What do you learn when you travel?
I’ve spent most of my adult life traveling—for school, for work, for love even—a fortune of experiences, perspectives, exposures.
Unique foods, unique people, certainly some very unique places. Some dazzling, some bizarre. A cacophonous mix of both the extraordinary and the mundane.
But what stands out to me amidst this twenty-year cache of experiences isn’t the architecture or the history or even the food (!), it’s the feelings, the emotions I had in each place that I remember most.
It’s the memory of being struck silent in awe—of feeling small and insignificant, like a speck of dust in the history of the world—when I visited Angkor Wat. Hours spent just before sunrise throughout the sweltering heat of the day just wandering and exploring this breezy maze of ruins, time passing without notice. Fighting off monkeys and mosquitoes, through channels of light and stone. What happened here? We may never know.
Living and working in Beijing and Shanghai for 7 years gave me a ton of perspective on both travel and marketing ;)
The feelings of freedom and empowerment after learning my way around Beijing without a map that amplified my confidence in my own potential, an influence that would wind its way into my career and my personal life for years to come. And now whenever I have 饺子, a powerful current ripples through me to stay focused and never give up.
I could go on and on, but I think you get it.
The markers of our most unforgettable experiences are inherently tied to meaning—the memories we create from each place aren’t solely about stone, brick, or bouillabaisse: but about the emotion and feeling we associate with each place that makes them memorable.
Unforgettable, even.
So let’s consider this in the context of marketing your business. I recently led this BOH workshop where I unpacked the success stories of leading brands in the home industry.
Through the lens of my E3 Storytelling Framework*, I’ve identified three strategies that all great brands use to craft unforgettable marketing stories and campaigns, and they are:
Extraordinary positioning
Emotional resonance
Experiential touchpoints
In this busy/ crowded/ noisy world, in order to stand out your brand has to mean something to people.
You have to craft stories that are intentionally infused with both emotion and relevance, so that they’re authentically persuasive to the right people.
Unforgettable, even.
Before you can effectively market anything, be it your services or products, you have to be able to clearly and confidently articulate to people what makes you different and then give them a reason to care.
You have to make people feel something in your marketing. Connect them to your brand with a compelling emotion that only you can offer, so that every single time they encounter your brand (online and off), they experience the same emotions again and again.
Understanding the three Es isn’t just good brand strategy, it’s the secret to good brand storytelling too.
Unpack those for your own brand, and you’ll never have to worry about what to say in your marketing ever again.
Curious to learn the 3Es for your brand?
Listen to me talk about it on one of these podcasts…or book a call to chat about working together >>
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Follow along @sauritcreative if you aren’t already, and reach out if you’re finding your own brand’s website and social storytelling aren’t quite resonating with your ideal clients.
It’s possible your messaging might be the problem, and we can set up a time to chat to see how we can get your story straight!
*About the author
Ericka Saurit (enchanté in case we haven’t met! 👋) is a designer and brand strategist, obsessed with how our built environment shapes the human experience.
Through this blog and her popular newsletter, she shares stories and insights about marketing, branding, and the home industry’s creative pulse.
*My hope is to spark ideas that help you grow your business and build a brand that truly shines.✨
