Social proof is a powerful way to show potential customers what you have to offer. Your customer success stories offer a valuable asset for your content marketing efforts. You can use these stories to help potential buyers feel more comfortable that other people like them are finding success with your products and services. Here are several content types to add to your next campaign.

Blog Posts

Highlight your favorite customer success stories in blog posts. If possible, reach out to those individuals and see if they can send pictures, videos or additional information. The more detail you can add to these posts, the better. Start with stories that closely match with your buyer personas, and branch out from there.

Testimonials

More testimonials are a good thing, especially if you use them throughout your website or on their own dedicated page. You can include the entire story or feature particularly good sections of it. Just make it clear that you’re pulling a selection from a larger piece of content.

Anecdotal Examples

Need a way to illustrate a use case for your product or service? Reference customer stories for real-world examples that potential buyers can relate to. When you put your point in practical terms with this type of information, you have an easier time educating your customers.

Case Studies

The most obvious use for customer success stories is a case study. You may not have enough information from the story alone to flesh out the piece, however. Talk to your customers and see who is willing to interview to get important details. While a case study requires additional work compared to the other suggestions in this article, you can leverage this information for other parts of your content marketing campaign.

Pull Quotes

Collect some of the best quotes from the stories to use throughout other content types. Ebooks and other long-form pieces benefit from the visual appeal of short quotes spread throughout the relevant sections. You can also use these throughout your website in the sidebar or another eye-catching location. Your call-to-actions are another prime place, as social proof can encourage more visitors to keep engaging.

Social Media Updates

Keeping your social media calendar filled can be difficult. Customer stories are often the perfect length for your updates, especially if you have eye-catching photos or videos to go along with the post. If the customer who sent you the story wants to be an active participant in the social media post, that helps you reinforce the social proof.

How to Start Collecting Customer Stories

Reach out to your customers and look through their feedback following purchases. Use your social channels to encourage user-generated content and keep an eye out for particularly compelling stories.

As you start using these stories in your marketing assets, you’ll build up a pipeline of them from happy customers who are encouraged to send in their own.

Sometimes your best resources for your content marketing come from your customer base. Don’t overlook them when you’re looking for new ideas or you need a way to improve existing content.

This post is part of Valens Point’s Guide to Content Marketing Success.