Podcast: Case Studies to Build Trust and Sales
How do you make the most of a customer’s success story? What if you can’t name a customer? How do new FTC rules affect case studies?
Get answers to these questions and others on a 25-minute podcast where RainToday.com interviewed Casey Hibbard, "Using Case Studies to Build Trust and Facilitate Sales."
- Ways to use your customer case studies
- How many and how often to create case studies
- What makes a successful case study
- What if you can’t name customers?
- Examples of professional services firms using case studies successfully
- Why you shouldn’t make people register to access cases
- How to ease customer permissions and approvals
- What the new FTC rules mean for endorsements
Listen here. It’s only available to non-members of RainToday.com until Feb. 24.
Awards Get Customers to Tell Their Stories – Fast
It can be really tough to get customers to go public with their stories.
But the prospect of winning an award gets customers on board – fast!
Your products and services are helping customers do innovative, progressive things. Why not submit those examples for industry awards where you both get some of the glory?
Just last week, I helped a client capture two of its best customer success stories to submit for two different awards programs in my client’s industry.
And get this…Both featured customers are major, nationally known companies.
My client’s customers were all over the idea, even mentioning how excited they were in the interviews. Plus, the prospect of an award deadline got the customers to MOVE quickly.
Somehow, submitting for awards doesn’t require (in most companies) the usual PR/legal approval that customer case studies do, but you still get a positive story out publicly- if you win.
If the entry wins, everyone benefits:
- The individuals at your customer companies receive praise internally for their efforts.
- The customer company receives positive press.
- You, as the vendor, receive attention for being part of award-winning efforts. You can then turn around and publicize that every chance you get.
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Moreover, once your customer has won an award, they’re often more likely to allow you to publish that tale as a case study or success story.
2010 Action Steps:
- Search online for awards relevant to your industry and mark them on your calendar.
- Select some customers that you’d like to submit.
- Capture their stories well in advance.
- Fill out the award application for the customer.
- Get the customer’s approval of the award submission.
- Go back later and ask if you can simply put that information into a public case study.
If you win, tell everyone!
Any great success stories to share about submitting customers’ stories for awards?
Give Your Success Stories Their Own Website?
On most business websites, you have to dig to find a single story.
If you do find any, it’s usually after you’ve waded through levels of capabilities copy and promises.
So separate company sites that are dedicated solely to stories are refreshing. They get it.
Stories That Sell, the book, highlights companies like Toyota and Sage Software for their separate story websites. (The latter, created for a specific campaign, is no longer live.)
The latest to come to my attention is The Ford Story.
American car makers have had one of the roughest years ever. But Ford has been surprisingly successful ($997 million profit in JUST this past quarter) and is making sure it tells its best stories.
The online Ford Story website tells internal Ford stories, such as what’s going on in R&D. But it mostly showcases customer success stories.
- 15-second commercial spots featuring real drivers talking about what they like most about their cars
- A video story about how Ford Focus owners soup up their cars
- Articles on Ford’s current initiatives in areas such as energy efficiency
- A feature on how firefighters drive Ford trucks
- Interesting, self-submitted customer success stories with photos
- The latest posts in the company’s Twitter stream
A large "Submit Your Stories" box encourages customers to share written versions of their stories in under 500 words, and add photos and videos.
Ford also enables comments on all its content, encouraging interaction.
Why a unique niche site? Almost like an online magazine, it allows a company to separate the story from the product/service facts and promises. In doing so, that story stands out more.
That’s not to say that your main site shouldn’t include success stories. But niche sites help give extra attention to specific messages you want to reinforce.
Check it out. It’s an engaging site, even if you’re not in the market for a car.
What do you think about this separate site approach?
Case Studies in Action – Alibaba’s Hybrid Success Story Campaign
The last page of October’s Fast Company magazine took me down a rabbit hole – and I enjoyed the ride.
I’m always on the lookout for creative uses of customer case studies and success stories, and Alibaba.com delivered with a campaign that combines traditional print advertising with the online world, while also mixing real customers with actors – but not at the same time.
It’s an interesting effect.
Alibaba.com helps business owners find suppliers, manufacturers and other resources online to help them make and sell products.
A lot of companies use "fake customers" in their ads (think detergent ads). And some use real customers (Geico, Visa, etc.).
But Alibaba uses both. Here’s how:
1. The print ad features two guys, supposedly customers, holding their product, a robot. Below the photo, it encourages me to get the full story at success.alibaba.com.
2. The website shows Flash-animated sets of three business owners, each with a story. Choose one and you get a funny video featuring those customers talking about their businesses.
Here, the company’s using what I believe are actors to make the point about what Alibaba does and how.
3. But if I click on the Success Stories tab on that page, I get what are definitely several real customer success stories. Clicking on one story initially launches a summary of that customer story in a frame, and then I can take the link for "the full story."
4. For the full story, it pops up a PDF called "Success Stories Booklet." I love this idea.
The booklet has about a dozen one-page stories about actual business owners, with their locations and types of businesses.
What I like about this is, at each step, this campaign lets the audience completely control how much information they want. You can get deeper and deeper into the campaign, and all the while, you are getting the same message about proven success with Alibaba.com.
If I had something to sell on Alibaba.com, I’d be sold on trying them out.
What about you? Do you think the offline/online campaign works? And does the mix of actors/real customers provide the proper level of authenticity to be convincing?
Arming Sales Teams with Customer Slides
Marketing teams don’t just create materials for marketing; they also have to keep sales reps supplied with the tools to help close deals.
If they don’t provide materials in the format sales prefers, then sales reps create their own materials – all too often.
In a Web 2.0 Journal article this week, Ardath Albee of Marketing Interactions pointed out:
Research shows that salespeople spend an inordinate amount of time recreating that collateral in ways that work for them.
When it comes to customer case studies and success stories, what specifically do reps need?
Often, reps are using slide decks. Why not package summarized versions of your customer case studies and success stories on slides?
Albee calls them "validation slides," but they might also be called customer slides, ROI slides, case study slides, etc.
The point is to capture the highlights of your best customer experiences in summary in a way that’s super simple for sales reps to run with.
Make a point of creating slides to accompany every full success story and case study that you develop. Tell a story with your slides.
Who is the customer?
What was the challenge or business goal?
Which solution was applied?
What were the specific results?
The closer you match the featured customer with the one the rep is pitching, the better the outcome.
As Albee says:
These kinds of mini stories help them to believe that the outcome they want is actually viable.
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Companion ebooks to Stories that Sell!
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