Brand, Meet Story ─ How to Create Engaging Content to Win Business and Influence Your Audience

Think of the last great article you read or the last great speech you heard. Chances are, if you remember one key message, you also remember one compelling story. That’s because the best content starts with a story. When it comes to marketing, the best business content starts with a story the audience cares about, not the brand’s message about what it wants to sell them.

In Brand, Meet Story, Heather Pemberton Levy describes the Story Comes First method, a practical approach that combines techniques from journalism and fiction writing to help brands tell stories that put the readers’ interests first. Whereas most brand marketers create content to sell their product, service or technology, the Story Comes First method turns this approach on its head to create content with the ?human moments” that truly engage an audience.

Filled with examples from Levy’s experience creating content marketing programs, trade books, and hundreds of articles for a variety of B2B and B2C brands, the book shows readers a step-by-step approach to create content designed to deliver business results. Brand, Meet Story explains the key ways to uncover what your audience cares about and how to turn brand messaging into stories that matter. Levy inspires readers to develop a compelling voice that will carry the brand tone and values across all channels, and helps them turn their ideas into engaging, story-driven content their audiences will read, love, and share.

Heather Pemberton Levy is a strategic content marketing expert who has written hundreds of articles and produced over twenty books for major business publishers including Harvard Business Review Press, Bibliomotion, McGraw-Hill, and John Wiley & Sons. Her work has appeared in Wall Street Journal, CIO Journal, HBR.org, Financial Times, Smarter With Gartner, and her own blogs, Mommy Truths and Story Comes First.

She is currently Vice President, Content Publishing at Gartner, the global IT research and advisory firm, where she leads editorial creation and publishing for the company’s branded content platform, Smarter With Gartner, as well as trade books and internal communications.
Prior to this role, Heather was co-founder of The Levy Group and Story Comes First, where she led content marketing programs and content development for large, mid-size, and startup B2B and B2C clients.

Heather began her career as a technology journalist and appeared on CBS News Up to the Minute as a regular on-air contributor on technology trends. She lives in Connecticut with her family and is actively involved in the community where she uses stories in programs at her children’s schools and to promote the local farmers market and charitable organizations.