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1/4/2009 - Showcasing Customer Successes: Marketing's Answer for Nervous Buyers
By Casey Hibbard
Buyers are always conscientious when making purchases. But when budgets and bank accounts shrink, they become even more risk-averse.
How can you help give potential customers—whether consumer or B2B—the confidence to invest in products or services? Show them evidence that previous customers have been successful. Buyers find solace in knowing that those who have gone before them had a positive experience.
Going beyond the age-old testimonial, customer success stories and case studies showcase satisfied customers, demonstrating how customers benefited and the specific results.
In Strangers We Trust
It’s all about trust, and buyers have more faith in what others say than they do in what vendors say. A survey by Bridge Ratings and the University of Massachusetts asked respondents to rate trusted sources of information. On a scale of 1-10, those surveyed gave “strangers with experience” a 7.9 (in second place after friends, family and acquaintances), while a vendor’s own advertising scored a mere 2.2.Those results were significantly different from 10 years earlier when “strangers with experience” and advertising were closer, with 4.2 and 3.3 respectively.
The use of customer stories isn’t new, but it’s reached new levels in recent years. Today, there’s a lot of competition. Plus, too many companies have been less than trustworthy or closed overnight. Where business previously took place face to face, now customers never meet many of their vendors.
At once, Success-Story Marketing™ provides three critical pieces for potential buyers:
- Credibility
- Education
- Validation
Leveraging the Customer’s Voice
A customer story is one of the most versatile and powerful types of promotional content any organization can create. Here are just some of the ways marketers can use case studies or success stories – or summaries of them:
Online
- Web sites – Tease and link to customer stories right from the home page, and include customer stories with all relevant product and service pages.
- Email – Use a compelling customer story in email campaigns.
- Webinars – Invite a successful customer to present its story.
Printed/Collateral
- Newsletters – Run customer stories in newsletters that go to customers, employees and partners.
- Direct marketing – Highlight a customer success in a mailer.
- Case-study booklets – Create booklets that feature key customer stories.
- Sales letters – Kick off a sales letter with a compelling customer story.
- Proposals – Include a couple of customer stories in a proposal for new business.
- Annual reports – Showcase the people and companies behind the numbers.
Verbally/Live
- Sales conversations – Engage prospects with an example of a successful customer.
- Events – Invite customers to tell their story at industry conferences or other events.
- Voice mail – Mention a customer success in a voice mail to a prospect.
PR/Advertising
- Press releases – Catch the attention of busy editors with a “story press release,” one that highlights the success of a specific customer.
- Pitching stories to the media – Send a short pitch to a targeted media contact with a compelling customer success story as the angle.
- Contributed articles – Submit an article featuring a customer success.
- Industry awards submissions – Include full or summarized customer stories with awards applications.
- Advertising – Showcase a customer success in an ad in a key industry publication or web site.
By adding the customer’s voice in all public-facing communications, organizations help potential buyers feel confident about buying.
About the Author: Casey Hibbard of Boulder is author of Stories That Sell: Turn Satisfied Customers into Your Most Powerful Sales & Marketing Asset, the first book on creating and using customer success stories. It’s available in the BMA Colorado online bookstore. Casey is a BMA Colorado member. You can reach Casey at Casey Hibbard Compelling Cases, Inc. 303-494-5785, casey@compelling-cases.com.
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