PROS AND CONS OF CUSTOMER STORY MARKETING
Companies and brands should make use of their loyal customer base to the fullest to propagate and market their product. With every product a customer buys, there are experiences related to the product. There is a story behind how the customer uses the product and how it has affected and changed their lives, even if a little.
If companies can use these honest experiences of their customers to let other people who have not used the product know how it can potentially change their life and make it a little easier, it works more than any advertisement that company displays.
| Benefits of customer story marketing | Drawbacks of customer story marketing |
| Gives clarity about the product | Needs time to build customer base |
| Lends credibility to the product | Needs time for the strategy to be effective |
| Makes the article interesting | Requires patience |
| Turns a normal article into a great one | Convincing customer to share story |
| Gains trust of customer | Expense involved |
| Creative display of information | Curation of the story |
| Increases social reach | Customers may expect privilege in return |
| Shows how company values customer | |
| Engaging to read |
ADVANTAGES OF CUSTOMER STORY MARKETING:
- Gives clarity about the product:
When a company aims to makes the customer aware of the product, educate them about it and ultimately sell it, the first thing that do after the production of the product is advertise it.
In the advertisement, they talk about the features of the product that might help the customers. But when a customer speaks about how he uses the product and his experience with it from his perspective, it gives greater clarity about the product to other potential buyers.
- Lends credibility to the product:
Advertisements of a product speaks on behalf of the company. It is taken that a company will try not to speak about the shortcomings of their products themselves and will try to highlight only the good features.
Even if an advertisement convinces a customer to buy the product, he will still have doubts about it. But when a customer speaks about his experience with a product, it lends credibility to the product as a customer has no affiliation to the company.
- Makes the article interesting:
When an article is written about a product on behalf of the company, it automatically appears to the potential customers as a sales article with boring listings of the features of the product and praises about it. When the stories about the experiences of the customers with the product are included in the article, it makes the article interesting to read.
- Turns a normal article into a great one:
A normal article about a product is more or less received by the potential buyers as an advertisement. This might refrain them from further reading the article. But customer experience stories make them interesting to read and thus, turns an average article into a great one.
- Gains trust of the customer:
Normally, we as humans, tend to trust things more when someone other than the person directly associated with something sings praise of it. Same is the case for a product. When someone other than the company speaks well of the product, the other people trust the product more.
- Creative display of information:
There is little or no creativity involved in displaying information related to a product. But when the stories of customers are brought in and used for marketing and advertising, it lends creativity to the display of information as other people can see how the customers perceive the features of the product.
- Increases social reach:
To have popularity over social media is very important for a company’s sales nowadays. And when an article or content related to a product is interesting, more and more people will watch it and share it, which ultimately increases the social reach for the company.
- Shows how company values customer:
It matters to people how a company treats it customers even after they have brought the product. If a customer feels that he is important to the company, he will return to the company. One of the best ways to show how important a customer is to the company is to promote the company using the customer views of it.
- Engaging to read:
A potential buyer would be more interested in another customer’s view of the product than the company’s view of the product. Inclusion of the customer’s experience will make the article engaging to read for the potential buyer.
DISASVANTAGES OF CUSTOMER STORY MARKETING:
- Needs time to build customer base:
Building a customer base needs considerable time and it does not happen overnight for any company. So, a company needs to let the product impact the customers before applying this strategy.
- Needs time for the strategy to be effective:
Even after the company applies the strategy, it will need to give it enough time and wait for a while to make the strategy effective.
- Requires patience
The company needs to have a lot of patience to hang in there in the market before they can apply this strategy and make it fruitful.
- Convincing customer to share story:
Even after a company successfully builds a customer base, it is hard to find such customers who would comfortable sharing their story on public platforms for the benefit of the company.
- Expense involved:
The expense of going to reaching out to each customer to know their story and then include it as a marketing strategy might not be bearable for companies that are low on budget.
- Curation of story:
Even if customers agree to share their story, the stories need to be curated by experts for them to be effective in marketing the product.
- Customers may expect privilege in return:
Customers may expect privilege in return for sharing their experiences. This might not be affordable for most companies which leads to the disappointment of the customers which might make the customers not return to the brand.
Including the experiences of customers in advertisements is a great marketing strategy once the company successfully establishes a loyal customer base.
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“Business, marketing, and Branding – these three words describe me the best. I am the founder of Burban Branding and Media, and a self-taught marketer with 10 years of experience. My passion lies in helping startups enhance their business through marketing, Branding, leadership, and finance. I am on a mission to assist businesses in achieving their goals.”