how to tell memorable customer stories that spark the imagination
DESCRIPTION
Stories are memorable. Stories are motivational. That is why every business needs to craft its own set of core stories that spark the imagination of prospects and customers. Crafting these stories is easy when you follow this simple acronym: SOAR.TRANSCRIPT
“How to Tell Memorable Customer Stories that Spark the Imagination”
Marcom Productions presents Point of View the on-demand webcast of B2B marketing best practices. I’m Rich Cunningham.
Stories. Stories are memorable. Stories are motivational.
That is why every business needs to craft its own set of core stories that spark the imagination of prospects and customers.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
SOAR
Crafting these stories is easy when you follow this simple acronym: SOAR.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsS is for Situation. This is where we tee-up the story. For example:I worked with a company that sells software to other businesses throughout the U.S. They have a direct sales force that relies on marketing to generate a large portion of their sales leads. The marketing department generates new leads with sponsorships, search marketing, social media, and events.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsS is for Situation. This is where we tee-up the story. For example:I worked with a company that sells software to other businesses throughout the U.S. They have a direct sales force that relies on marketing to generate a large portion of their sales leads. The marketing department generates new leads with sponsorships, search marketing, social media, and events.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsO is for Opportunity – or the problem that existed. In this story,The software company creates a lot of new leads, but the sales force complains that the leads are weak. They would try to follow up by phone and email, but more than 90% never responded. Those leads would end up falling through the cracks, and rarely touched again by marketing. They were spending a lot of money for relatively few sales conversations.The CEO was losing faith in the marketing director because the cost of each qualified sales opportunity was way too high. He started scrutinizing every marketing decision, and the budget was tightened.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsO is for Opportunity – or the problem that existed. In this story,The software company creates a lot of new leads, but the sales force complains that the leads are weak. They would try to follow up by phone and email, but more than 90% never responded. Those leads would end up falling through the cracks, and rarely touched again by marketing. They were spending a lot of money for relatively few sales conversations.The CEO was losing faith in the marketing director because the cost of each qualified sales opportunity was way too high. He started scrutinizing every marketing decision, and the budget was tightened.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsA is for Action – what did they do?So, we worked with the marketing director to devise an ongoing program that would continue to reach out to new leads to cultivate relationships. They wrote a series of informational articles, a white paper, and started a monthly product webinar. Each new lead that came to the company would receive this article series by email over a six-week period. Each of the articles also included a call-out in the margin that promoted the free whitepaper or the monthly product webinar.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsA is for Action – what did they do?So, we worked with the marketing director to devise an ongoing program that would continue to reach out to new leads to cultivate relationships. They wrote a series of informational articles, a white paper, and started a monthly product webinar. Each new lead that came to the company would receive this article series by email over a six-week period. Each of the articles also included a call-out in the margin that promoted the free whitepaper or the monthly product webinar.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsR is for Results – the outcome.Marketing was able to track the results, directly: They knew who clicked on one or more of the full article links, who downloaded the whitepaper, and who registered to attend a webinar. Based on how a lead interacted with the company, marketing would either assign it to sales, or continue to nurture them over time.What they found was that a much larger portion of people were reading the articles than usually respond to a promotional email. Half of those also downloaded the whitepaper. And almost every month, a handful of companies attended the webinars.In the first 12-months of this program, the number of qualified sales opportunities grew by over 400%, and as they began closing these deals, the average sales cycle was 30% shorter. The company started hitting its revenue goals, the sales reps were making more money, and the marketing director was a hero.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
Situation
Opportunity
Action
ResultsR is for Results – the outcome.Marketing was able to track the results, directly: They knew who clicked on one or more of the full article links, who downloaded the whitepaper, and who registered to attend a webinar. Based on how a lead interacted with the company, marketing would either assign it to sales, or continue to nurture them over time.What they found was that a much larger portion of people were reading the articles than usually respond to a promotional email. Half of those also downloaded the whitepaper. And almost every month, a handful of companies attended the webinars.In the first 12-months of this program, the number of qualified sales opportunities grew by over 400%, and as they began closing these deals, the average sales cycle was 30% shorter. The company started hitting its revenue goals, the sales reps were making more money, and the marketing director was a hero.
Business is a lot like football. Both require strategy, passion, focus, a winning attitude, and the commitment to excellence.
S.O.A.R.
S.O.A.R. – A simple acronym that can help you write memorable customer stories that spark the imagination.
“How to Tell Memorable Customer Stories that Spark the Imagination”
Marcom Productions presents Point of View the on-demand webcast of B2B marketing best practices. I’m Rich Cunningham.