Notes on Writing - Gary Schenkel Freelance Copywriter

Customer Stories: A Clear, DNA-level View of Your Business

In a “Writing Wednesdays” blog post, author Steven Pressfield set me thinking about a significant purpose of customer stories, or case studies: to provide a clear view of a business’s distinctive qualities.

In his post Pressfield dissects a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird—the one where Atticus Finch shoots a rabid dog.

Pressfield proposes that if this scene were all you (or Harper Lee) had to work with, you could replicate its strands of character development and setting—like DNA—to create the complete work.

Similarly, a well-told customer story, or collection of customer stories, represents the very fiber and DNA of your business. Such stories reveal to prospective customers how you intertwine your mission and core values in all that you do.

From reading a story like this, a prospective customer will learn about more than your products and services. The customer will see what drives you and sets you apart from competitors. In much the same way that one short scene from To Kill a Mockingbird provides an accurate glimpse of strong, unassuming Atticus Finch.

You probably have many customer stories to tell. In each you may focus on one or more of your products or services.

Just remember to connect your stories as a complete body of work. Weave through them the values that define what you and your business are about.

What values do your potential customers need to know about your business?

For help in telling your story, contact me today.

(If you haven’t already, visit Steven Pressfield’s post and website. It’s well worth your time.)

7 Reasons to Use Storytelling and Customer Stories to Market Your Business

By Gary Schenkel

Given the choice to read a sales brochure or a story, you’d go for the story. I’m willing to bet.

Nothing against brochures. They have their place in marketing. (In fact, I write them for clients.)

But stories inform, like no bulleted list of features and benefits ever will.

The power of storytelling Schenkel Communications

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And stories draw us in. They have, ever since we begged our parents for just one more.

When you tell a story crafted with a dash of suspense and tension – the ending uncertain, the clock about to strike midnight – you hold your audience’s attention.

That’s true when you’re writing a novel. Or telling a bedtime story.

Your business, too, can benefit from storytelling’s magnetic power – through customer case studies or success stories and other content that recounts how your products or services solve customers’ most vexing problems.

Why use storytelling in your business marketing?

Stories help you connect with potential customers. Like well-crafted fiction, a well-written customer case study draws your intended audience into the story emotionally. They identify with the subject of the story and visualize themselves in a similar spot.
Stories demonstrate your credibility. They prove that you understand your customers’ world, that you know their challenges.
Stories further prove that you deliver effective solutions. Here’s your chance to show how you come through for your customers.
Stories highlight the benefits of your products or services over the features. After all, it’s the benefits that customers care about – what you can do to make their life and business better. Only the most gadget obsessed among us care more about the features. And nothing illustrates benefits better than a story told by a satisfied customer.
Stories help you clarify your brand message. Good marketing stories help your prospective customers gain a better grasp of the character of your brand and what to expect when they work with you. Stories help you better define your business’s values and the unique experience you provide customers. For instance, if safety and a drive to dig deep for solutions tailored to each customer are what your business is about – as in this example from one of my clients – share that in a story.
Stories are memorable. As Chip and Dan Heath write in Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, stories stick with us. Bare facts, not so much.
Stories provide a strong lead-in to your call to action. That is, stories inspire and help prepare potential customers to give you a call.

Well-told marketing stories use a structure similar to that commonly used in fiction.

The opening establishes the context and setting of your story. Next, you introduce the problem, then roll out the challenges that come along on the way to arriving at the resolution – your product or service answering the customer’s problem.

No matter what business you’re in, you have stories to tell. And you have potential customers who need to hear them — to really get to know you.

Need help telling your story? Contact me to begin the discussion.

Special Team Advantage: 3 Benefits of Hiring a Freelance Business Writer

By Gary Schenkel

Freelance business writer as a special teams player

Going for three!
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Skilled special team players make the difference in closely contested football games. They battle for field position and crucial, extra points.

Similarly, good freelance writers help businesses gain marketing advantage against the daily challenges of running a business.

Here’s the 3-point advantage a freelance business writer delivers:

1. Forward progress

A freelance writer can help you get around the day-to-day business concerns and tasks that stop you short of your marketing goals. Like an offense under pressure, your in-house staff may be stymied by everything else they have to do. And you end up making little or no forward progress.

But when you hand off writing and marketing projects to a freelancer, the creative work – which can be time-consuming to you – gets done as you maintain and build your business. And don’t worry: With a good freelancer you don’t lose control over the project. The freelancer will work out a timetable for the project with you, keep you updated, share ideas and concerns with you, and give you final approval.

2. Focused attention

This directly relates to the first point. The freelance writer, like a special team player, has a specific job to do and the skill and experience to complete it, without the distractions you have.

Some freelancers are generalists in marketing and public relations communications. They write for a range of business types and can take up an array of writing assignments – press releases, web content, newsletters, case studies and sales letters, for instance. Others specialize in certain types of writing or industries – manufacturing, retail or health care, for instance.

3. Victory over the ‘Curse of Knowledge’

We humans fall into the trap of becoming too close and familiar with our own products, services and areas of expertise. We know what we know, or do, or sell. But explaining this so others easily catch up to our level of understanding – that’s a different matter. Authors Chip and Dan Heath call this problem the Curse of Knowledge in their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. (I’ll focus on this in a future post.)

Scoring against the Curse of Knowledge is where a good freelance business writer shines.

Freelance writers help their clients see the big picture and better understand what’s important to customers. Freelance writers help clients focus less on product features and more on the benefits that drive sales.

Now for the extra point…

Freelance writers have an advantage, from a business client’s perspective, over special team players.

Special team players get paid whether they’re on the field or on the bench waiting to be called in. Freelance writers get paid only when they’re working on a project.

And like special team players, we’re ready to get to work.