Brand Storytelling: Weaving Your Message Into Compelling Website Content.

Hey everybody, welcome to today's webinar. So I'm going to be talking to you about brand storytelling and weaving your message into compelling website content. So first off, before I start, I just want to introduce myself and share a little bit about me. So my name's Carly. I'm the Creative Director here at GEL Studios and I was GEL's first hire 10 years ago on the 1st of August, actually.

And it's something I'm really proud of. And it always really makes me smile to be introduced as the first employee. As Creative Director, I am responsible for all things creative. So I've worked closely with hundreds of clients on, you know, branding and messaging, the workshops and the strategy side, the brand creation process. So, you know, the visual side of a brand too, with logos and branded assets and also websites. So particularly the strategy planning and design phase kind of before it moves into development.

But I also collaborate really heavily with the marketing team. So making sure that both creative and marketing strategies kind of work seamlessly together and align with client goals so that we can kind of deliver as much impact as possible. And then on a slightly more personal note, some fun things about me. My favourite colour is orange and there really aren't many of us. So please reach out to me if your favourite colour is orange as well. I love to travel. So I went on a solo backpacking trip for six months in my twenties, and Vietnam, Singapore and Fiji were some firm favourites. And I'm a huge Disney fan. So Peter Pan and Moana are definitely two of my favourite characters. And as you can see from the image on the right there, I was a fan from a very young age. So that's a little bit about me, but I also wanted to just share a little bit about GEL Studios. So we are a purpose-led, results-driven creative agency.

But what does that actually mean? Well, for us, ultimately, it comes down to delivering impact for both our clients and the community. And they go hand in hand because as we deliver great work for more clients, that enables our growth, which then fuels our contribution to the community to make not only positive, but lasting change. And we've also been B-Corp certified since 2023. And that's essentially a certification that recognises sort of high social and environmental performance standards. And that's something we're really proud of as well. So now you know a little bit about me, a little bit about GEL. Let's move on to what we'll be covering today in this webinar. 

So first off, what is good messaging? And then the difference between emotional and transactional messaging and some things to think about there. What goes into a messaging framework? And then the golden question, how to map your messaging to your website, which is something quite a few brands struggle with. And then just so you know, before we start, the questions will be opened up at the end. So you can type your question into the chat and I can answer those and you'll be sent these slides afterwards anyway. So first up, connecting emotionally in your storytelling. 

So it might be obvious, but brand messaging is how you talk to your audience. So what you say, how you say it, and when you say it. And most importantly, good messaging should resonate with the audience and be memorable, because that's what ultimately helps build trust and connection. But what else helps build connection? Emotion. So some of you may be familiar with Simon Sinek's quote that says, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And it's very true. 

He does a great TED Talk about the golden circle and the difference between Apple and Microsoft when it comes to their purpose and their messaging. I'd recommend finding it on YouTube. It's a great watch, very thought provoking, especially kind of if you're about to kind of embark on a brand messaging journey. There's also a couple of stats I just want to share as well. So people are 22 times more likely to remember emotionally engaging content than content that’s purely rational, users retain 70% more information when they're presented with scenarios that invoke empathy. 

So again, tapping into that importance of connection and emotion. So a couple of examples of this. So first up is Ring, which most of you are probably familiar with, you know, the sort of video camera doorbells. So the screenshot on the left is of their homepage hero. One on the right is their click-through page. And you can see the messaging in the hero, very specific. Product focused, mentions the word camera. And the surrounding images are also very product focused as well. So overall, it's a very slick, very simple approach. But if we move on to ADT, again, left-hand side is the screenshot of their home page, right-hand side is the click-through page. But look at the difference in their hero area messaging. You're not on holiday if you're headed home. Alarm system set, holiday mode activated.

They are unapologetically tapping into the audience's pain points and frustrations and then showing empathy along the way, which like I said, helps form that connection as well. And it's a completely different approach to Ring. Now there's obviously differences between Ring and ADT in terms of their, you know, their history, their product complexities, even their audiences to a degree, but it's a really good example of transactional versus emotional messaging within the same industry.

So when it comes to branding, a word we say a lot at GEL Studios is consistency. And it applies to the obvious sort of visual identity assets of logos and collateral, but it also includes your messaging as well. We all know that customers interact with our brands across multiple touch points and channels. And that's not just digital, it's face-to-face as well, or phone calls with a sales team. 

But every interaction is that opportunity to kind of build the trust or break it, which is why it is so important that you have to be consistent across all of them. So if we take the scenario of disjointed messaging, you know, what are the potential consequences of that? Because it can have a knock on impact. So it will likely start with a confused audience, which then leads to less of a connection and brand recognition.

That can result in lower sales, which can then lead to sort of a wasted marketing effort and spend. And that obviously causes frustration across all areas of an organisation. But if we take the reverse scenario with consistent messaging, that's what then helps build that confidence and connection with an audience, which then leads to brand loyalty and positive reputation. That then typically leads to an increase in sales and conversions.

But then the output of that is a more efficient kind of marketing approach and better return on investment. So again, that's something that most areas of an organisation tend to care about. So remember consistent messaging across all touch points, not just digital is key. So next up then how to craft your message. So I'm going to go through all of these individually. So audience, competition, what goes into shaping your personality and perception, how to structure your messaging, and then the themes and language within your brand. So first up, target audience. Understanding things like age, location, and gender are really important, and you definitely need to consider those. But you also really need to dive deeper. So you need to understand their goals, their frustrations. And it might be that your brand is targeting a couple of different audiences, in which case those goals and frustrations are going to differ between them and that's fine. 

But understanding beyond those basic demographics is going to allow you to tailor your messaging so that you can really speak the audience's language. Because if you don't acknowledge their problem, it's much harder for you to claim that you can solve it. And it goes back again to that emotional message and trying to sort of forge that connection. And that starts with understanding your audience at a deeper level.

So next up is competition. Now you'll probably see different approaches across different competitors and they're not necessarily right or wrong, to be honest, as long as they speak to the audience. So when you're looking at competitors and you'll likely have a few that you'll sort of go through, ask yourself, what are they saying? How are they saying it? When are they saying it? And why are we different? And that's one of the hardest questions to answer and articulate confidently, you know, why are we different? But finding that will enable you to sound different and stand out.

So we then move on to personality. essentially asking, if your brand was a person, who would it be? And you should consider the relationship that you want to build with the audience here, but also vice versa. What relationship are they looking to have with you? So for example, are you a trusted adviser, strategic partner, are you an inspiring mentor?

And some of you may have heard of archetypes, which is a really effective technique that we use in our workshops to help sort of brands shape their personality. But by consciously deciding that relationship, you can then embody those traits in your personality and your communication styles to then help form that emotional attachment. But you can also consider them in your brand's behaviours, like in general. 

So, you know, the values that your brand has and that the team sort of embodies every day. Because you know, going back to that connection with the audience, personality obviously plays a huge part in that, but it's not enough to simply state that your brand is authoritative. For example, you need to show it consistently across every single touch point. And that does mean looking beyond your messaging. So by shaping your personality, provides a feeling of familiarity to your audience, helps with connection, but it also helps you define how you express yourself based on that personality.

So another part of your personality, it's not just what you say, but how you say it. So tone of voice. And tone actually plays a really big part in differentiating you. And it's something that can often get overlooked or it's only sort of very lightly explored. And you'll want to consider where you sit on a scale of sort of opposing qualities here. So for example, do you lean towards being more casual or more formal or enthusiastic or matter of fact?

And you want to ensure that those qualities obviously align with the brand's personality. And all of these sort of tone of voice considerations and qualities will then again help you express yourself and generally guide your messaging.

So you also need to think about perception and the impression that you want to make on your audience. So some things to think about here. How would you describe the brand and how would you like the audience to describe it? And depending on who's working on this for you, it may not actually be the same at first. So that will then highlight where you potentially have sort of a bit of misalignment internally and you need to focus more on stepping into the shoes of the audience.

which is hard to do because you're so used to being in the shoes of the brand, but it's crucial that you think like your audience. And you should be able to support and back up each kind of trait with multiple points. So for example, if you want your audience to think of quality when they think of your brand, what are the talking points around showing that and backing it up? Or if you want them to think of you as collaborative, you know, how are you going to consistently portray that?

And those talking points are then weaved into all aspects of your communication to help build that desired perception. And if you spend time shaping that perception, it will allow you to be more intentional about your identity. So, you know, when it comes to making decisions about what collateral and messaging is put out there, but it will also help drive brand recognition. Because if you're consistently showing those aspects of your personality, that perception will just get stronger and stronger in the eyes of the audience.

So now we move on to the hierarchy of your messaging and communicating your value, which is where you start to kind of put a bit more structure to things. think about all of the key things that you want to say and quite simply start to prioritise them. And it will likely chop and change as you're going through it, but you can then flesh each of those things out and develop them sort of in line with your personality and your tone. And ultimately the most important thing that you want to communicate becomes your primary message.

And that's then followed on by your secondary messages of which there will be multiple of those. And I'll talk through how that hierarchy will then help you map content onto the website later on. But going through that exercise should then lead you closer to your value proposition statement, which is actually something that many brands struggle with. So being able to quickly and simply state your value in a way that differentiates you, is not always as easy as it sounds because quite often if I was to ask a brand list all of your USPs, they'll have a list in mind and you can quite confidently reel them off. But if I then ask you, does your competition also do this? Quite often the answer tends to be, yes, actually they do. They might not do it as well as you, but they do do it. 

So you really need to dig deep and find where you really offer value against your competition and then work that into a compelling value proposition statement. And giving structure to your messaging in that way really helps with future content creation because it will help you prioritise what you want to say while still remaining focused on users and conversions.

So we finally then move on to the themes and language, which is kind of the last step of things to think about when you're actually crafting your message. And it's where you think about the actual words, terms and phrases that you'd like in your messaging and that you'd like associated with your brand. And it's best to sort of separate out themes within the brand and then create from there. So, you know, for example, when you're talking about the brand's history, what is it that you want to say?

Or your approach or products and services is obviously a really important one. So whether it's on the website, brochure, or even a sales call, what are all the key messages and talking points that you have to get across? And this is kind of where that happens. So this will tie everything together from the previous steps that I've just run through. So when you're going through each theme, think about the hierarchy, your personality, your tone. And you'll effectively start to build out a consistent starting point of content for each theme that's important to your brand.

So that's all the things to think about when crafting your message. So to recap, messaging is super, super important because it's what builds that deeper connection with your audience. That connection then leads to conversions and better brand recognition and loyalty, etc. You always need to consider the audience's pain points. And as I mentioned, form that connection early on. And then you can play everything into a set of guidelines that then outlines that strategy. Again, consistency is crucial and guidelines will go such a long way with helping with that. Especially if you've got multiple team members that are kind of responsible for creating content, which is actually something else to consider because if you can, and it is a big if you need to try and reduce the amount of people responsible for creating content across your brand.

Because with all of the guidelines in the world, more often than not, there will still be differences in content that are created by kind of different people. And the more people feeding into that and the longer it goes on, especially for website content, we've seen it so many times, brands can feel that their website becomes quite fragmented. And that's where the inconsistencies then start to come through or the other end of the spectrum.

You kind of find repeated content because one person isn't aware of what someone else has created. So if you can try and keep the number of copywriters within the brand to a minimum and then make sure that they are equipped with those all important guidelines.

So now that you've got your messaging, how do you get it onto the website? The struggle is real. I love this slide by the way, that animated GIF and bonus points if you know which Disney film that's from. But honestly, it's something that many brands often struggle with because having a messaging framework is one thing, but mapping it onto a website in a way that works is another. So where should you start? 

With all the websites we create, we recommend you always start with the strategy and planning. So, you know, identifying your goals and measurables, looking at existing analytics, planning out your site map, your navigation and your user journeys, and then determining what you want users to do on the website for, you know, call to action planning. And that strategy and planning phase is very detailed and very thorough.

Having all of that in place first means you can then go on to map your content with purpose and then visualise with purpose as well. So similar to your messaging hierarchy, you now need to create a website content hierarchy. So as I mentioned, at this point, you will know the pages in your site map. You know the journey that you want to take users on. You know what you want them to do. So then you can take key pages along that journey and start to think about what you want to say as you progress through them from top to bottom remembering what the user wants to see at that part of their journey. And at this stage, you don't even need to sort of worry about what that section of content will look like. 

You just need to know that at any point of the journey and page, what message do you want to deliver and how will it aid the user on their journey so that you can achieve your goals. And this is where your message and hierarchy will help you from the previous steps because you can effectively use that to help you prioritise which messages are delivered early on versus later on in the journey.

So in terms of ideal page structure, as I mentioned earlier, deliver value to the user early on in the hero area, because that will then encourage them to scroll where you can then reveal more details about the how and the what and, you know, the sort of the social proof side of things, etc. And it is so tempting to overload a page with content because, you know, you've got so much that you want to say and it could be good for Google to index, but research shows, unfortunately,

Users do not care as much as you do about website content. So approximately 25% of content is read because users tend to scan. So that means your content needs to be clear and concise with a value proposition being really obvious really quickly. And I always say it's a real balancing act trying to keep the brand happy, your users happy and Google happy especially now that there's AI and GEO coming into play. And you can watch Beth's previous webinar from February, March time on sort of GEO if you're looking to find out more on sort of how to write content for AI. But yeah, those three, brand, users and Google, typically want different things from your website content. So it's a bit of a contradiction, but the overarching rule is quality and clarity over quantity. 

So if you prioritise quality, that should serve you well across all three of those things. So once you've got your website plan and your content hierarchy, only then should you progress onto visualisation. Why? Because you can visualise with purpose. That all important word again. Because you will know then which section of content will follow on from another. And then your page layout can then also aid with your user journey and placement of call to actions.

Because the alternative is creating kind of a standard page layout and then trying to force content into sections. And that's when you'll find yourself having to deviate from your hierarchy or your strategy, compromising on what you want to say. And that's obviously something that you want to prevent. So in summary then, start with the audience, their pain points and how you benefit them. Keep that at the heart of everything. Connection with your audience is crucial. Your personality, your tone and language will really help form that connection. Once you've created your messaging strategy, create messaging guidelines to act as that consistent starting point. 

And before adding messaging to your website, create a webpage content hierarchy to help map your messaging to the user's requirements. And a final tip for you, if you're really not sure where to start, find an agency that can do everything I've just talked about. But seriously, messaging and website planning, it can be a large, overwhelming task. And most people don't know where to start, which is where we can genuinely step in. And for us, know, everything comes down to understanding your true objectives at, you know, sort of a top brand level so that we can essentially work back and do what's needed from a brand and marketing perspective to hit them. And that starts with our goal setting workshop, which is a really powerful session. And the output is not just a set of measurable goals, but a roadmap of how to achieve them as well. And then we're going to move on to the branding and messaging where we can really address the sort of the foundations of your brand.

And our messaging workshop goes through a lot of kind of what I've covered today, but in a lot more detail, covering things like archetypes and our copywriters will then work with you to kind of create the strategy, the framework and the guidelines. websites, you know, I touched on earlier, the importance of a strategic plan and that's kind of the starting point for all of our website projects. So everything is created for your brand goals and users. And then we offer the content writing side, which is kind of a natural extension of the messaging workshop.

But, you know, audits can also be a really sort of valuable tool if you just kind of want to assess where you're at currently. And again, they'll sort of cover the website kind of page layout etc, but also the messaging side of things. But ultimately, if you're really unsure, please just reach out to me and let's have a chat. You know, my details are on the slide and, you know, we can kind of discuss then where you're at now, where you feel you need to be and kind of the best sort of next steps for that journey.

So I'm gonna open up the chat so you can send me any questions. You can just type them in. I'd be interested to know if any of you know the Disney film that that animated GIF was from. I'll give you a clue.

We got any questions? Sarah's got it. Let me just open this. So Danny has asked, what is the best way to start a brand messaging workshop within the team? Best leading questions to ask for detailed responses and in-depth conversations. Good question. So the first thing that I would suggest is deciding who you want in that workshop. So obviously you're going to have multiple team members from different departments of an organisation.

But you need to decide kind of who's going to be in there. So really you want key decision makers that can kind of come at things from a different perspective, but you don't want to open it up to too many people. I appreciate everyone's going to want kind of valuable input, but you need to be really selective so that you can have those sort of productive conversations at sort of a higher brand level. The best way to start the workshop in terms of leading questions, start with the audience.

So you kind of progress through kind of the slides that I had there. So start with the audience because everything always comes back to the audience's pain points. And it might be that you want to task people kind of with sort of some things to think about before you come into the workshops. So start thinking about, you know, if you were going to sort of picture your target audience, what would be their goals and frustrations? Because you can then use the messaging or your sort of the workshop on the time together is the kind of a way of identifying any sort of misalignment that you might have within the team. And it might, you might have varying answers. They might not be right or wrong, but it will certainly pinpoint kind of, okay, we're all in agreement about this, but this thing over here, we're all so far away from. So might be that you need to go off and do a little bit more research before you can then come back and collate all of that.

But definitely start with the audience and have a really good understanding because everything else follows on from that. So what else have we got? Was you anything to what you're talking about if you were rebranding from Sarah? So if you were rebranding, depends kind of on the history and the length of the brand.

I guess. If you, you know, if you've been around for several years, your kind of your audience and your users are very familiar to the brand, but you think it's time for a refresh, then, you know, it's always worth kind of revisiting the messaging. Cause if you think, if you suspect that something might be stale within your messaging, then yes, absolutely. You need to go through this process. This process can also be done for those that aren't looking to rebrand and they just want to go through a content exercise.

Content is king is something we always say. But if you are rebranding, it probably makes particular sense to go through this because you don't want to kind of go through a visual rebrand, for example, or look fantastic and consistent visually, but then your messaging is just not hitting home. So if you're going through a rebrand, it's probably for a reason that's triggered that. So I would say that yes, messaging probably does need to be included in that.

Please, could you clarify the difference between messaging hierarchy and content hierarchy? Yes, I can. So the first, messaging hierarchy. Treat that as though you weren't thinking about your website, you're not thinking about where the messaging is going. It's purely just what are the most important points to our brand that we want to communicate, regardless of where we're communicating them.

And that, messaging hierarchy, like I said, starts with your primary message, which is the most important thing you always want to communicate. And then it leads into your secondary messages of which there will be multiple. But then the content hierarchy is when it purely comes to the website. So one will feed the other. So your messaging hierarchy with your primary and secondary will then help guide the content hierarchy on your website. 

So from a website perspective, you've obviously got multiple pages likely that will factor into a user's journey through the site. And on those pages, the user is going to start at the top and scroll down. knowing the pages in the journey is one thing, but then knowing what's top to bottom of those pages is another. So that's the content hierarchy that I talked about is the top to bottom messaging. Because if you think that all of your messages need to be kind of distributed across the whole website,

That's where you really need to start sort of mapping out at what point do you show a certain message. So that's the difference between kind of general messaging for the brand, regardless of where it's going to go in the end versus content hierarchy, which is purely website. I don't think there's any more questions coming in if I wrap up. Is there anything else? I love that some of you got the Disney reference. It was Up for any of those that were wondering. And I have my little Up. Don't know you can see that. Adventure is out there. So yes, any more questions? No, I don't think so. 

So if I just switch back. So just to kind of finish off and let you know about some upcoming webinars then with the rest of the team. we've got Graeme, who will be talking about MODX, CMS and why it's great for businesses. Lewis is then going to be chatting about creating smarter strategies for Google Ads. Elisha will be talking about what is a brand and yes, it is way more than just a logo. Beth will be on thought leadership and how powerful that can be for a brand, especially at the moment.

And David will be chatting about turning marketing into sales. And the links to register for all of those are on our socials and Eventbrite. So, please have a look and sign up for those. It'd be nice to see some of you there. That concludes today's webinar. So as mentioned, you'll receive these slides after today, but please reach out to me directly if you've got any questions or, you know, you're starting to think about updating your brand messaging and website and, and we can go through that together. So yeah.

Hope to hear from you all soon. Thanks everybody.