Get your story straight

As well as sessions from the who’s who of digital marketing in the North East, the conference featured keynotes from industry giants Microsoft, Bing and Hyper Island.

John’s talk focussed on the role of brand, with an emphasis on the importance of clarifying your brand story to provide a powerful platform which sits right at the heart of your digital strategy and supports business growth.

For us, digital isn’t just about generating noise, fighting for your brand messages to be heard and engagement for engagement’s sake. We believe your digital strategy is all about creating high performing digital tools, targeted persona led content and relevant brand engagement. This requires clear understanding of your audience, and most importantly clarity and consistency from your brand storytelling, as well as a relevant and remarkable brand toolkit.

John said: “Digital is a fast moving, ever evolving channel filled with powerful tools, exciting platforms, intelligent algorithms and in-depth subscription models. But at the end of the day they are all just tools.

Humans relate to stories – that’s one thing that hasn’t changed for thousands of years and probably never will. We’ve used them long before the written word and we’ll still be using them long after the digital tools we use today are gone. Good stories are timeless, they transcend tools, channels and media. You just need to find yours.

There’s no doubt your digital team will be guided by a clearly defined brand story and archetype that drives your online character and tone of voice; empowering all important employee buy-in and enabling maximum return on investment from your digital strategy.

Don’t make the same mistake that many organisations make – dismissing brand as just another visual box to be ticked separate from marketing and digital.

If you get your brand story clear from the start, you’ll find making those decision and using those tools not just easier but also a lot more focussed, more consistent and more effective.