People have been fascinated by stories since prehistoric times. Even before writing, storytelling allowed people to share experiences, pass on knowledge and give meaning to what happened around them.
Thousands of years later, technology has evolved and communication channels have multiplied, but the human need to hear and tell stories remains. That’s why brand storytelling is a powerful tool to use. Yet many small and medium-sized businesses still focus on product descriptions, technical specifications and promotions, leaving what makes them distinctive in the background.
Business storytelling, also known as corporate storytelling, brings a company’s history, decisions and people into its communications. It can take shape on social media, in videos, in blog posts and in conversations with customers.
People look for stories they can relate to, that make them feel something and give meaning to their experiences. For a business, this offers an opportunity to explain its value through what it does and why it does it.
Why stories engage us
A story lets us follow an experience: someone faces a situation, makes decisions and lives with the consequences. We may recognise a problem similar to our own, understand someone’s motivation or imagine how we would act in their place.
For small and medium-sized businesses, this is a way to bring attention to things that often go unspoken: the care given to a request, the attention paid to craftsmanship or the reason for delivering a service in a particular way.
Stories give messages context
Quality, reliability and professionalism appear in countless business communications. On their own, however, they do little to distinguish one company from another.
A story can connect these words to people, situations and actions. It gives the reader something concrete to associate them with and can make the message easier to remember.
This does not mean abandoning data or technical specifications. It means giving them context that helps the customer understand their value.
What distinguishes storytelling from traditional advertising
An advertisement might say: “Buy this product, it’s the best.” A story can show how that product came about, what problem it solves and why someone chose to make it that way.
Advertising and storytelling can work together: an advertisement can tell a story too. The difference lies in how the value of the offer is presented.
If we focus only on features, we leave customers to work out why they should care. Through a story, we can show those features in the context of an experience, connecting them to a need or a point of view.
For small and medium-sized businesses, this is an opportunity. Many have direct relationships with their customers and know the people, challenges and motivations behind their work. These can provide the starting point for authentic stories, even without a multimillion-dollar budget.
The story then needs to reach the right people. Choosing where to tell it and how to adapt it to different channels is part of a marketing strategy that connects content, audiences and objectives.
Storytelling in marketing: practical examples for small businesses
How do you turn a generic statement into a story? You need to look deeper into the soul of the company and the people who make it what it is, and find the right words to express how they see the world.
These two hypothetical examples show how to tell the story of a business’s value in greater depth.
An artisan furniture workshop
“We make quality furniture” is a promise many competitors could make.
Let’s rephrase it, adding the company’s story, its decisions and motivations:
“We make quality furniture using wood from environmentally sustainable plantations in the Amazon. We chose to spend a little more on fine wood to reduce our environmental impact and help local communities facing hardship.”
We have started to explain what “quality” means to this workshop. Its choice of wood also tells us how the people who work there see their craft and their relationship with the environment.
From here, we can go deeper: how did they discover these plantations? What convinced them to choose that supplier? What challenges have they faced in maintaining that choice?
When they are real and can be documented, these details shape the story and help customers understand what lies behind the furniture they are buying. Claims about sustainability and support for communities must also be backed up by supply chain practices.
A software development company
“We develop custom software for businesses” describes a service, but says little about the people who provide it.
Let’s add the motivations that guide their work:
“We develop custom software because we believe technology should expand what people can do and help them work faster. Before writing code, we sit alongside the people who will use the software and try to understand what makes their day complicated. We want them to spend more time on their work and less on the tools that should be making it easier.”
Here too, a way of seeing the world emerges. The focus shifts from technology to people and the value of their time to the business.
We can then tell the story of a specific experience: a process with unnecessary steps, how it was redesigned with the people who used it and what changed in their daily work. The story gains depth through experience, showing how the company’s intentions translate into decisions.
The benefits of business storytelling for your company
The two examples show how a description can become the starting point for a more personal story. But how can this work contribute to customer relationships?
Building a connection with customers
When a business explains the reasons behind its decisions, it helps people understand who they are dealing with.
A customer may relate to a workshop’s care for the environment, its approach to solving a problem or the idea guiding the design of a service. This connection can contribute to trust, especially when the story is reflected in the customer’s actual experience.
The relationship continues after the first purchase: through responses, support and consistency between what the company says and what it does.
Supporting the buying journey
People need to understand whether a product or service fits their situation. A relevant story can help them recognise the problem and understand the company’s contribution.
For the workshop, the story can explain part of the furniture’s price. For the software company, it can help customers understand why a project starts with observing everyday work.
Storytelling does not guarantee a sale. It can, however, provide useful information for making a choice, alongside price, the features of the offer and evidence of its quality.
Standing out authentically from competitors
In many industries, products and services can seem similar. Even the words used to present them often begin to sound alike.
Business storytelling can reveal differences that a product specification struggles to convey: how you work, the decisions you make and how you approach your customers’ problems.
Bringing out these differences requires clarity about your positioning. Brand consulting helps translate the company’s distinctive qualities into a coherent story, messages and tone of voice.
Authenticity comes from this connection with reality. People should be able to recognise what they have read or heard in the product, the service and the relationship.
Where to start telling your business’s story
You can start with a decision you are proud of, a request that changed your perspective or a problem you have learned to address.
Ask yourself what happened, why you made a particular decision and what consequences it had. Look for details that help explain how you work and, where possible, make room for the voices of the people involved.
A simple story can say a great deal about a business when it comes from a concrete experience. It can be the first step towards showing what makes you distinctive and giving people a reason to remember you.
If you find difficult speaking about your company in , you can evaluate Se invece trovi difficoltà nel raccontarti, puoi valutare una consulenza di branding, che con le giuste strategie e le giuste domande ti aiuterà a tirare fuori il tuo vero valore.
Your story is unique because it comes from the decisions and experiences of the people who live it every day. It is worth finding the words to tell it.
Autore
Matteo Lazzarin
A full-stack developer and entrepreneur from Treviso, Italy. He started playing with MS-DOS and Gorillas at the age of four and never stopped trying to understand what was happening behind the screen. After earning a diploma and a degree in Computer Science, he worked with digital marketing companies, designing architectures and developing enterprise web projects, automation systems and custom software solutions for companies of all sizes, including UniCredit, Vodafone, Venice Airports and Eden Viaggi. Today, he is building his own innovation studio, Up In Future, where he explores how to improve businesses and enhance the human experience at work. He loves to learn and share. He also has a second life as a music nerd and wannabe composer.