If you spend any time speaking with copywriters or website writers, they will tell you a lot of businesses understand the importance of an effective About Us page on their website. As there’s been a lot of information written about telling your business story over the last decade and how customers want to do business with people they know, like and trust, many realize the value. You likely know that the About Page has the potential to become one of the most heavily visited pages on your website.
However, that’s where most businesses miss an opportunity.
They stop at the About Us page. Their business story never moves beyond it. But for the story to be believable, understood, and remembered—and thus effective—it has to spring off the About Us page and into these other places.
4 Places You Should Be Telling Your Business Story
Stories are more memorable than marketing or sales copy. But if you’re keeping your business story imprisoned in your About Us page, you’re losing an opportunity for a larger, more loyal audience. If you’re hoping that telling your business story will create more sales, you need to use it everywhere including:
Your Onboarding
Every new employee should hear your business story. Employees should experience the story as part of their onboarding training or first day on the job. It’s a great way to get them excited about where they work. Plus, you want to encourage them to tell your business story in the future so sharing it with them right away will highlight its importance.
Your Social Media Channels
Since you also want to ensure your new customers know your story, you want to tell it on social media. There are several ways to do this. You can create a video, use image quotes, write it in a social media post, write a blog post, and tell your story through images. You can also tease your social media audience by telling part of it on the page and directing the audience back to your website for the remainder of it.
Donations or Growth That Corresponds with Your Story
Your business story cannot exist on “an island,” meaning it must be exhibited in other spots besides your About Us page and be part of your culture. You achieve that by continuing to exhibit and embody the spirit of your business story. That can mean supporting nonprofits that reflect your business vision and story or volunteering with groups that share your vision. You can also partner with like-minded businesses that share a similar story.
By helping to bring your business story to life and continuing it through your culture, people will begin to understand it better and it will resonate with them on a higher level. After all, people remember actions far more often than words.
Emails
Your business story should be fresh in every employee’s mind and so it should flavor all of your business communications, even emails. However, that doesn’t mean you repeat it word for word. People will grow tired of it. Instead, think about your favorite musical group or singer. Often, without even knowing a song, you can pick out your favorite just by their “sound.” Think of your story the same way. Your audience should be able to hear undertones of your story in all of your communications.
If your story isn’t told in these spaces consistently, there will be a disconnect with your customers. They need to hear your story and see it on a regular basis to believe it, and thus, become emotionally invested in it. Once they do, you’ll see it in your sales and your repeat business.
Christina R. Metcalf (formerly Green) is a marketer who enjoys using the power of story and refuses to believe meaningful copy can be written by bots. She helps chamber and small business professionals find the right words when they don’t have the time or interest to do so.
Christina hates exclamation points and loves road trips. Say hi on Twitter or reach out on Facebook.
