You can feel how much customers need your services and solutions, but your pipeline remains a ghost town. If this sounds familiar, read on.

Spurred by the pandemic, 2020 significantly shifted in the way businesses value digital transformation. Once seen as a way to lower costs and solve problems, organizations now prioritize technology as a key driver of business growth, whether it’s seen as a competitive advantage or a catalyst for an entirely new business model.

But if all this demand isn’t translating into leads and business, what’s the problem?

In her information-packed Partner Marketing Kickoff talk from March, Jenny Magic of Better Way to Say It reveals that the issue may be your brand story.

The New Importance of Brand Storytelling

Before the pandemic, many solutions providers relied on in-person events for lead generation, leaning on the charisma of the sales team and marketing materials that focused on closing the deal rather than filling the pipeline.

Once the pandemic put trade shows and other events on hold, many businesses didn’t have the digital marketing strategy in place to keep their pipeline strong. To counter this, businesses put all their sales materials online, flooding customers with features and benefits, only to discover that their brand message was too similar to competitors.

Today, brand storytelling is a powerful — and crucial — strategy to help your business stand out from the crowd. If the point of a brand is to give customers a “reason to choose,” Jenny talks through the three elements customers want to understand most: people, process and purpose.

People

What’s the experience customers have when interacting with your team? Are they pleasant, helpful, expert? Do they go above and beyond? Do they deliver what they promise? Do they challenge customers to embrace something better? And what’s the response if something goes wrong? What do your happiest customers say about your people?

Process

How do you do things differently behind the scenes? What advantages does your specific process offer? Is your process consistent and repeatable? If so, how would you identify those steps or phases?

Purpose

What drives your business? Customers want to know if you share their values and if you’re working toward something bigger than just your bottom line. How do you support customer success? What keeps your team motivated to come to work every day?

After you’ve brainstormed ideas in each category, it’s important to revisit the talking points you share with competitors. If your competitors can say it, too, these won’t contribute to building a unique brand promise for your business. Instead, dig a little deeper. If you’re really committed to customer service, how do you do it differently?

When you’ve identified all your people, process and purpose talking points, it’s time to craft them into a brand promise using your brand personality. Brand personality is both the voice and tone of your messaging and the look and feel of your logo, colors, website, etc. Together, these elements help customers understand who you are and what you truly stand for, both differentiating you in the marketplace and attracting the customers you’re best able to serve.

For examples of successful brand promises in action (and other great info), check out Jenny’s talk, “Above the Noise: Stand Out with a Better Brand Promise,” in the Citrix Partner Marketing Kickoff 2021 video library.