Storytelling is a simple yet powerful skill that every entrepreneur should consider incorporating in their marketing strategies. A story can help your brand grab the attention of your target audience, convert this audience to loyal customers and also continue being “relevant”, which are otherwise difficult to achieve. An entrepreneur needs to understand and master How To Make A Fairy Tale Convert through The Art Of Storytelling.
In this episode of Content Kettle, our guest, GD Prasad, the founder of VS Mani & Co., took us along his journey of birthing a brand that lets customers subscribe, connect, get attached to and fall in love with a story that ultimately leads to them adding their products to cart!
About VS Mani & Co.
GD Prasad has been in advertising for the last 8 years or so and wanted to use his knowledge and expertise into something he could call his own. He says he wanted to experiment with a digital FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) market and hence started VS Mani & Co.
Home. That is what VS Mani & Co. lures you with.
This brand represents romanticizing life, finding peace and calm in the simple things in the simplest ways. It is an attempt to recapture familial warmth and love. GD says “a lot of love went around at (our) home, and one of the chief ways it found expression was through delicious food and snacks. It wasn’t restricted to family – every guest to our home was welcomed with the choicest dishes, regardless of the time of day or night”.
Now they’re extending this love from their home to yours.
With a very simple product portfolio of things that scream ‘home’ including coffee, spices and snacks, VS Mani & Co. is a young yet promising brand that was established in the midst of the pandemic. GD says his basic mindset to do so was “if it does not work in a difficult market, it is never going to work”.
During the conversation, he mentions how he juggles between a day job as the Vice-President of Dentsu Webchutney and full-time entrepreneurship; the former acting like a catalyst to grow his passion project. Three main points pushed him to make this brand a reality – his passion for food, the art and power of storytelling and curiosity about the technicality of running a successful business.
Here’s what he had to share.
A brand without a story is perhaps just another company – just another commodity.
Their main selling point is their story, he says. Creating a brand story is not simply about standing out and getting noticed; it’s about building something that people care about and want to buy into.
In GD’s words, “Most brands have their products as their selling point….which makes sense. But for us, our IP is in our story”. VS Mani & Co. is brewing a feeling- the feeling of home. That is what connects them to their audience and helps retain them as loyal customers.
Stories make one believe in the value of a brand
Stories leave long-lasting impressions, resulting in buzz being created around that brand. It adds emotion as an integral element.
GD believes that in today’s digitally confined era with the idea of virtuality becoming an accepted norm, any little thing that ignites that ‘human touch’ is an instant win.
Brand stories cater to this very need. A story is often the secret sauce that makes a young and budding startup noteworthy and a century-old company relevant. The key is to keep the story simple, minimal and honest.
A story acts as an organic marketing strategy
Upon being asked about their marketing strategies, he laughs about how he does not understand the difference between marketing and branding anymore. VS Mani & Co. is perhaps one of the best instances of how powerful a narrative can be.
Their story is what helps them stand out amidst the serious competition. Tomorrow, if they plan on extending their product range, it has to just scream this feeling of home. He says, “If something has a place in homes, it has a place in our product portfolio because you know us for our story”.
Read more about How Emotions Play A Huge Role In A Marketing Strategy.
Clarity in the brand story is crucial, whatsoever
Along the course of this conversation, he shares some of the various challenges they faced and still continue to face as a young direct-to-consumer company. He says they dealt with many obstacles of a consumer-centric market and never-ending consumer demands. Everything they did was basically a bunch of experiments on how to bundle and upsell.
However, they did realize their responsibility of not just acquiring but maintaining customers. They also realized how they cannot constantly rely on social media to gather these customers.
The clarity in their story is something that has helped them tremendously. Everything they did was a derivative of their core story, which meant the connection with the audience sustained irrespective of the challenges faced.
TL;DR – Your story should very clearly scream your company’s vision and this should be noticeable in everything your company does.
Listen more about GD Prasad’s experiences on a brand’s online presence, paid marketing, re-marketing, his two cents worth to budding companies and so much more in this episode here.
