«Return to Blog List The Media Wants Your Customer Stories

Journalists are constantly looking for interesting stories to bring to their audiences.

"When PR agencies and businesses come to me with customer stories, I’m always interested‚" said Mila D’Antonio, Managing Editor of 1to1 Magazine. "It’s a challenge to get a good story if it doesn’t have a good customer story in it." (from Ch. 9, Stories That Sell)

You can bring customer stories to journalists in a couple of ways:

A story press release

A story pitch, with a customer story or customer reference in hand

The story press release

The "story press" release highlights a specific customer connected with your news. Maybe it’s a product release or an announcement about that customer’s success. Weave the customer’s story right into the press release.

Several of my clients craft press releases that highlight specific customers. Here’s an example from Customer Expressions.

When creating my own press release this week, I turned to a relevant story for an engaging intro.

The story pitch

If you don’t give a customer example in a press release, still offer a customer success story to a media outlet to increase your chances of getting a journalist’s attention.

With your pitch, you might give some bullets about the customer’s success, send a video or written case study, or recommend that the journalist talks to a specific customer.

If you don’t provide it, reporters will likely ask to interview a customer anyway. It’s better to be prepared.

This takes the focus off the vendor business (which editors really like), and puts it on the successful customer, made successful with your solutions.

I’d love to see any examples you find of customer stories in press releases.