Now that you’ve made the commitment to mining stories for your content development and created workplace strategies to develop employee involvement in finding stories, it’s time to get granular. Where and what are the actual places, activities, and instances where brand stories are born?

What qualifies me to give you advice? I have been writing professionally since 2007 for Inner Architect. My experience includes pieces for Chicago Sun Times, Reuters, Fox Business News, Computer Shopper, and Plaintiff and Advocate magazines. When it comes to finding the stories worth telling, it’s worth looking back at your career. I was able to find impactful vignettes by recounting my corporate experiences as a software reseller and national account manager to Wells Fargo bank, working for TransUnion in the credit data space, and even from the beginning of my career as a sales rep selling groundbreaking (for the time) barcode technology for Moore Business Forms back in the 80’s.

8 Content Development Rich Story Sources

Customer Success Stories

Is there anything more compelling to your audience and prospective clients than a story about one of your customers who was struggling and with your guidance, you ended that struggle? When you tell a story of how your company ended the customer “pain”, prospects reading your success story often relate to the challenges they currently face. Those prospective customers will remember the pressure, angst, worry, time lost, money wasted, and negatives of their own challenge. With a detailed account of how you made that customer pain go away, a prospect gets a first hand look into how well you work and how you can help them.

We are not talking about a brief testimonial from a client. This should be a long form written blog post or video that digs deep into the details. Note: This piece can be used by a prospect as social proof when presenting findings to their management.

Company History (About Page)

Some of the greatest stories brands can share include how the company was founded, what the founders-owners were like as people, unique timing or circumstances of the launch, and what made the company unique and noteworthy right from the beginning. Unique stories are great, even little tidbits like this one. Did you know Hewlett Packard, founders David Packard and Bill Hewlett, decided whose name would appear first by flipping a coin?

Founder, Key Employee Profiles

A fantastic example of a great source of stories was from a former Founding partner of a large national law firm Inner Architect works with. The founder played college football at the highest level of Division I and was drafted into the NFL. When this man would meet with prospective clients, more often than not, they would ask about his playing days. And he would tell stories about game days in the university’s historic stadium, what it was like to play in front of 80,000 screaming fans, and the blood and sweat it took to earn a scholarship. Recounting his life experiences thrilled many of his prospects and paved the way for many to become interested new clients.

What Makes Your Services Unique or Noteworthy?

Do you have a differentiating factor that makes your services unique or noteworthy to the marketplace? For Inner Architect what we do is not unique but it is noteworthy with $500MM produced in new client revenue through our PPC campaign management and data analysis. Look for stories of how you’ve solved your customers problems and helped them prosper.

An ultimate example is the story of FedEx (Federal Express). They were “the first company to create an airline to solve the logistics challenges businesses faced. Operations began in 1973 with the pickup and delivery of the first overnight packages.”

Industry Conferences and Networking Events

Were you recognized at a conference for an achievement, did you give a keynote speech, find new clients, or discover industry breaking news?  Conferences are rich resources for brand stories. For smaller local  events you could recount how your preparation for a networking event lead to a new business relationship, allowed you to orchestrate an introduction that created a new relationship for your industry colleague, or helped you discover local industry news relevant to your audience.

How Did Your Company Give Back and Influence Your Community?

Does your company sponsor charitable organizations? Is a key employee part of an advisory board for a worthy cause? Do you organize your own fund raising events and donate the proceeds to local charity? Or are your product(s) or service(s) unique and powerful in influencing change within your community? Our Managing Principal Susan Hanshaw wrote a book titled Inner Architect: How to Build the Life You Were Designed to Live. In her book, she provides a step-by-step guide that helps people understand how to begin to change something in their lives that they wish to improve.

Review Sites

Yelp and Google reviews are, in the public eye, strong indicators to how your brand is being received and judged. For better or worse they are here to stay and something you must monitor and stay connected to. The upside is there are often glowing reviews about companies, services providers, and professional services that are never discovered. The positive customer experience based reviews can be used as a basis for your story. Don’t let a great Yelp review sit buried out of sight. Bring it forward for your audience to see.

In Person Meetings

Whether you’re meeting with a prospect or client in their office or yours, there are often no better opportunities to find impactful stories for your content development. Product or service demos, initial discovery meetings, open houses , new campaign rollouts, weekly, bi-weekly, quarterly, or annual progress meetings, and performance sales meetings are a few of the types of meetings that are rich with opportunity. Be proactive and look for important interactions that could be the basis for a great story that supports your company messaging.

The Next Step

If you are taking the next step to power up your content development:

  • Create a priority list of story sources you think will be the most effective.
  • What’s most important to you or which is the richest source of stories for your content development?
  • Begin to pay attention and look for stories during meetings, at events, while engaging in interactions and during your research.

Being prepared gives your team the chance to find the fantastic stories that make your company special.

Bio
Dean Guadagni
Principal, Content Strategist

Dean is one of the co-founders of Inner Architect Media (2008) and has 20 years of experience as a content producer. Dean has written professionally since 2007 representing corporate clients to solo entrepreneurs. He was an early adopter of WordPress (2007) and an approved member of  the BlogBurst content syndication service where his articles were published by Reuters.com, Nielsen.com, FoxBusiness.com, Ziff Davis Enterprise’s “Microsoft Watch”, Computer Shopper, and the Chicago Sun-Times. His work has also appeared in the leading California legal print publication Plaintiff and Advocate magazines.