5 Hottest Ways to Use Customer Stories in ‘10
Ever walked through the living room when someone else is watching TV (on your way somewhere else), and just had to stop right there and watch?
I’d be willing to bet it was a compelling story that drew you in (if it wasn’t some sultry hamburger ad).
Humans have always told stories and it’s still the best currency for communication.
If anything, we rely on stories more than ever to be seen or heard in a sea of messages.
What’s changed are the media we use.
So what’s hot now in sharing customer success stories and case studies?
Here are my 5 predictions for the hottest ways to use your stories in ‘10. Drop a comment on your top ways.
1. Blogs
An estimated 77% of active web users read blogs. They’ve proven to be powerful drivers of search engine traffic.
Even better, those following your blog are interested in your particular topic, giving you the perfect target audience.
Share your best customer stories on your blog – either in full or linked back to the full story on your website.
Focus on the customer’s experience and path to success, not just tooting your own horn.
And finally, be sure to get the customer’s permission before you publish anything with their name on it.
2. Twitter
Enticing Twitter content gets fresh eyeballs on your blog or website. A decent percentage of my own web traffic comes from Twitter.
Customer stories are among the more interesting pieces of content you can share.
Mention a compelling customer story and link back to it on your blog or website.
Several of my clients regularly Tweet their customer stories, proving to be a source of new traffic to their sites.
Be sure to give it a compelling headline, and keep the Tweet short to encourage Retweeting.
Remember to follow what has become Twitter protocol of sharing more helpful links/Tweets than self-promotional ones.
3. Video
Video continues its hot streak.
Consider capturing short versions of your customer success stories and comments on video, or use video technology that allows viewers to navigate to chapter marks.
Some surveys indicate two-thirds still prefer written stories, but if possible, have multiple ways that your audience can consume your stories.
Then post the videos on your website, blog, YouTube (the third largest search engine) and other sites like Viddler.
Check out more video tips here.
4. Sales Conversations
Sure, you may have your video and written stories nicely displayed everywhere.
But you don’t really know whether those powerful stories have reached the right prospects.
Make sure those hot prospects know your best customer successes. Encourage sales reps to tell them in sales conversations.
To that end, communicate clearly and often to reps where your customer case studies and success stories reside on your website or intranet.
Discuss those stories in sales meetings.
Do everything you can to ensure that when a rep talks with a prospect, she knows just the perfect story to mention in conversation.
5. Awards
I’m big on awards these days – after seeing some Fortune 500 companies jump at the chance to tell their stories for awards opportunities.
Why? We all like to be recognized for our efforts. Your customers are no different.
If they’re doing cool, best practices things, and your solution helps with that, find relevant awards programs and ask their permission to submit them.
You might be surprised how on board they get for an awards submission when they might not publish their story as a case study.
If your customer wins, their story gets natural publicity through the awards process.
Also, once you have all the juicy details, ask if you can make that public on your website.
What are your predictions for the hottest ways to use customer case studies and success stories right now?
A Future without Case Studies? 5 Conclusions about the New FTC Rules
Suddenly, the marketing world is in a panic over the new FTC rules regarding endorsements (testimonials).
It’s December, and the new guidelines went into effect yesterday.
Some are asking, should we pull down every customer testimonial, success story and case study?!
Don’t panic.
While it sounds bad, the impact on case studies may be minimal compared to stand-alone testimonials. Even then, there are ways testimonials can comply.
After reading the official guidelines and various interpretations, here are some of my conclusions:
(Note: This is my take on the guidelines – and I’m not an attorney.)
Conlusion #1: Stand-alone testimonials need to be clarified
Testimonials expressing satisfaction or opinion - without mentioning results – usually seem to be OK.
It’s those with specific results that are a particular problem. Consumers can’t really know what’s behind them or if results are typical.
Yet, statements such as "results not typical" are no longer valid under the guidelines.
Here’s a sample problem statement from the FTC doc:
“I lost 50 pounds in 6 months with WeightAway."
Who knows whether this is typical or what went into these results?
Under the new guidelines, testimonials with results can’t omit the "how." Endorsements must have context.
Here’s the FTC’s revised example:
“Every day, I drank 2 WeightAway shakes, ate only raw vegetables, and exercised vigorously for six hours at the gym. By the end of six months, I had gone from 250 pounds to 140 pounds.”
It’s not as crisp and succinct, for sure. But it explains much more accurately what went into the weight-loss results.
IF this is typical of someone who drank the shakes, ate well and exercised that much, then it’s fine.
If not typical, then use of such a testimonial requires you to mention what the typical result would be with this combination.
Conclusion #2: Case studies likely BENEFIT from the new rules
As noted above, a glowing testimonial of a sentence or two ususally doesn’t show the full context.
I have to give Michel Fortin credit for being the first to point out that case studies just may be the answer in many cases.
Customer case studies are intended to go beyond just the results – to show what’s behind the numbers.
By showing the path to success, you eliminate the ambiguity or the implication that magically plugging something in produces success. There’s usually more to it.
To that end, if you write or manage customer stories, make sure that you accurately portray the steps that led to success – which may be more than just your solution.
That may mean fleshing out success stories a bit so they are not just overviews but more detailed accounts.
Also, instead of pulling out specific results quotes from case studies and using them elsewhere, you may need to get customer approval on a second version of each quote that can be used as a stand-alone.
Conclusion #3: Check back with customers regularly
I listened to a recent webinar that Jim Edwards conducted with Richard Cleland, assistant director in Advertising Practices at the FTC.
Cleland clarified a lot of questions.
He also pointed out the importance of updating your endorsements regularly.
Technically, if you’ve left your testimonials and customer stories up for a year or so, you should check back with customers on whether they still feel the same way.
Doing so may even result in updates that make your testimonials or case studies stronger.
Conclusion #4: Introduce affidavits or modify release forms
Cleland also suggested that customers sign an affidavit that their statements are in fact true at that time.
Many legal release forms have wording to this effect. If you use email approvals, you might want to create a very short affidavit doc or email approval string that has wording to address this.
Conclusion #5: The guidelines aren’t totally clear
Even with example scenarios in the doc, the guidelines are still a bit fuzzy when you try to apply them.
At times, it seems a few words can make the difference between compliance or non-compliance.
Just keep in mind the intention of the newly clarified guidelines. They’re intended to protect us from misleading and fraudulent claims.
If we simply learn how to work with them, they’re a good thing for us all.
The FTC has said that, if by chance you are out of compliance, you will receive a warning and a chance to fix the issue.
Over time, these should become clearer, as we learn what real-world examples the FTC finds out of compliance.
Next steps:
Evaluate your inventory of testimonials, success stories and case studies per the guidelines.
Update or get new approvals of old endorsements.
Decide whether you need to revise or add affidavit language into any approval documents.
- Additional resources:
FTC guidelines
Michel Fortin’s blog post
Joel Comm’s blog post
Jim Edwards’ webinar with the FTC
How are you changing your case studies and practices to fit these new guidelines?
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?
Awesome How-to – Customer Testimonial Videos
Dianna Huff’s B2B Marcom Writer Blog features an impressive example of customer testimonial videos by Waters Corporation – from how they collected them to usage. Read the full story here.
What stands out for me:
- They made the videos about the customers more than the vendor
- To be efficient, they went to where their customers are – an event
- They planned months in advance and got interview questions approved by customers
- The videos were unscripted. Customers responded to questions authentically.
Check it out, and have a great weekend!
Video or Written Customer Story – Which Comes First?
In the multimedia age, more organizations are creating both written and video customer case studies and success stories.
It’s a powerful way of catering to prospects’ varying preferences for consuming information.
But in what order do you produce video and written versions of case studies and success stories?
I’ve done it both ways – created written case studies based on video footage, and scripted videos and questions based on a written story.
But which is best?
Personally, I find it more effective to create the written story first. Here’s why.
In interviewing and writing a customer case study, you have a lot of flexibility in the way you present information, and customers go through the process of tweaking and approving their public comments on paper.
It’s a process that allows customers to think through their comments behind the scenes without being "on the spot" on camera – increasing the customer’s confidence level.
Creating the written story first also allows you to flesh out what your story is, and then work on translating that to video.
Once you capture your customer on video, you can’t easily go back and make changes. What’s recorded is what’s recorded. It’s better to be as prepared as possible before the video process.
So, with written first…
You can focus your on-camera questions more specifically.
You can loosely script out the video.
It takes less time to arrive at the sound bites you need.
You already know the story you want to tell.
Your customer feels more comfortable on camera because he/she has already thought through the answers.
You spend less time on the more pricey medium of video, and less of your customer’s time perhaps.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
Do you prefer to capture video or written customer stories first, and why?
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