Futureworks Incubator’s Marketing & Storytelling Workshop at Collab from SecondMuse on Vimeo.

Recently, Futureworks Incubator lead a Marketing & Storytelling Workshop at Collab in Hudson Square. Facilitators included brand strategist Kimberly Noel-Jones, Infinia Group Managing Director Chris Gorges, former Adafruit Director of Marketing Jessica Califano and SecondMuse Director of Cities Strategy Greg Spielberg. At the workshop, we ran through the essential components of building a cohesive company brand, marketing strategy and narrative. Above is a video of the workshop, here is the presentation and below are lessons and pictures.

7 Essential Marketing & Storytelling Lessons

1. Unlike almost every other aspect of your business, storytelling is free. Make sure to take advantage of the power your narrative and community can create as well as the free distribution platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, MailChimp and more.
2. The only way to overcome your fear of telling your story is to create content. Use content creation as your armor against analysis paralysis.
3. If you don’t feel comfortable telling your own story, curate stories about your community, people and brands you respect and the world around you.
4. If you do feel comfortable telling your own story, make sure you’re not hitting your audience over the head with your product promotion. Salesy content should make up no more than 20% of your overall content. 80% of content should inform, educate and entertain your audience.
5. Know your audience and which channels they are on. Focus on one or two of the following:
   1. Brand awareness
   2. Content distribution
   3. Lead generation
   4. Customer acquisition
6. When building your brand, keep in mind seven essential components:
   1. Origin story. How did you begin, where are you from, what was your insight or inspiration for founding your company?
   2. Beliefs/creed. What do you believe in? All communities have core values and beliefs – what are yours?
   3. Icons. Beyond just logos, consider your product design, packaging and how you present your products in retail or online.
   4. Rituals. What things do you celebrate?
   5. Lexicon. Every community has and needs its own bits of language.
   6. Leader. Establish a hero and innovator who set out against all odds to recreate the world according to her or his point of view.
7. When pitching the press, communicate your impact, your innovation and the results users derive from your product.