Everyone loves a great customer success story. You can talk features and benefits in the abstract all day, but nothing brings home the concept that those features and benefits will actually solve the problem you’re trying to address than hearing it already did the same for someone else. It’s the ultimate sales tool.
Of course, getting customers to agree to participate in a success story isn’t always easy. Some aren’t allowed to participate by corporate edict. Others are afraid to because they don’t want to admit that anything in their organizations was ever not hunky-dorey. Some just don’t want to spend their time that way.
So when a customer does agree to tell their story about their experience with your organization, you definitely want to make the most of the opportunity. Here are a few tips that will help you make that happen.
Start with your organization’s contact(s)
This is a step that often gets skipped. Someone fills out a form, usually in a hurry, and assumes that’s all the background the writer will need to interview the customer. Not true!
It’s always helpful to speak with the people who work with the customer every day salespeople, customer service, tech support, trainers, or whoever is most germane to the story you want to tell. They often have perspectives to share that they wouldn’t think to add to a form but that come out in the course of a conversation. Especially if the person doing the interview is experienced at drawing out those types of thoughts.
Gather the background from the internal contact and let that help guide the customer questions.
Always speak to the customer
Some people in the organization (read: salespeople, usually) may be reluctant to have anyone speak directly to their customer for fear the new person will do something crazy that hurts the relationship. Not sure exactly what they’re expecting, but if you’re working with professionals there is very little chance of that happening.
It is important for the writer to speak to the customer because that is the best way to get the “real” story. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on an interview and the story the customer tells differs substantially from what the company insider thought had happened. It’s not that either is untrue it’s simply a matter of perspective, and what is important to each.
Ultimately, you want it to be the customer’s story, and it’s the customer who has to give final approval. Best to get the story they think you’re there to write directly from them. Trust me, it will save a lot of time on the back end.
Prepare good questions ahead of time
Once the conversation with the customer is set up, it’s important to prepare a very targeted set of questions to draw out the story in vivid detail. You can start with a template, but you really need to think about the story you’re hoping the customer tells and prepare the questions accordingly. Otherwise you may end up with a lot of uncomfortable pauses and not much information to build a success story.
While the details may vary, all great success stories consist of four basic elements: who the customer is, what their problem was, how the problem was solved, and the results. You then want to drill down to specifics of that instance within each of those sections, including why the customer chose your solution and how they liked working with your team.
You may not always be able to “stick to the script.” I’ve worked with customers who pretty much launched into the whole story after being asked what issue they were facing. But those are the exceptions.
Often you will have to draw the story out, especially if you’re talking to a technical person. They usually don’t think like marketers think; they’re more likely to recite facts. But a good set of questions can help them get beyond the black-and-white, ones-and-zeroes world they usually live in so they can add a little color to the story.
Must have results
This is another rookie mistake I see from time to time. Someone gets excited that a customer is willing to talk and wants to get him/her on the phone right away. Love the enthusiasm, but
The credibility of a customer success story comes from results. Hard results in the form of numbers are best money saved, hours saved, additional revenue captured, measurably improved health outcomes, etc. That’s the Holy Grail.
Unfortunately, not every customer has that information. Sometimes they failed to document the starting point, which makes it hard to measure the difference the solution made; they just know it’s better. Sometimes there is nothing to measure, or there isn’t an expedient way to measure it.
Soft results can work when no hard results are available, but those results must be something with which other organizations can identify. Employee happiness/reduction in burnout, noticeably reduced noise levels, greater collaboration between clinicians, more time to spend on patients, and other factors can be powerful statements if that’s what your target audience wants to achieve in their own organizations.
If there are no results to report, it’s best to hold off until there are. After all, what’s the point of a customer success story if there’s no successes to report yet?
Find the human element
Some organizations really like to focus on the facts and figures of their customer success stories. They are important, but they are not the story.
The human element is the story how what you did impacted whoever you were trying to impact. Until our robot overlords take over, the decisions are being made by people. People like stories that make them feel good.
This is true even when your audience is made up of clinicians or IT people. Yes, they are analytical, and they like their facts and figures. But they are not Vulcans making all decisions solely based on logic. If they were, luxury automobile companies and sellers of other big ticket consumer products would have more statistical information and fewer shots of attractive people doing cool things in their ads and commercials.
If they relate to your story on a human level, they are more likely to get excited and view you favorably. All else being relatively equal, they will lean toward the solution they feel best about even if they’re not quite sure why.
Give it a great graphic treatment
Great graphics can make even a mediocre story more interesting as well as making a great story stand out.
Break up the type with pictures, or diagrams, or screen shots, or some other visual element. If you have facts and figures to highlight, make little infographic-style illustrations out of some of them. If you’re posting a written case study online, see if you can add a GIF or other video element to it, such as demonstrating the product at work.
The more attractive your final form is, the more it will draw the reader in. And the easier your success story is to read, the more likely it is the people who matter to you will read it.
Realize the full value
Customer success stories are one of the most valuable marketing tools your organization can possess. Frequently, they’re also one of the most difficult to obtain, which is why you should treat each one like it’s gold.
Put in the time and effort to dig beyond the basic elements and you will be able to create compelling stories that yield huge dividends for the entire organization.
So there you are, listening to the PR agencies you’ve brought in to pitch your business. Everything is going swimmingly, and you think you’ve found your top candidate. Then you do it ask the one question that strikes fear into the heart of nearly every PR professional: what sort of PR measurement tools will you use to measure success?
At that point the air gets thick, and suddenly the only sound in what was once a room filled with lively discussion is the steady whirring of the HVAC system in the background.
It’s not that PR people are afraid to be measured on their accomplishments. It’s just that they’ve been down this road enough times to know that’s not really the question that’s being asked. The actual question is more along the lines of “How will you prove your campaign was solely responsible for improving our sales?” That goes double if it’s the VP of Sales who asked the question.
While it would be awesome if you could do it, tying PR to sales isn’t really a fair measure of the effectiveness of the campaign. That’s not just me saying that.
A few weeks ago I attended a webinar led by PR measurement guru Katie Delahaye Paine where she discussed this topic. The analogy she used was a PR campaign to sell cars. If the campaign succeeds in driving 100 people to the showroom but no cars are sold, would you say the campaign failed? Doubtful.
There could be all kinds of reasons the cars weren’t sold. Maybe the showroom never opened. Maybe the salespeople were rude or incompetent. Maybe prospects went for a test drive and discovered the interior noise level was somewhere between “WWII-era Sherman tank” and “jet engine.” Maybe everyone wanted a yellow car and it didn’t come in yellow. You get the idea.
Whatever the reason, it’s not because the PR campaign didn’t do its job. The people came. They just didn’t like what they found once they got there.
The stakes go up with HIT
When you’re talking about health IT (HIT) products or services it gets even more difficult to attribute a sale directly to the PR campaign. First of all, the average HIT offering costs many times more than a car. Would you buy a car based on what you read in a press release, or a byline article, or even a white paper?
Highly unlikely. Once you became aware of the car you’d probably want to research it on the Internet see what professional reviewers say as well as people who already own that vehicle. You’d want to compare it to other models. You’d want to kick the tires (even though that’s completely pointless) and take it for a test drive. Cars cost too much money, and most of us keep them for too long, to just purchase one based on the PR campaign.
So why would anyone purchase an expensive HIT product or service their business depends on, and that they’ll probably have to live with for a few years, based solely on a PR campaign?
The answer, quite frankly, is they wouldn’t. Most things in HIT are considered purchases that require many exposures and steps before the decision is made. The PR campaign will be useful in creating awareness, and a good content program will help walk the prospect through the decision-making process.
But at the end of that cycle, which could take several months or even a year or two, it will be very difficult to suss out exactly how much PR contributed to the sales that do happen. Not to mention virtually impossible to determine how many sales didn’t occur due to some issue that had nothing to do with the quality or effectiveness of the PR campaign.
There is an exception, at least for online sales. Google Analytics does have a pretty sophisticated way of tracking the lifecycle of a sale. Rather than simply relying on the last click, the analytics can associate all the activities of individual users together to provide a history of all their clicks, including their entry point off a PR campaign. That, however, takes some pretty sophisticated work performed by outside specialists. Given that purchasing HIT products and services is a team sport, you have to determine whether it’s worth the time and effort to attribute those sales to PR.
Oh, and as far as ad equivalencies go, don’t bother. Calculating the cost of purchasing the same space versus getting it “free” from PR pretty much went out with parachute pants and giant boom boxes.
What you can measure
Ok, if that doesn’t work for measuring PR, what does?
One good measure is web traffic. The measurement can be overall web traffic, and/or spikes that occur around a PR campaign event such as a press release going out or content appearing in a media outlet or blog.
Measuring spikes in traffic is akin to the so-called “flush test” back in the early days of TV. Executives judged the popularity of Milton Berle’s program by the noticeable drop in water levels when the show went to commercial. Not exactly precise, but it does provide some indication your materials are causing prospects to take a positive action.
Another measure is downloads of your materials. These generally break into two categories the materials that can be freely downloaded, and gated content that requires visitors to give you their name and email address in order to complete the download.
Free downloads are good for gauging general interest among those considered “suspects,” i.e., the casual consumers of your materials. Those willing to go through the requirements to obtain the gated materials are your more serious prospects.
Many organizations like to measure “share of voice” within their markets. They want to see how much of the conversation around a given topic they own versus their competitors.
A simple form of this measurement is volume, as in how many press releases did we put out compared to our competitors? You can also break comparisons down around earned media (interviews, byline articles, product reviews, or anything that requires some effort on the part of the media outlet) and positive-negative-neutral coverage.
The latter generally isn’t a good measure in HIT because the coverage in general will almost always be positive. HIT media outlets are generally looking to inform their audiences about ideas, products, and services they can use, not tear them apart like the political media. In some rare instances, however, positive-negative-neutral can be relevant.
There are others as well. The key is to start by determining what is important to help your organization drive the activities that lead to sales, and then measure the success of those activities. For example, if you know that securing 50 sales at the end of the year requires 2,500 prospects to be deep in the sales funnel (downloading gated content, speaking with salespeople, etc.), and getting 2,500 prospects means you need 15,000 suspects downloading free content out of a total of 100,000 visitors to your website, you have a pretty good idea of how to measure success.
If you do all the other steps but miss the mark on the 50 sales, you’ll also know you either need to adjust your upstream figures, or you have a problem in closing the sale. Either way, you’ll have a pretty good idea of what your next steps should be.
Measure to inform
One of my other favorite things Katie Paine says is to only measure what you’re willing to change. There is no point in measuring the value of wearing pants if you will never not wear pants.
To make PR measurement work, you must understand the actions you’re trying to drive and be willing to change the program if it isn’t driving those actions. Once everyone understands the goals, and PR’s role in achieving them, you’ll know how to measure success.
One of the most important questions a content marketing team can ask when charged with developing a new press release/blog post/case study/white paper/video/etc. doesn’t come from a marketing textbook or TED talk. It actually comes from the lowbrow movie “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
At one point the two not-so-bright main characters (played to perfection by Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott) pull up to the drive-through speaker at a Chinese restaurant to place an order. Each time Ashton Kutcher says what they want, the voice on the other end asks a simple question: “And then?” Even after he tells her they’re done ordering, which leads to a very funny scene.
When you think about it, though, there’s a lot of beauty and wisdom in that simple question for marketers. Often when there’s a new development or new idea to convey we get caught up in thinking about what’s needed immediately.
We say “we need a press release on such-and-such a topic” and we spring into action. A message is developed, subject matter experts interviewed, the release is written and revised, the pitching plan is developed and so forth until finally the release sees the light of day and maybe generates some interviews.
Yet considerably less time is spent answering the question “and then?” As in “what happens after the target audience reads the press release?”
Is there a landing page to refer them to? If so, what’s on it? If they’re really interested in the new product or service is there a way for them to gather more information about it, such as a data sheet, video, blog post, white paper or other piece of additional content to keep them interested and moving toward the narrower end of the sale funnel?
The thing to consider is that the period of active promotion around a press release, or any new piece of content for that matter, tends to last for just a few days. Then you’re on to something else. But the period after the initial release is infinite. If there isn’t somewhere else for your target audience to go, or something else for them to do after consuming the content, you’re losing opportunities.
Here are some of the content marketing best practices for ensuring you’re maximizing the value of everything you’ve worked so hard to produce.
Provide a destination
Think from the prospect’s point of view. I’ve consumed whatever content was produced. I’m intrigued by what you’re saying, although I still have questions. But I’m not quite ready to speak to a salesperson. How do I get my answers? This concept is particularly important given studies that show that 60 percent of the purchasing decision is already made before any conversations with a supplier take place.
For general topics you may just want to point prospects to the appropriate page on your website. You can do that through links embedded in the text, or with a more obvious call to action such as “For more details on”
For more significant topics such as a new product/service, you may want to create a specific landing page that offers more detailed information.
And then?
Create content in different forms
Often landing pages offer up content in one form usually more text, either on the page or offered as a download. If that’s what you’re doing you’re again limiting your own effectiveness.
Keep in mind that some people prefer to read more formal presentations of information while others like the easy accessibility of a blog post. Then there are those who like FAQs, or prefer video over any sort of reading. Having options that present the same information in different ways helps you avoid losing any part of your audience.
And then?
Use gated content
Most healthcare and health IT products/services aren’t purchased directly from a website like a retail transaction. They require interaction between the prospect and someone on your team. A good way to move that along a little faster is to use high-value, gated content such as a white paper or executive summary to entice the prospect to let you know they’re interested by giving you their contact information.
When you get to this point, of course, determining whether to provide the information is a big decision. The best thing you can do is keep the amount of information you’re asking for to a minimum. If you can limit it to the person’s name, job title, company and email address you’ll find you capture far more prospects than you will with a lengthy qualifying questionnaire.
As long as prospects believe what they’ll be getting from you is of greater value than what they’ll be giving to you, they’ll be willing to make the trade.
And then?
Incorporate lead nurturing
If you’re lucky, once they go through the gated content they’ll have a high level of interest and are ready to buy. More often than not in the real world, however, there’s still work to be done.
That’s where an email-based lead nurturing campaign comes in. (Also the reason you want to capture that email address in the first place.) Think through the sales process what messages people need to see at which points in the sales cycle in order to nudge them forward. Then develop a series of emails to provide that nudge.
One thing to keep in mind is don’t automatically start the program at communication #1. Determine as best you can, either by their messages to you or their interactions with your content, where they are and pick up from there.
It’s kind of like calling plays in football. You don’t want to try to score the touchdown on the first play every time. Work the ball down the field in increments and you’ll find it’s easier to score more consistently.
And then?
Look for holes
You may think you’ve thought of everything. But if the program is consistently breaking down at some point (meaning you’re losing prospects or sales) it’s time to determine why and fill in any gaps that lead to disengagement. There’s always something to tweak.
And then?
There really isn’t much of an “and then?” after that. You will have done all you can do.
Clearly, not every announcement or piece of content will require all these steps. But use this as a guide to determine which steps it needs.
The most important thing is to cover all the bases that need it. Otherwise you may find yourself wandering around in daze, wondering “Dude, where’s my sales?”
By now you’ve no doubt heard about the benefits of establishing a corporate blog. One of the most important, of course, is for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. Google (and other search engines) rewards frequent content updates on your website, so if your blog is connected to your website, and it’s active you’ll rise in the organic search rankings. That makes blog writing a pretty important part of your marketing program.
This simple fact creates an ongoing challenge for many, however. Namely, coming up with interesting topics to blog about.
Sometimes the ideas flow easily, especially at first. It seems like you have a cornucopia of information to share with the market. After that initial gold rush, however, you find yourself staring at the blinking, nagging cursor for longer and longer periods of time. You’ve expended the obvious topics and begin to wonder if establishing that blog was such a great idea after all.
The reality is great blog writing ideas are all around you. They crop up in your life every day. Like Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s idea for a show about nothing, you just have to learn to recognize them.
Comment on industry articles
One of the good things about working in healthcare and health IT (HIT) is that there is never a lack of new information, new approaches, new discoveries or new regulations coming out. Most of us get several newsletter and at least scan the headlines every day.
These articles can become a rich source of blog fodder. For example, if an article announces a new rule or a change to a program from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that will affect your customers/clients, that’s a blog post! Link to the original article, provide a one- or two-sentence synopsis, then add your thoughts about what it means to the industry.
Or perhaps a new research report has come out that could affect your clients. Again, bringing it to your clients’ attention and providing a little analysis with it can provide added value to them while giving you a blog post that practically writes itself.
Share a tip or trick that helped a client with a general issue
This is another rich source of blog writing ideas. Perhaps your team has helped a client solve a particular issue, such as data that needed to be scrubbed in a certain way in order to be used in a specific electronic health records (EHR) system. Whatever the issue, there’s a good chance it isn’t just that one client who is facing it.
Talk about the challenge, and the problems it’s causing, then explain how to solve it. All you really have to do is recap what you’ve already done no original thinking required. If you’re not directly involved with this aspect of the business, check with the development or customer service team. They can probably keep you supplied with ideas for months. Just be sure not to give away anything the business would consider a competitive advantage.
Blog about discoveries in a related field
Everything you write about doesn’t have to be directly in your company’s space. Sometimes it can just have a loose relationship with a tie-back later.
Take the example of cognitive computing. There are all sorts of advances in this area going on outside of healthcare as well as inside. If you hear about how cognitive computing is being applied to make self-driving cars smarter, there’s a blog post. You can write about what is already happening with cars, the speculate on how it might affect healthcare or HIT in the future.
Mine some key data
Data and analytics are huge in healthcare and HIT these days. It seems just about every organization is generating tons of them. Most, however, are under-utilizing that information, especially when it comes to marketing.
You can take advantage of that by looking through the reports for trends that are interesting without giving away anything that again is proprietary. For example, if you have software that enables payers to create member portals, and there is a sudden uptick in the number of portals your team is creating, you may want to comment about how portals are on the rise and speculate as to why. That will also give you an opportunity to talk about the advantages of portals to encourage more sales.
Or maybe you see that your clients’ customer satisfaction scores are suddenly on the rise. You can find out what changes they’ve made to enable that to happen and share them with your blog audience.
Pay attention to day-to-day conversations
Each day you, your co-workers, your clients and others share information and ideas in passing. It may be through conversations, emails, reports, meetings or some other sources.
Hidden within the ordinary course of business may be a few nuggets that can make worthy blog posts. All you’ll need to do is listen to them with that filter in mind. If a co-worker says something you find interesting write it down. Establish a folder for emails that contain good ideas that you can reference later if you’re stuck.
However you save them, the good news is when you need an idea and none are coming to you immediately you can go back to your files and dig one up. Just be sure you have enough information available to remember what the original topic was. Nothing worse than having a great headline and no idea what it means.
Work with your PR agency on ideas
While most healthcare and health IT companies tend to be very specialized in a particular aspect of the industry, PR agencies such as Amendola Communications cover a much wider swath. That can work in your favor by bringing in ideas that are related to, but not dead center in, your sweet spot.
If you have one, you can brainstorm topics with your PR agency, taking advantage of their experience to in other areas, especially general industry knowledge, to develop blog topics you might not have thought of on your own.
Of course, having a PR agency also means you can turn over some or all of the content creation to them, particularly if writing isn’t your strong suit. But even if you prefer to do your own writing, that sort of collaboration can open you to new ideas and areas that help build your blog as a go-to resource for your target audience.
Yes, blog writing can be challenging. The Internet is always hungry for new content. But the reality is great ideas for posts are all around you. You just have to know how to find them or let them find you.
Clamoring to get the most followers on social media doesn’t always translate to a profitable social media audience. It actually can create a lot of noise instead of driving profitable traffic.
Social media platforms are a way to connect with people without the restraints of proximity. A profitable social media audience is composed of specific followers not just anyone and everyone. Imagine your company’s social media account as a storefront. You want potential buyers looking through your windows not loiterers, right?
No matter what social media platform you are using it will work best when your foundation is solid, meaning your audience cares about what you are doing. Your social media audience needs to be built of 3 main groups: influencers and experts relevant to your brand, decision makers in your target market, and the field agents of those decision makers.
The beauty of the social platform is the sheer amount of people you can reach which happens to be the same obstacle in getting these influencers and decision makers to listen to you. So how do you build a social media audience that will give you a return on your investment? Give them a reason to follow you, tailor to how or where they are listening to you, and listen and engage with the right people.
Give them a reason to listen: Post Relevant Content
I see far too many companies posting about irrelevant content just to keep up with random trends. I worked with a car dealership that posted an “I hate Mondays” meme every week on Facebook. The social media manager thought it was funny but it sent the message that the company is lazy.
Ask yourself if the trend is just random or can it add value to your social media strategy? Sometimes that answer is yes, it can add value. On National Dog Day there were many companies posting about their employee’s dogs or dogs that were brought into the office. It gave the reader some insight into the company and engaged employees.
Jumping on a trend will get you visibility to a wide audience which may happen catch the eye of your target market. Get creative and route the trend back to your topic of influence. Don’t avoid trends, but do consider if it is worth posting, or better yet worth reading from your target’s perspective.
Tailor your content to where they are listening: Understand the Platform
There are dozens of social media platforms available, but you don’t need to be on all of them. In my opinion there are 3 core platforms that are beneficial for healthcare IT companies: Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Other notable platforms are Instagram (if you have the right content), Pintrest, and Google+.
When choosing which platforms you want to use for your company’s social strategy make sure you understand each. If you are not using the platform yourself I recommend starting your own account.
Using the platform daily helps you understand what type of content is being posted and what content is working. Then it is easy to see what type of content you and others like to see on each different platform.
Each platform is unique and while one person might be on multiple platforms it doesn’t mean they go to each to look for the same thing. LinkedIn is used for professionals and companies looking to connect in a professional way. Typically LinkedIn is where you want to have a formal voice where Instagram is where people look for visual content. Think about what type of content you want to see and interact with on each platform to help tailor the company’s account content.
Engage with the right people: Find the Industry Influencers and Connectors
Finding the right people can be difficult. Start by growing which accounts your company will follow. Vendors, publications that run positives stories about your company, and other industry leaders of interest are a great place to start. Don’t forget to check out what accounts your competitors are following!
Always thinking from the viewer’s perspective, build up your accounts to be perceived as prestigious to others when they come to view. Follow only legitimate accounts that are leaders, active influencers, and clients or users. You will find accounts will begin to follow yours back as long as you are posting good, relevant content.
Starting a following is where the nerve-wracking guesswork beings. No reason to get nervous yet; in fact you probably already have a following. Email lists, followers on other platforms, and employees are all potential followers that are already engaging with your company in a different way. If you are nervous about asking your email followers to follow yet another place to get your content, remember that they already said they like you. Prove them right by continuing to feed them content that is relevant and beneficial for them.
Growing your company’s profitable social media audience is important but typically a little slower. Since you are already posting good, relevant content and using trends wisely you will see some followers trickle in. Gain more visibility by posting or sharing others content. Tag them in your posts along with using hash tags. Try using search terms to find people talking about problems your company can fix and join in on relevant conversations.
Social media is not a monologue or the old school marketing tactic of talking at your audience. Now we have the chance to engage through dialogue with our audience in real time. Capitalize on this opportunity to drive profit through a profitable social media audience rather than attracting loiterers.
