Every company has a story to tell. It’s not always the best company with the best products that end up on top. More often, the brands that build their narrative in an easy to understand and compelling way through marketing storytelling win the lion’s share of the lead pool.

Why? Because brand storytelling and content marketing create a connection between you to your customer. It builds trust, familiarity, and a sense of security. It allows your leads to perform their due diligence and decide who wins their business and assures your customers they have made the right decision in selecting your company.

Much has changed in the last couple of years post Covid. In this new era, AI tools like ChatGPT are developing at an astonishing rate, with many speculating that they are poised to dethrone Google’s unchallenged, long-running reign at the top of the digital hierarchy. The implication is that it will ultimately change how we create, search for, and disseminate information.

Yet, despite the massive market disruption, some things have not changed, and highlighting your brand’s unique value proposition and strategy is still the key to winning the hearts and minds of your target client base.

Gate 39 Media CEO and founder Shane Stiles presented at this year’s NIBA CTA Connections event at DePaul University on April 18. In his presentation, Shane explored the tenets of creating a successful marketing strategy for alternative investment businesses through streamlined brand storytelling and differentiation.

Building Trust Through Narrative

Building your unique brand story is essential to every aspect of the customer journey. Within the investment ecosystem, markets move up and down in a never-ending cycle. When you hit that drawdown or the economy changes, which it will, your story has already prepped the investor on how your company navigates tough market backdrops to ultimately achieve your client’s investment objectives over a complete market cycle.

But don’t put all your money in the middle. Your strategy is designed to achieve a specific goal for a portion of your client’s portfolio. The backbone of marketing should be brand building and lead generation using the following process:

• Define
• Plan
• Execute
• Measure
• Modify & Repeat

Define your company by storytelling, creating engagement with your customers around your services, brand, teams, and your customers. Not only is digital storytelling a key conversion tactic for in-person customers but also for online leads that you don’t see on your website, blog, and social media.

Sharing Your Uniqueness
Sharing your uniqueness builds your brand and accomplishes the following objectives:

Education: Your potential client wants assurance that you can get results within your vertical. Communicating the components of your investment strategy and how it is unique and performs beyond the norm helps your client remove themselves from the typical reactionary rollercoaster and trust the process.