A good storyteller doesn’t just talk, they captivate by adapting their tone of voice and using physical movement and expression to bring characters to life and draw the audience into the plot.

The story has a beginning, middle and an end. It has a narrator with whom the audience/reader can identify and it has at least one protagonist and an antagonist whose characters are the basis for drama and conflict.

But how does this translate in the business world, in business writing?

A good story isn’t just about words – although words are the sensory bait used in written storytelling. Your story needs to have characters and a plot with which the audience/reader can identify. The protagonist and antagonist need to be characters (or something) that they can recognise (perhaps a problem they have to deal with everyday and its antithetical resolution).

Limelight Networks (www.limelight.com) does this really well.

Limelight is a provider of website content management (WCM) and content delivery network (CDN) so you’d expect their web presence to ‘walk the talk’. It does.

What’s more interesting, however, is the way in which Limelight tells its story and targets it towards particular audiences (or prospects). There is no ‘podium presentation’ using sentences like: “This is what we do……..and these are the awards we’ve won.”

Instead, Limelight has created a couple of characters David and Anne who are representative of two of their primary target audiences – Chief Marketing Officer David (marketing personnel) and Chief Information Officer Anne (technology personnel).

On the home page, the web developers have enhanced the story with visual representations of David and Anne, which make navigation easy. Anyone landing on it will identify with either character and want to find out more. They can do so by clicking buttons labelled: “I’m responsible for marketing” (David) and “I’m responsible for technology” (Anne). And to be absolutely sure, three bullet points under each character highlight their critical daily challenges. This is so compelling to natural human curiosity you cannot help being drawn in.

There’s a helpful link button “take David’s Journey” that takes me to a page where I can read more about David’s story, about his working day and the challenges he faces.

And I soon recognise – this isn’t just David’s story, it’s my story!

So, now I’m hooked. I’m engaged. I can identify with the characters and I want to know more – how do their problems get solved? I’d like to know because it may help me solve mine. So, I read on to find out how (in both cases) Limelight cleverly reveals in a short paragraph more about these two characters and the challenges they face.

And once I’m hooked, Limelight goes on to demonstrate their solution and products and invites me to check them out.

Because they’ve told their story so well and shown me that they totally get my pain, it seems a very natural process for them to spotlight their solution and suggest I take a look. There is no ‘hard sell’. In fact, I can’t wait to check them out.

And why am I so turned on? Because they’re not talking ‘at me’ like many companies do. Rather they are engaging ‘with me’. They’re seeing it from my point of view, coming at it from my side. They’ve told a story – and it’s my story and in so doing they’ve got my attention, trust and intrigue which are all the foundation stones for a great relationship.

Limelight is demonstrating thought-leadership and has employed intelligent copywriting skill to tell a captivating and authentic story. Every business (large and small) should adopt the same approach.

To do so, you need to know your audience and truly understand the issues they face everyday and the solutions they want.

Of course, the process of creating a good story takes a dedicated amount of time that busy professionals rarely have in their schedules. Not to worry, help is at hand. I’ve made it my business to focus on the written word and help you do so through written content creation, publishing and online marketing. If you’d like to get in touch and have an informal chat you can do so by email: enquiries@swp.co or by filling in this contact form or calling: +44 (0)1295 724193.