By Christine Taylor
Cashing In on the Customer Success Story By Christine Taylor
Next to white papers, customer success stories or casestudies are the most popular tool in the technicalmarketer’s toolkit. That’s because it’s one of the most powerfultools available to your sales force.
Why are they so popular? Because they are compelling toprospective customers. References and testimonials are greatthings to have but customer success stories flesh out thosetestimonials and give them teeth. And if you match the casestudy customer’s industry to the prospects, it’s clear toprospects that your company knows how to successfully operate ina given market.
The ubiquitous case study can range from a 3-paragraph onlinesnippet to a full-blown magazine article. The most popular casestudy in the marketing/PR arsenal is the 600-1200 word customersuccess story following this pattern: company overview andchallenge, project details, and positive results. Elementsinclude:
Customer Overview and Challenge: Start with a 2-3 paragraphoverview of the customer’s company. This should be very positive– since you’re going to detail a problem the customer washaving, the last thing you want to do is make them sound like ajerk. So compliment them. Feel free to adapt the overview fromtheir own Website text, where they’re already placing themselvesin the best possible light.
Then move on to the business challenge. Don’t make the customersound stupid or incompetent. The challenge should always becentered on something good that is happening to them –fastgrowth, industry prominence, strategic IT changes – whatever.Their challenge should be applicable to your readers’ ownbusiness issues.
Project Details: Everyone knows that no project goes perfectly,but save the debriefing for the longer-form trade journalarticle. These short customer success stories should report onthe successful project by briefly discussing specific productsand benefits.
Don’t go all over the map. If the project is fairly narrow orspecific, you won’t have any trouble sticking with the mainpoint or product. In the case of very large and complexinstallation, concentrate on the main product or application.For example, Microsoft Great Plains has more modules than youcan shake a stick at. Concentrate on the ones that had the mostpositive impact on your customer.
Business Benefits: Always quantify improvement if you can.Numbers can be dollar savings, percentages, or other measures ofsaved staff time, more efficient workflows, better customerservice, etc. Be sure that the benefits you list are thebenefits the customer perceives – hard costs are most easilyquantified, but soft costs may have the higher perceived benefitto a customer. Ideally you will have both.
Putting the Customer Success Story to Work -- How can you useyour completed stories? Some ideas:
1. Post them on your website. The more you have up, and the morefrequently you post new ones, the more often spiders will findyou and you’ll move up in the search engine rankings.
2. Include them in sales kits. If you have a lot of case studiesput them in a separate notebook, which can be very impressivephysical proof for a prospect.
3. Make them searchable. Encourage prospects to go online andsearch your case studies. Use parameters like vertical market,products, or customer challenges.
4. Use them as marketing support for resellers and integrators.The easier your product is to sell, the more resellers andintegrators will push your product when they talk to their owncustomers.
The More the Merrier How many customer success stories shouldyou have on hand? The answer is the more the better. A largecompanies may have hundreds of them available on their websiteand in sales and marketing kits, and even many smaller companiescommonly have 25 or more. Why? Because they work. Startcapturing those customer success stories today, and watch thosesales rise.
Article Source: www.ArticlesBase.com
