Your comments are so true! I believe newsletters are still very effective in communicating with a targeted audience. People have opted in and are receptive to your message. I think the biggest challenge there is getting the right compelling subject line so that folks open it.

Great news too about the plan to blog customer stories! I love to hear that companies are telling these stories in social media.

Thanks so much for weighing in Steve.

Happy 2010,
Casey

Good stuff! I’ve never thought about submitting clients for awards. I’ve done stories where customers received awards for implementing said solution, i.e. supplier awards, etc., but never thought about actually submitting anything on a client’s behalf. Interesting.

I just had a phone meeting with a client this morning where our final discussion included using customer stories on the his blog. We plan to develop stories that are condensed and focused with particular information that will be valuable to the reader in bullet points block-type summaries. The emphasis you mentioned on the customer’s experience and path to success will be insightful given my client’s specific consulting disciplines. We nixed “horn-tooting.”

My 2010 pick for use of case studies is somewhere between “hot” and “tried and true.” I think newsletters are still a great vehicle for distributing a succss story, either one that is unique to the newsletter, or one that is located somewhere else – on a client customer’s site, a client site, your own site, another publication, or all of the above. A newsletter can distribute a release and then link to the actual story, or can distribute the entire story. While a newsletter cheats the “on demand” model slightly because it does interrupt, it still gives the reader the opportunity to open it at his or her convenience. Also, many use e-newsletters they know and trust as a digest / springboard to take them to credible news in the specific industry, business area, of interest. slr