Just like a sales pitch, it’s essential to be organized when approaching customers about participating in success stories. Customers want to know exactly what’s involved, how you plan to use their stories, and how they benefit.
It helps to create what I call a “pitch package,” which provides all the details customers need to make the decision about being featured as a success story. Here are some pieces you might include in your pitch package:
- Samples of past success stories – Provide 2 to 3 current success stories in their final format, or links back to the stories on your Web site. If you’ve never created any before, go online to companies you respect and whose success stories you like and pull those as examples of what yours will look like. This helps customers envision how they will be featured.
- One-page description of the process and uses – Create a one-page document that describes your success-story process, from end-to-end, and covers how the story will be used. Also include key benefits for the customer (gives them positive publicity, they have a documentation of their results with a product or service, etc.). Keep it fairly brief.
- Interview questionnaire – Customers appreciate knowing what types of questions you plan to ask them.
- The release form – Some organizations choose to use a legal release form that customers sign indicating their permission to use the finalized story. If your organization uses a release form, give customers a copy ahead of time.
By assembling all this information in a single email to potential candidates, they can easily forward it on to others in the company.
