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Want to build trust with your audience? To do that, you need the all-important combination of authority and expertise. Effective content marketing and focused messaging transforms slightly engaged customers into your brand’s biggest ambassadors. It develops rapport. It encourages a reciprocal trust wherein you give to your customers, and they give back to you in the form of social capital (by boosting your business, helping spread the word and openly engaging).

It reduces risk by making sure that one-time customers come back and feed into the relationship dynamic. It’s so much more than a signal booster for SEO… it’s engaging, it’s compelling and it does the selling for you, without you even having to utter a single sales pitch.

Brand Story : Why Storytelling Matters To ROI

Putting it into practice: The DC Shoes Story

Probably one our favourite examples of the power of story and purpose in accelerating brand growth that of DC Shoes. DC Shoes is a brand deeply and authentically connected with skate culture. The company was started by two friends while attending community college classes.

If you are not that familiar with the DC Shoes brand, you might think that they only sold shoes, however they have full range of clothing including, t-shirts, sweaters, and even snowboarding accessories.

Leveraging the power of brand story for ROI

Some brands are known for innovation, others thought leaders or being renowned for technical break throughs or accomplishments. DC Shoes on the other hand, while pioneering some level of technical innovation with regards to shoes technology and some push forward in their jackets did not really achieve much in this regard. In fact most of the value that they offer their customers was related to the story of self-expression and self-actualisation. A story of a lifestyle told about the brand that embodied the spirit of the brand with every communication and interaction.

“If your stories are all about your products and services, that’s not storytelling. It’s a brochure. Give yourself permission to make the story bigger.”
Jay Baer (Internet pioneer, NY Times bestselling author)

It wasn’t ingenuity that DC’s customers craved, it was the association and the story they felt part of when wore a piece of clothing with the DC badge.
In fact so much so that it grow exponentially and within ten years, they had reached sales of over $100 Million. In 2004 it was acquired by Quicksilver for around $87 Million US dollars. The brand has proved so much in this regard and continues strong today. The brand story around DC shoes, and it’s emotional hook makes it the very definition of a story driven lifestyle brand. Cool, right?

Clever content marketing is the perfect honey-trap to share your expertise and pull customers in without feeling salesy. Sure, you could spend hours a week slaving away at your keyboard, churning out blog articles that you desperately hope someone reads, or you could speak to the content experts at Noop first.