Another powerful tool in your company's marketing arsenal can be your success stories. Success stories seem to come in three flavors: product-focused, nice fluffy stories and then metrics-filled compelling stories. Your mission, if you choose to accept it is to produce the later kind. To help you out with this mission, I want to share some suggestions.
First, if you have budget get a writer to help you out. There are writers who specialize at success story/case study writing and are very good at this. Some of the great writers I've worked with include Ken Baker and Casey Hibbard. When you get the right writer they know the right questions to ask, how to ask follow-up questions and how to get the important information out of customers!
Second, the most valuable success stories are ROI focused and include plenty of metrics. What was the customer's pain before and include numbers like hours, percentages and dollars? And what benefits have they have seen and make sure again to include numbers like hours, percentages and dollars. The best scenario is if your company has an ROI tool that you can complete with your customer to identify the ROI. When I worked at LANDesk we had an ROI tool and one customer identified one million dollars in savings just from headcount cuts, productivity improvements etc. It was a great experience for me to see the difference that measurable ROI results can show.
Third, try to help promote the customer's company and them as thought leaders. Some ways to promote the company include: if your customer has been recognized with a prestigious award then mention that in the opening paragraph when you introduce your customer and finding out their company objectives or initiatives include those in the success story. Try to make writing a success story a win-win for your customers. Ways to promote your customer as a thought leader include spotlighting their innovatiness, their knowledge, include great quotes etc.
Last but not least, read up on what makes a great success story. Here are some of my favorite success story blogs:
- Stories that Sell
- Compelling Cases
- Savvy B2B Marketing
