The person reading about your company (whether it be a prospective customer or the general public) can learn more from a Success Story than from almost anything else. Told from the external perspective of a satisfied customer, the Success Story illustrates what your company does in language that's readily understood. Since a user of your product or service is telling the story, it's far more credible than if you were tooting your own horn. If the user is well-known, the Success Story is doubly effective because it enables you to leverage their brand-name recognition, while impressing the world that they are a satisfied customer of yours.

Writing a Success Story is a job for a journalist because it draws on interviewing skills, a tight writing style, effective use of quotes, and good storytelling. It can rarely be done internally because it requires taking a fresh perspective, and because it's generally easier for the satisfied customer to tell their story to someone who has an arm's-length relationship to the company.

Not showcasing successes is a common oversight, and it can be costly in terms of lost opportunities for publicity. The trick is to explain the customer's success without allowing that to take over YOUR story.

Success Stories (also called Client Profiles and Case Studies) can be posted on your web site, handed out to prospective clients, distributed at trade shows, and included in your press kit.

Success Samples: