Guide to create

an effective

success story

for your business

By Hariom SharanTwitter: @Harioms

Introduction……………………………………………….3

Objective of a success story…………………..…..5

Identify Success Stories………….......................7

Selecting The Correct Format………………..……8

The 4 “Knows” of Success Stories………………………………………………….…..10

Structure in creating success stories……………………………………….………………11

Do and don’t while creating success story…................................................17

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Contents

Today there are many sources are available to get information about a solutions, service its usage and benefits. Generating customer’s interest to convert into business is not easy. It takes time to start building good relation with customers but then will they ready to take the risk to invest into your solutions. Marketing and Sales worked hard to find the way to close the deal.

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Introduction

The reason is that you are missing other sales opportunities because some of your most promising prospects really no idea about all of your solutions—or don't fully recognize the value to their investment?

The best way to solve the challenge is, you need to turn your solutions into a Story which describe the compelling reason to buy.

Let your existing customers do talking on this and you help them to make it easy to share their success experience with a wide audience.

The most likely benefit of using success stories studies is that they represent the view of your customers and clients, not your company and you see prospect companies will be more likely to buy if they knew how others have benefited from your solutions

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“The main objective of a business success story is to demonstrate the value of investment in form of success that your customers achieved as a result of deploying your solution. As the name suggests, a business success story is a business case justifying an investment in your solution from the customer's perspective”

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65% of B2B users feel that case studies are very effective as a content marketing tactic

Objective of a success story

Generate Empathy

Generate Credibility

Tell a Tale

Address wide audience with same domain

Demonstrate ROI

Promote Customer Satisfaction

Aid Understanding

GA

IN C

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IVE

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Success Story

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A real business success stories should be inspiring, which can help you to share about solutions or initiatives that have helped your existing customer to increase its business productivity. Marketing need to work very closely with sales and product team to identify bunch of existing customers.

If the customer company does not automatically sign off on your case study, it is your salesperson's job to enlist the internal champion to "sell" the study to everyone inside the company who may say no.

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That way, you only expend efforts on success story that you know will win approval

It will be helpful for your company to ask the customer to take sign off a conditional release of the success story which require any changes they wish to incorporate.

Identify Success Stories

Your purpose in telling your story and the audience you wish to target will determine your

Success story’s format: Follow most suitable format created strategically

Elevator Story:

To grab quick attention while meeting with key executives of an organisation, you must be armed and ready with your best 10-second story. Your success story should make sure decision makers focus on it. You never know when opportunity will knock, so be prepared!

Paragraph Spotlight:

This format exclusively create for purpose of publications, newsletters, newspapers, and other media sources routinely request small description.

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Selecting The Correct Format

One-page:

The common one-page provides a powerful way to catch the attention of decision makers who are inundated with information and requests for their time.

Two-Page Success Story:

A two-page story that provides more detail than a one-page story can be used to present a more complete picture of your approach and . A two-page story can be used as a best practice submission or to highlight a specific state program.

Full Brief:

This format uses pictures, data, and graphs as well as circumstantial stories to portray your issue and showcase outcome & achievements.

Published Article:

The public recognizes the public health issue you are addressing and increasingly supports your efforts. By synthesizing your work and experiences, others can learn from your program and replicate it in their communities

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1. Know what information you want to tell

2. Know your audience

3. Know to tailor your message to your audience

4. Know your story

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The 4 “Knows” of Success Stories:

CMI and Marketing Profs found that 73% percent of marketers use case studies, and 65% feel they are an effective tactic.

Good stories don’t just happen. An audience really connects with your story when the plot, characters and other elements fade together to create a unified narrative. The structure you choose helps ties the pieces of your story together seamlessly.

Whether you realize it or not, stories that succeed do so because they evolve according the audiences expectation.

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Structure inCreating success stories

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Here is structure on how you should involve your existing customers to create success story

Situational / Profiling

Action

Result & Evidence

Testimonial

1

2

3

4

•One liner on the customer’s business to include web address

•Name and title of the person providing the Problem & the solution

•The success title & the problem that they had (summary of the brief

•Describe the business problem/challenge that you were trying to solve in seeking a solution

•What impact did this problem have on your business?

•How have you addressed this issue in the past?

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Situational / Profiling

•Others solutions tried (not looking to criticise the competition as such your customers could say that they tried to do it themselves or by using several providers

•What solution was provided – a brief summary of the methodology or project phases

•How did you hear about us?

•How did you decide to use us for your solution?

•Briefly describe the solution and how it was deployed.

• Feedback on the people you worked with in our company?

Action

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•Business outcomes (refer to the Business Case or ROI) important but can be difficult to

•Tell us how the solution helped solve your business problem/challenge.

•What benefits did you derive from the solution?

•What has been the measurable impact on your business of deploying this solution (i.e., incremental revenues, savings/productivity gains, safety gains, or return on investment)?

Results & evidence

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• Feedback on the people you worked with in our company?

• Let us know about your experience working with us?

Testimonial

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Do’s & Don't

Do’s

•Write by keeping for your audience, not yourself.

•Create simple short paragraph

•Add facts to support productivity enhancement

• Follow the standard format

•Create a positive hook on productivity improvement

•Do include customer testimonial and business images to bring your story alive

•Mention success title & the problem that they had

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•Avoid irrelevant images

•Don’t use jargon, acronyms, ‘aid‐speak’

•Don’t use long and complicated sentences

•Avoid too technical, acronyms, detailed

Don't

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IrrelevantImages

JargonsAid Speak

Complicated Sentence

Too Technical

Content Marketing and PR influencer, Social Media Marketing Strategist and Trainer. Checkout my marketers communityhttp://www.marketingnewsline.com

Author

Hariom Sharan

Tweet me @Harioms

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