How Brand Stories Are Shaking Up Lifestyle Content

Creating killer content is top of the list for any marketer. For lifestyle brands, getting it right can mean the difference between gaining new followers or wasting time and money.

By understanding exactly what your customers want to hear, you can dish out great content and keep people engaged. So, here’s the tricky part – what do your customers want to read?

Lifestyle, of course, relates to a broad scope of sectors. Travel to home appliances, fashion to cooking. But there’s something each category has in common when it comes to content. Put it this way, whatever sector you’re in, just remember that everyone loves a good story.

Craft a brand story based on your customer’s like and dislikes, and you’ll be well on the way to getting some valuable airtime. And with 75% of marketers increasing their spend on content marketing, this means that every penny put into your plan will work harder. Music to your ears, right?

Where to begin

Every good content writer knows it – research is the crucial element for making a piece swim, not sink. As a business, you have a job to do before you even think about briefing out your writer. By understanding what makes your audience tick, you’ll be able to create a story that appeals to them. Simple.

Gone are the days where brands focussed on how great their products are. Today, it’s all about creating connections between customers and brands, giving people a reason to come to you, and developing a dialogue that makes your customers feel good. This philosophy extends to the content you put out.

By knowing your customer’s lifestyle choices and preferences, you’ll be one step closer to understanding what they want. Here’s what your content writer will want to know and why:

·         Who are we talking to? Any brand will have more than one customer profile, and this makes the content crafting even more fun. You’ll be creating pieces that appeal to different personas as part of your strategy. 

·         What is your mission statement? Yes, it’s all about the customer, but getting to grips with what your company’s mission is will help your writer marry the two together. For instance, Starbuck’s mission statement is “to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time." Interesting to note that it’s not about coffee. It’s about people.

By creating content pieces that take both customer persona and your mission statement into account, your content will have the right personality, tone, and information to grab your reader’s attention. To do this, the content won’t be about what you sell, it’ll talk around how you answer a lifestyle want or need.  

Lessons from the best

Another way of putting it, is that the idea is to create a culture with your content. A place where people feel they are connecting with a like-minded business and even a community of fellow customers.

As an example, here are just a couple of lifestyle brands that are outsmarting the rest with their brand stories:

·         Nike – old hands when it comes to using a powerful, customer-focussed philosophy to create supremely clickable content, Nike is all about athleticism. By zoning in on the lifestyle element of keeping fit, the brand taps into a mindset and a way of living. Social campaigns and targeted advertising are just two of the ways the brand keeps things fresh.      

·         Airbnb – it’s hard to get away from the fact that Airbnb has to be about the people. As a company that doesn’t own the properties, and instead links up the host to guest, it makes perfect sense to keep the marketing centred on the customers who use the app. That makes their Community Stories all the more compelling. By doing this they become accessible, relatable and give new customers an insight into what Airbnb is all about.  

Tops tips for winning lifestyle content

The single biggest consideration for any writer is to design content pieces that are unique to the business and their customers. Without this, the personality of the brand and the reasons for a person engaging with it will be lost.

There are some other essentials a good content writer will always bear in mind though. They include:

·         Making every piece count – it’s not about writing and putting out content for the sake of it. Every piece needs to have a point. Whether it’s to inform, educate, entertain or create a strong call to action.

·         Always relating it back to the audience – this means thinking about the customer’s wants, needs, and pain points and creating a piece that answers those in a natural way.

·         Using content channels wisely – blogs, case studies, videos and social media are just some of the content channels open to you, and each needs to be approached differently for best effect. 

·         Having fun with your content – yes it all boils down to strategy, but it’s important to have fun with your content while keeping your brand values and customer personas live in your mind. This will all come through in the quality of the writing.

·         Keeping the posts up – the day job is always busy, but the best lifestyle brands big and small are active content pushers. It’s the fastest way to stay fresh and relevant.  

In conclusion…

Powerful lifestyle content is all about creating brand stories. Even the smallest brands can take this on board and develop a content plan that will earn them cool points with new and existing customers. But it’s much more than that. Engaging content won’t just earn you the goodwill of your customers. It will encourage them to come back for more, and even act as an ambassador for your brand.

With the right writer on board, you can effectively hone your content and develop a strategy that makes the most of your marketing budget, how large or small. From there it’s just about keeping it up, monitoring what works, and maintaining your focus firmly on the customer.

Like to find out more about how I can help you with your content plan? Get in touch now to talk it through.