Using Customer-Led Storytelling to Drive Brand Awareness

Key Takeaways

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Content & Messaging — Customer-Led Storytelling: Rather than talking about your product or brand, talk about  your customer’s experience with your products and tell a story about their journey with your brand. Customer-led storytelling is a highly effective method to attract leads and persuade new consumers to purchase your product as it provides social proof.

Charlotte’s Web created a blog post for each story, which included a testimonial that highlighted the exact outcome of using CBD to treat their symptoms. Using specific statistics and numbers increases brand consideration for potential consumers who are thinking about purchasing or trying new CBD products (i.e: “within hours, his seizures remitted”, and “she had a 30% reduction in her seizures”). ‍

Content & Messaging — Highlight Emotional Experiences: Charlotte’s Web created the “Our:Stories” series to highlight unique use cases of their products (children with a rare gene mutation used CBD to treat their seizures) and also told stories about people’s emotional experiences with CBD (i.e: how CBD changed their outlook on life as it helped significantly reduce their chronic pain symptoms). 

Emotions are a crucial part of storytelling - highlight how the product and/or brand made your consumers feel, which will allow consumers to resonate with the main message of your story. ‍

Partnership Tactic — Non-Profit Organizations: Charlotte’s Web partnered up with NPOs that were closely related to their brand mission such as “Real of Caring Foundation” which funds research related to using cannabis for treatment and therapy. Partnering up with NPOs helps raise awareness for important issues within the community, helps brands reach new audiences, and increases brand awareness. 

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In October, Charlotte’s Web saw a +121% increase in web traffic driven by YouTube. Almost half (44%) of all social traffic is being driven by YouTube.

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In Oct, Charlotte’s Web launched a brand awareness campaign called “Our Stories” on YouTube where they aim to provide “a platform to highlight organizations dedicated to furthering their drive to better the planet and the people living upon it.”

The series told four stories of people who have used cannabis as part of their recovery journey. The campaign focused on physical health and wellness, such as chronic pain and seizures rather than mental well-being.

For each story, CW partnered up with a number of NPOs such as the High Fives Foundation which provides grants and rehabilitation support to athletes with life-altering injuries.

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Each story had two versions: a 15 second short-form video, accompanied by a 6-10 minute long-form video for sequential targeting.

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“Our: Stories” series was also cross-promoted organically on Instagram in the form of in-feed photo posts and IGTV.

In-Feed Photo Post

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IGTV

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To drive traffic, CW featured “Our: Stories” in the Instagram Link in Bio, which directs users the main landing page on the site as well as the blog.

Blog articles included a testimonial where they talked about how CW products helped reduce the number of seizures.