Complete Production Toolkit
Cashing In on the Customer Success Story By Christine Taylor
Next to white papers, customer success stories or case
studies are the most popular tool in the technical
marketer's toolkit. That's because it's one of the most powerful
tools available to your sales force.
Why are they so popular? Because they are compelling to
prospective customers. References and testimonials are great
things to have but customer success stories flesh out those
testimonials and give them teeth. And if you match the case
study customer's industry to the prospects, it's clear to
prospects that your company knows how to successfully operate in
a given market.
The ubiquitous case study can range from a 3-paragraph online
snippet to a full-blown magazine article. The most popular case
study in the marketing/PR arsenal is the 600-1200 word customer
success story following this pattern: company overview and
challenge, project details, and positive results. Elements
include:
Customer Overview and Challenge: Start with a 2-3 paragraph
overview of the customer's company. This should be very positive
- since you're going to detail a problem the customer was
having, the last thing you want to do is make them sound like a
jerk. So compliment them. Feel free to adapt the overview from
their own Website text, where they're already placing themselves
in the best possible light.
Then move on to the business challenge. Don't make the customer
sound stupid or incompetent. The challenge should always be
centered on something good that is happening to them -fast
growth, industry prominence, strategic IT changes - whatever.
Their challenge should be applicable to your readers' own
business issues.
Project Details: Everyone knows that no project goes perfectly,
but save the debriefing for the longer-form trade journal
article. These short customer success stories should report on
the successful project by briefly discussing specific products
and benefits.
Don't go all over the map. If the project is fairly narrow or
specific, you won't have any trouble sticking with the main
point or product. In the case of very large and complex
installation, concentrate on the main product or application.
For example, Microsoft Great Plains has more modules than you
can shake a stick at. Concentrate on the ones that had the most
positive impact on your customer.
Business Benefits: Always quantify improvement if you can.
Numbers can be dollar savings, percentages, or other measures of
saved staff time, more efficient workflows, better customer
service, etc. Be sure that the benefits you list are the
benefits the customer perceives - hard costs are most easily
quantified, but soft costs may have the higher perceived benefit
to a customer. Ideally you will have both.
Putting the Customer Success Story to Work -- How can you use
your completed stories? Some ideas:
1. Post them on your website. The more you have up, and the more
frequently you post new ones, the more often spiders will find
you and you'll move up in the search engine rankings.
2. Include them in sales kits. If you have a lot of case studies
put them in a separate notebook, which can be very impressive
physical proof for a prospect.
3. Make them searchable. Encourage prospects to go online and
search 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 and
integrators will push your product when they talk to their own
customers.
The More the Merrier How many customer success stories should
you have on hand? The answer is the more the better. A large
companies may have hundreds of them available on their website
and in sales and marketing kits, and even many smaller companies
commonly have 25 or more. Why? Because they work. Start
capturing those customer success stories today, and watch those
sales rise.
About the Author:
Christine Taylor is the principal of the Christine Taylor
Company. Christine concentrates on writing Core Collateral like
white papers, bylined articles and case studies, which is the
foundation of the successful B2B marketing outreach. You can
reach Christine at 760-249-6071 or at
christine@ctaylor-co.com
.
Visit her website at
www.ctaylor-co.com
and her blog at
http://christinetaylor.typepad.com/core_collateral.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Cashing In On the Customer Success Story
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