolling through the woods to give her sick grandma some much-needed food and TLC. She passes by a wolf on the way. They exchange a slightly awkward soft smile-nod combination that random colleagues usually greet each other with as they pass in the hallway. She makes it to her grandma’s house without a scratch. They eat lunch and play a game of Clue together. Grandma wins by deducing that Colonel Mustard killed Mr. Boddy in the Billiard Room with the candlestick — what a shocker! The End.
So … what’d you think? Did this story keep you on the edge of your seat? Or does it feel … off? For some reason, it doesn’t work, right? That’s because there’s no conflict. Despite the intense game of Clue at the end, there’s nothing at stake. There’s no tension. The wolf didn’t try to eat the girl. He didn’t even go to Grandma’s house. He barely acknowledged Little Red Riding Hood.
At their core, stories are about overcoming adversity. So if there’s no conflict presented, there’s no drama or emotional journey that people can relate to. And if your story has no drama or emotional journey, it won’t hold anyone’s attention — let alone resonate with and inspire them.
Unfortunately, in the business world, brands are horrified to reveal any adversity or conflict they’ve faced. They believe that spinning a rosy, blemish-free story about how their company only experiences hockey stick growth will convince people that they’re the industry’s best-in-class solution. Any adversity or conflict during their company’s history will expose their imperfections, deterring potential customers from buying their product.
But, in reality, this is a huge misconception. Nothing’s perfect. Everything, including companies (especially companies), has flaws. Plus, people don’t relate to perfection. They relate to the emotional journey of experiencing adversity, struggling through it, and, ultimately, overcoming it. Because, in a nutshell, that’s the story of life.
Conflict is key to telling compelling stories. So be transparent about the adversity your company has faced, and own it. The more honest you are about your shortcomings, the more people will respect you and relate to your brand.
2. Don’t forget about your story’s status quo and resolution. Conflict isn’t the only thing you should focus on when crafting your brand story. A compelling story has two other fundamental elements — the status quo and resolution.
The status quo is the way things are or the initial nature of your situation. The conflict disrupts this situation and puts something at stake, forcing the protagonist (your brand) to actively find a solution to this problem. The resolution describes how the protagonist solves the problem, giving your audience an emotional payoff.
In sum, your brand’s story structure should look like this — status quo, conflict, and resolution. It’s as simple as that.
If you need an example to crystalize brand story structure in your mind, let’s go over the actual Little Red Riding Hood story, as well as some brands who are nailing their brand stories right now.
Little Red Riding Hood
Status Quo: Little Red Riding Hood walks through the woods, on her way to deliver food to her sick grandma.
Conflict: A Big Bad Wolf approaches her, and asks where she’s going. She naively tells him where her grandmother’s house is, so he suggests she picks some flowers as a present for her. While she’s distracted, he breaks into Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house, eats her, and puts on her clothes to impersonate her.
When Little Red Riding Hood gets to her grandmother’s house, she notices some subtle changes in her grandmother appearance but ultimately ignores them and hops into bed with her. The wolf swallows her whole. He falls asleep from a massive food coma.
Resolution: A hunter hears Little Red Riding Hood’s screams, bursts through grandma’s door, and cuts open the wolf’s stomach, setting Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother free. They then fill the wolf’s body with heavy stones, and when he wakes up and tries to run away, he topples over and dies.
Now — wouldn’t you say that was a little more compelling and entertaining than finding out Colonel Mustard can wield a candlestick as a murder weapon? I would, too.
The thing is, some small brands are leveraging this same exact story structure to generate massive amounts of brand awareness and affinity. Read on to find out exactly how they do it.

Brand Story Examples

Unthinkable Media
Grado Labs
Drift

1. Unthinkable Media

Unthinkable Media is a creative agency that produces original, narrative-driven podcasts for B2B brands. Their mission is to create refreshing, entertaining shows for clients that can actually retain people’s attention, not just acquire it.
Here’s a rundown of their brand story, which is also fleshed out in one of the founder’s blog posts:
Status Quo: As makers and marketers, we want our audience’s attention, and so for years, we focused our efforts on acquiring it.
Conflict: But today, thanks to multiple screens, ubiquitous and instantly accessible content, and endless choice in nearly every competitive niche, the buyer now has total control. They only choose experiences they genuinely enjoy. It is no longer enough for us to simply acquire our audience’s attention.
Resolution: We need to hold it. That is our new mandate as makers and marketers. We need to shift our focus from impressions and traffic to subscribers and community. Everything we are trying to achieve becomes possible and gets easier when our audience spends minutes or even hours with us, not seconds. Don’t just acquire attention. Hold it.
2. Grado Labs

Grado Labs is a third-generation, family-owned headphone and cartridge company. They don’t believe in advertising, have operated in the same building for over a century, and even make their headphones by hand. So why do they choose to operate like this when huge brands like Beats by Dre, Sony, and Bose have celebrity endorsers and mass-produce their headphones? Check out our interpretation of their brand story to find out.
Status Quo: Music is an essential part of the human experience. Without it, life just isn’t as colorful and exciting. And we believe quality headphones amplify the pleasant, emotional experience of listening to music.
Conflict: In a market where every headphone brand has an enormous advertising budget, state-of-the-art facilities, and high-tech machines that can churn out as much product as they want, all of which we don’t have, why do we choose to not conform?
Resolution: Sound comes first. We’re craft-driven creators, meaning we prioritize producing the best product over generating the most hype. And by creating a better pair of headphones at the expense of publicity and growth, we can serve our customers better and foster a fervent passion for our product.
3. Drift

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that helps businesses connect with prospects through genuine, empathetic conversations and interactions. In 2016, they shocked the content marketing world by scrapping arguably the most reliable lead generator from their website — forms.
Even though they were initially anxious about getting rid of a lead generation machine, they knew ungating every piece of content on their website would allow them to align with their mission, put their customers first, and offer as much value as possible, which would produce better long-term results. Here’s our interpretation of their brand story.
Status Quo: The crux of content marketing is treating people like humans. So, we’ve done what most other companies have done: created content that aims to help and educate our customers. And in exchange for adding value to their lives, customers are likely to return the favor with their attention, trust, and action.
Conflict: But as much as we preach about putting the customer first, we don’t practice it. Instead of offering the most value we possibly can, we make people give us their contact information in exchange for the very thing we promise is free. Then, with their contact information, we email and call them until they either unsubscribe or eventually buy. No one actually enjoys filling out forms, becoming a lead, and getting nurtured. Our ulterior motive is crystal clear. So are we actually being customer-centric?
Resolution: Let’s get rid of all our forms. If we really want to practice what we preach — putting our customers first and providing a more human and empathetic marketing experience — we should offer all of our content for free, with no strings attached.
Tell your brand’s real story, not it’s highlight reel.
Whether you’re publishing your brand story on your website or using it to inform your overall mission, make sure it’s fact, not fiction. Spitting out a highlight reel, like almost every other brand does, won’t actually resonate with people. Instead, it’s crucial you tell the honest truth about the adversity your company has faced, and how you’re working to overcome it. Because what people relate to and get inspired by isn’t endless success — it’s the rocky journey of pursuing a goal, getting knocked down, and, ultimately, finding a path toward success.

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Everyone can acknowledge the importance of a mobile-friendly website, especially after Google’s Mobilegeddon algorithm update.
Mobile optimization is here to stay, and it’s demanding more and more of businesses and their websites. But mobile optimization is about more than just a responsive website design.
In this article, we tell you why and how to adopt a mobile-first mindset for your website.

Google’s mobile-friendly algorithm change in 2015 (and a few more since then) was evidence that the search engine recognizes its responsibility to surface websites that painlessly get users what they need at the time that they need it.
Google doesn’t want to send mobile users to websites that provide a frustrating browsing experience — that would damage its promise to its users to always deliver helpful, relevant content.
Moreover, this algorithm change was and is a signal of a much larger shift that’s afoot — consumer behavior is changing, and it’s your job to adapt.

Building a mobile-friendly website is step one, but tweaking your website will not keep you ahead of consumers’ changing behavior and expectations.
In short, you have to infuse your marketing strategy with a mobile-first mindset. Here’s how.
1. Map your customer journey.
Imagine the experience of Sally, a young marketer who has just moved to Chicago. While out for a walk, Sally passes by a hair salon and realizes she needs a haircut. She pulls out her phone a search for hairstylists in Chicago who specialize in curls and color. Her Google search pops up Joann’s Stylez.
She flips through the website quickly and wants to research more, but it’s too hard while on the move — so she texts herself a link. When she gets home, she opens her texts on her tablet and quickly checks Yelp reviews, examines her calendar, and then books an appointment using the simple form on the Joann’s website.
When Sally loads up her laptop later that night to check her email, she discovers an email from Joann’s that confirms her appointment and gives her the option to add it to her calendar. The next day, 30 minutes before her appointment, she receives a push notification on her work computer reminding her of the appointment.
The next day, Sally receives a mobile email asking for feedback on the cut and offering to set up a recurring appointment at a discounted rate. She’s sold.
Sally’s experience is illustrative of the cross-device, omnichannel journey that many customers now make as they move through the marketing funnel. Every day, consumers switch a handful of different devices when completing common tasks such as online shopping, readying blog posts, booking appointments, or communicating with each other.
HubSpot’s Blogging Software equips you to publish relevant, conversion-optimized content you can preview on any device — allowing you to engage with customers wherever they are.
Consumers now expect this type of experience from all of their digital interactions. They want to be able to accomplish whatever fits their fancy on whatever device is at hand. This means that simply adapting your site to look nice on different devices is not enough. As a marketer, you must dig deeper into your customers’ and prospects’ lives.
For example, at HubSpot, we know that a visitor on a mobile device is very unlikely to fill out a long form on one of our landing pages. So we started using Smart Content to automatically shorten the form when a mobile viewer is looking at it. By doing this, our mobile prospects increased by 5x.
2. Seize intent-rich micro-moments.
You’ve likely already developed a strong set of buyer personas. You’ve conducted user research and testing to understand which content and CTAs to present to each persona as they move down the funnel. You must now go a step further. You must understand both the rhythm and rhyme to when, why, with what, and from where people are interacting with your website and content.
Google encourages marketers to identify the “micro-moments” in a customer’s journey:

Micro-moments occur when people reflexively turn to a device — increasingly a smartphone — to act on a need to learn something, do something, discover something, watch something, or buy something. They are intent-rich moments when decisions are made and preferences shaped.

A number of brands have figured out how to anticipate and capitalize on these micro-moments. Apple Passbook loads up your Starbucks card when you’re near a coffee shop. Hertz sends you an email when your plane lands to let your know that your car is ready. Starwood allows you to check in and open your hotel room with your smartphone.
Consumers are increasingly becoming acclimated to companies offering such intimately responsive experiences. 59% of shoppers say that being able to shop on mobile is important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from, and 39% of smartphone users are more likely to browse or shop a company or brand’s mobile app because it’s easier or faster to make a purchase.
How can you figure out these micro-moments and design your content to meet prospects’ intent? Tap into your data. Here are three analyses you should start with:

Search: Which queries, ads and keywords are bringing users on different devices to your website and landing pages? Once they land on your site, what types of searches are users on different devices performing?

Content: Examine the content that users access by stage in the funnel and by device. Is there a trend around what prospects on their phones are downloading? Sharing?

Flow: Dig into a flow analysis segmented by device. What is the path mobile-using prospects follow? What is the path tablet-using customers follow? From what sites and sources are these visitors arriving?

After building your trove of micro-moments, it would be easy to think: “Okay, we just need to strip our website down to the specific things our visitors will mostly likely want to access on the go.”
But mobile users are not limited to completing short, simple tasks. The device does not directly imply location or intent.
A busy professional may use her commute time to conduct in-depth industry research on her phone, process her email inbox on her tablet while watching a movie with her family, and browse the websites of potential contractors while flying across the country.
Confirming this intuition, the Pew Research Center’s study of U.S. smartphone found that 99% of smartphone owners use their phone at home, 82% use their phones while in transit, and 69% use their phone at work each week. (This study was conducted in 2015, but we believe it’s still relevant, if not more so, today.)
People don’t want a stripped down set of content. Instead, they want quick and easy access to the materials they need on whatever device they happen to be using.Thus, while you want to optimize your site, landing pages, emails, etc. for micro-moments, you do not want to force visitors into a box from which they cannot escape.
3. Consider (and reconsider) your metrics.
The metrics you established in the desktop-centric days may not seamlessly translate to our new multi-device, micro-moment world. For example, you might have fought tirelessly to find ways to increase visitors’ time on your site, recognizing that more time means higher engagement, which translates to higher conversion.
The micro-moments you identify for mobile visitors, however, might suggest that you want a lower time-on-site. A prospect visiting the website of a consulting firm may be looking for:

An infographic they want to show a coworker
The bio of a partner with whom they are about to meet
A case study to read while traveling

In order to meet this prospect’s expectations for their mobile experience, you must design your website to quickly and intuitively help them find the specific piece of information for which they are looking. If their mobile visit is distracting, frustrating, or too time consuming, you’ve damaged their perception of your brand.
4. Embrace the intimacy of mobile.
For better or worse, I go to bed with my phone (reviewing tomorrow’s schedule and reading a nighttime meditation) and I wake up with my phone (silencing the alarm and checking the weather). I communicate with my partner and my best friends everyday — all through my phone. When my MBA classmate sends a GIF of Tyra Banks being sassy, I turn my phone to the person next to me, and we have a good laugh together.
Day-in and day-out, these interactions create an intimate connection between my phone and me. And I’m not alone: Most consumers imbue their mobile experiences with more intimacy than desktop experiences. The Pew Research Center found that Americans view their smartphones as freeing, connecting, and helpful, and associate their phones with feelings of happiness and productivity. These associations can inspire greater engagement with and interest in content.
As marketers, we should take advantage of these trends and consider how to make our prospects’ mobile experience more personal and social. Perhaps change your website to increase the proportion of social CTAs you display when someone arrives on mobile.
5. Remember the basics and think ahead.
Overall, embracing the mobile mindset means ensuring that the entire customer journey is responsive, relevant, actionable, and frictionless. As a marketer, you want to help consumers quickly and easily find what they want to find and do what they want to do. Again, this means thinking ahead, understanding when, with what device, and from where your prospects will interact with your content.
This can seem daunting, but mostly it means diligently applying the basics across channels. For example, since nearly half of all emails are opened on mobile, ensure your emails are mobile optimized. We recommend doing the following:

Use large, easy-to-read text.
Use large, clear images and reduce file sizes.
Keep layouts simple and invest in responsive templates.
Use large, mobile-friendly calls-to-action and links.

Recognizing the personal associations people have with their phones, you’ll want to ensure that the “From” name is familiar and that the preview text is inviting. And think ahead: Don’t email a link to a form or an event registration landing page that is not mobile-friendly.
Use HubSpot’s Free Landing Page Builder to launch landing pages that look perfect across devices and automatically change content based on who’s viewing your page.
Over to You: Time to Optimize
Follow these tips and you will be well on your way to living the mobile mindset and weathering the change in consumers’ digital behavior. Move quickly and your organization could be at the head of the pack.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in June 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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