As a business owner, you likely believe that your website needs to be completely fact-driven. After all, SEO says, “Tell the truth!” However, only stating facts and just flooding your pages with words akin to a Wikipedia page isn’t always the best idea. For that, we need to turn to three classic storytelling techniques of fiction to see how to best deliver your content to potential customers.
1. Craft a Master Narrative
Everyone talks about themselves on their website. It might be on the ‘About Us’ page or elsewhere, but not everyone knows how to truly tell the story of themselves in a compelling and exciting way.
For instance, if you are a family-run business, just stating so on your website doesn’t always cut it. There are countless other “family-run businesses” out there, so what makes yours special? If you intricately craft the narrative of your family-oriented vision, however, you add layers to that fact.
This can be done by telling the story of how you started, mentioning specific members, or directly answering the question of what benefits your family-oriented ways will bring. Speaking of questions, you need to answer more.
At the end of the day, you are likely not the only one who writes about a specific topic or offers a specific product or service. However, you need to stand out from the rest. One way to do this is by passing what’s called the “So F’ing” what?” test.
The “So F’ing what?” test basically mirrors what readers could think when they see your website or something on it that they have seen a hundred times before. Because of this, you always need to go way deeper about your topic than others have gone. You need to directly state the intended message or the expected result.
For example, let’s say you are running a yoga studio and on your website, you promise that you will save people time. For readers, this could be a generic promise that they have seen a million times before. However, if you take the time to craft a narrative of how your specific location and parking area can help them save 10 minutes of driving time which would then benefit their school run, then your promise suddenly means so much more.
2. Pick a Hero and a Villain
Every narrative needs a hero and a villain, and yours is no different. In the business world, however, the hero is neither Superman nor Batman; it’s always the customer.
More importantly, though, is that the hero is NEVER you. What that means is that when most people set up their websites, they write so much about the company itself: when it was established, its team members, the products and services, its certifications and awards, etc.
However, while all this is important, you need to turn it into a hero’s perspective of why this is important for the customer, not for you. There’s a thin line between “We did this and that because we’re so great,” and “We did this and that and here’s how they can be beneficial for you.”
For example, if you are a family-run business and you have been in the game for three generations, don’t just slap that on your website. Instead, you can say how this experience and expertise give you deep market intelligence and an innate ability to help your customer make the best decisions.
What about the villains, though? Well, every good story needs to have a villain as good as the hero, and in the case of your business, those villains are the obstacles your hero customer needs to overcome.
Your customer’s villain could be time constraints, lack of resources, budget limitations, or even unethical practices in your industry such as quick AI wins. If you are able to solve all of these problems for your customer then you help them defeat the villain.
3. Uncover Your Brand’s Stories
The beauty of storytelling is that there is no one-size-fits-all story. You can use different, classic story techniques to elevate your business. For instance, your “founder” story can dictate your achievements, your challenges, how long you have been in the business, why you started the company, etc.
The second story is “the customer” story. This is where testimonials, case studies, video case studies, etc. come in useful. This story goes beyond a basic review and focuses on what the customer experienced and how they felt regarding your business.
The third is the “money” story. This is about your pricing and how you frame it. A common method recently is, instead of flat-out saying this product costs £100 a month, saying it costs a cup of coffee a day or something similar. In turn, this might play on the customer’s psychology, leading them to think, “Oh, that’s actually nothing really.”
Conclusion
Storytelling can often be more powerful than straight facts, and the first thing you need to do, to check if you are telling the story of your business in a unique and compelling way, is to take a step back and review your website. You always need a narrative, a hero, and different story techniques to be able to truly elevate the tale of your brand.
Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn.
Last Updated on May 27, 2025
