A Blog is a Great Place for Customer Stories

Many brands are finding that their customers have fantastic stories to share.
 
Check out this video from Robbins Brothers Jewelry, the Engagement Ring store. They ran a campaign asking customers to send in videos of their secret wedding proposals. They repurposed them into 30 sec. TV commercials. Now, they’ve compiled several of them into a 3 min. YouTube video.
 
Watching them is insightful. Most couples go through the same set of emotional responses: He gets her attention and she looks fascinated. He gets down on his knee - as trite as that is, it's a huge signal of what's about to happen and it has strong tradition overtones for most of us. Now she knows what's happening and she looks intrigued. Her hands go up to her face in surprise and delight. Immediately, she wants to hug him - she moves anything in the way aside, she has to be touching him. Most of the time, it's a whole body hug rather than "peck on the cheek" type activity.
 
From a Behavioral Archetypes  perspective, she moves from self-interest to other interest. This is a big behavioral swing. Imagine that your brand is present as that shift occurs. It’s a powerful moment. But, did Robbins Brothers maximize the impact of these stories? Probably not. They don’t have a permanent home on their website.
 
Compare this to the customer story collection of Granite State College (GSC). GSC is a New Hampshire online college targeting middle-aged students. They ran a campaign asking students to share how getting an education impacted their lives. A form allowed these stories to be captured directly into their blog. GSC used these stories to develop TV ads, billboards and other print ads – check them out. Then, they recruited some of these students to be ongoing bloggers, continually sharing their experiences.
 
Along the way, GSC leveraged these stories in their social media marketing, sharing them on social media networks. GSC continues to capture stories from students in their blog, looking for the opportunity to generate and curate even more engaging content. Recently, GSC won national recognition for its integrated advertising effort. And, since all this content lives permanently in their blog they can continue to repurpose it and maximize its value. Now that’s a robust content marketing strategy– capture, moderate, and broadcast.

Of course, I should disclose that Granite State College is a Compendium client and Robbins Brothers isn’t. Step one is to reach out to customers and collect their stories. Step two is to maximize the value of these stories. Good news – Compendium helps with both.