{"id":67,"date":"2010-03-15T02:50:51","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T02:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/?p=67"},"modified":"2010-03-15T02:50:51","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T02:50:51","slug":"successful-selling-by-using-simulations-to-put-your-prospects-in-their-own-future-success-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/successful-selling-by-using-simulations-to-put-your-prospects-in-their-own-future-success-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Successful selling by using simulations to put your prospects in their own (future) success story"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just saw\u00a0this interesting post<\/a> that excerpts “Stories that Sell”, but Casey Hibbard, or “The Power of Success Story Marketing.”\u00a0 The gist of this excerpt is that “[w]e [customers] trust what others say much more than what a business itself says,” and that presenting customer experiences as case studies is a more effective marketing tool than almost anything the company writes about itself.\u00a0 While “most of us don\u2019t truly believe the benefits espoused by companies\u2013unless they are verified by other trusted sources,” the author continues with the zippy line “[j]ust about everyone else is more credible than the business itself.”<\/p>\n

I would agree that good customer stories provide compelling evidence that the the product or service has been delivered successfully to meet the needs of similar buyers.\u00a0 However, it can be difficult to get good customer stories that align completely with what the company presents.\u00a0 Buyers buy products and services to solve their own need–the buyer may accept a vendor’s argument about solving a peripheral issue for the buyer, but they buyer may not be willing in terms of cost or time to help the vendor prove it.<\/p>\n

I believe that context-appropriate simulations can be similar to a case study when it shows how a mock customer, in this case, the viewer, can solve a problem that we hope is relevant to the customer.\u00a0 If we can align our presented problems (contexts) with the problems that viewers face, we in effect put viewers into their own case studies.<\/p>\n

“Products don’t function on their own”
\n<\/strong><\/em>I love this quotation because it zeroes in on the problem I have with most types of advertising on the web — show a picture, write some specs, maybe even a short video.\u00a0 While the latter is getting to the idea that demonstrating function is important, I think that simulations presented in real-world contexts show the interaction between the operator and the product.\u00a0 Allowing the viewer to drive the operation further puts the product ‘in the prospect’s hands’, which all good salespeople know is the ultimate sales pitch.\u00a0 Directly following this quote is another gem: “People encounter challenges to overcome, become heroes, find solutions, and ultimately triumph.”\u00a0 What better way than to show how the prospects themselves can solve that burning issue.<\/p>\n

In a section entitled “Education: Show, Don\u2019t Tell”, the author identifies that “as much as [marketers and business owners] detail how their products and services work for users, there\u2019s often a gap between those descriptions and readers\u2019 understanding of how they will actually work in their environments\u2013all the more so when the products or services are complex.”\u00a0 The conclusion?\u00a0 Another point for the right kind of simulation: “you have to show readers what you\u2019re talking about, descriptively and in context, rather than just telling them that your product or service accomplishes this or that.”<\/p>\n

Then the author turns to some important numbers:<\/p>\n

A survey by KnowledgeStorm (www.knowledgestorm.com<\/a>) and MarketingSherpa (www.marketingsherpa.com<\/a>) shed light on the role of case studies, particularly in IT purchase decisions. The survey, with results published in How Technology Marketers Meet Buyers\u2019 Appetite for Content, asked nearly 4,000 B2B marketers, and technology and business professionals, what buyers want and what marketers deliver. The survey revealed that buyers expect you to educate them. In fact, 84 percent said they want content that educates them and expect vendors to provide it.<\/p>\n

Awesome.\u00a0 Now I have to talk with my clients to help me prove my hypothesis completely (won’t that make a great customer case study? \ud83d\ude42 ).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just saw\u00a0this interesting post that excerpts “Stories that Sell”, but Casey Hibbard, or “The Power of Success Story Marketing.”\u00a0 The gist of this excerpt is that “[w]e [customers] trust what others say much more than what a business itself says,” and that presenting customer experiences as case studies is a more effective marketing tool\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,11,14,8,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67\/revisions\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eqsim.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}