Customers, Partners, Success

Guiding Prospects from Success Stories to Lead Forms

How well do your success stories motivate prospects to leave their contact information?

Many companies’ case studies include links back to their home pages, but I think they're missing a big opportunity. Is the home page really the best place to send someone who has just committed the time to download and read a specific case study about a particular customer in a specific industry that solved a unique problem using your solution? Isn't there likely a better, more relevant piece of content to market to that prospect than the home page? A piece of content that would be compelling enough that the prospect would gladly provide their contact information in order to access? It could be a white paper or a demo or a webinar replay (by the same customer as the case study, if possible) that further convinces them of the value your company can deliver.

Here's my suggestion: Take a look at one of your case studies. What type of prospect would likely read it? What do they learn from it? What might it leave them wondering about? What content do you have, or could you create, that addresses the questions they most likely have as a result of reading that one case study. Determine what that next most relevant piece of content is and link to it from the most relevant point in your case study. Consider doing the reverse and linking back to the case study from that content as well.

It's not difficult to do. It just takes an investment of time and a good understanding of the value of each content piece in your portfolio. Case studies can become lead generators – if you use them to guide prospects to lead-form protected content that is directly relevant to the case study they just finished reading.

Batman, Robin, Success Stories & Partners

My post today is about the relationships between customers and vendors and between alliance partners, using an analogy of the dynamic duo – Batman & Robin.

Customers & Vendors: I find that often when I talk to a new client about increasing the value of their success stories, there’s an initial tendency for them to want to be the main superhero in each case study. Essentially, the client wants to be Batman and they want their customers to play the lesser role of Robin.  In some ways it makes sense, as a key goal of any good success story is to paint the client’s product or service in a very positive light. That said, I think it’s a short-sighted approach because when you think about the prospects - the target audience for the success story - they all see themselves – and thus the customers they want to relate to - as Batman.

From the prospect’s perspective, the featured customer is the one who recognized their company had a problem. The customer discovered or chose our client’s offering as the solution that most closely matched what they needed. And the customer is the one who oversaw the implementation, got the internal buy-in required, directed his or her own employees, ensured our client did a good job, coordinated the training, etc.  To get a prospect to truly relate to a success story, the customer highlighted has to be placed firmly in the driver’s seat when it comes to the Batmobile. It may take awhile to get over it, but as the provider, it’s better to be Robin in this case. It’s still an extremely worthwhile role.

Alliance Partners: When it comes to partners, in many instances it’s probably safe to assume that both parties in any alliance feel that they play the role of Batman. “They need us more than we need them” is not an atypical perspective, particularly for individuals who are not directly involved in managing the alliance itself. While that may actually be the case, it not likely the best approach to creating a productive alliance. If the alliance actually has strategic value for both companies, then each of them has the stronger role in at least one aspect of the alliance.

So, my key points are:

1.       In a customer success story, it’s best to capture the story such that the customer plays the lead role in driving the solution. Take the credit where it’s deserved but recognize that your company’s offering was part of a larger solution that the customer was responsible for.

2.       In an alliance, keep an eye out for instances where individuals at your company or your alliance partner are making assumptions about their higher level of importance to the success of an alliance and consider what effect that may be having on the alliance itself.

The Economist, Amazon Reviews, and B2B Customer Success

I have to admit, I love the Economist. My only problem is that it arrives once a week and it takes me longer than a week to get through all of the interesting articles, so I always have 3 or 4 hanging around the house. In the Technology Quarterly section of the March 7 edition, there was an article entitled, “Fair Comment” focused on online consumer reviews that makes some points that I think are relevant to B2B customer success marketing.

"After about 20 reviews of a product are posted, ‘We start to see more reviews – it starts to accelerate, says Sam Decker, the CMO of Bazaarvoice”. Much like consumer reviews, the more case studies a company has, the easier it gets to recruit another customer to participate. From my experience, getting that first case study can be tough, so don’t worry about being overly selective. Capture an initial 3-4 case studies and then it becomes much easier to convince other customers to join your program, particularly if you give customers the credit they deserve in your initial studies.

“No one trusts all positive reviews”: Don’t be afraid to include a mistake your company made, or an unsuspected challenge in a case study, as long as you did what was necessary to satisfy the customer in the end. Case studies that read like a fairy tale just don’t come across as credible to prospects. It’s better to share the whole truth; the fact that the customer is willing to share their story shows that your company was committed to deliver results.

“Displaying recent reviews indicates that people are still interested in the product”: I am frequently reviewing company case study pages where the most recent case study is from 2007 or earlier. It’s important to continue to add new relevant case studies and cull old ones that are no longer associated with your company’s current offerings, so it’s easier for prospects to find the right study. I like to recommend as a rule of thumb that 25-30% of your case studies be less than a year old.

“Amazon recently changed its ranking system. Now the helpfulness of reviews is taken into account…”: Having quality case studies is just as important (if not more important) as having a large number of them. In the success stories we capture, we try to put ourselves in the shoes of the prospect, and answer as many of their tough questions as possible. We’ve found a steps to success ‘how to’ approach that allows the prospect to envision solving a similar problem using our client’s solution to be the most effective.