Sealing the Deal with Customer Stories

When striking up a conversation with anyone, the key goal is to always keep the conversation going. Having a lively chat die down into awkward silence is the last thing you want – and even more so when it comes to your business communication with your target audience.  

When we talk about content marketing, we talk about pushing the business’ objective and improving lead acquisition and sales funnel quality in a way that straddles the fine line between engaging and obnoxious. No business wants to bore their customers into disinterest. It’s about mastering the art of storytelling enough that your audiences are reeled in and left wanting more. 

If you’ve been in the business long enough, you know that line is a difficult one to toe.  

It’s not just about starting the conversation and getting your customers to listen. It’s about getting them engaged with the conversation without having to poke and prod. When it comes to customer stories and audience interaction, one of the magic questions a brand can ask their audience is this: 

What drew you to our product or service? 

Simple as that. There’s no need for follow-up questions about their future decisions, no remarketing tactic or invasive questioning about their life story. 

But what is it about this magic question that gets you all the answers you need? 

From the Horse’s Mouth 

It goes without saying that asking your customers to talk about their experiences and sales journey means you’re getting direct insight into the driving forces behind their buying process. It’s a key starting point for a more in-depth conversation you plan to have with your customers. Some might be all too ready to divulge their journey with your brand, whereas some might need a little bit of prodding. A question that’s as subjective and expository as the above will allow you to gauge the individual position your customers might be on throughout the customer journey. It also helps drive your conversion rates by gauging just how much push an audience member might need to tip them over to your business’ side of things. 

The Bigger Picture 

When considering the customer purchasing process, it’s important for it to be taken into consideration as part of the bigger picture. Throughout a customer journey and conversion funnel, asking a question like ‘what drew you to our product or service?’ forces you to confront the entire journey from a wider perspective and to tailor your content according to a deeper and more intricate understanding of the overall process. 

A Masterful Confluence 

Some say that content marketing converges at the confluence of art, psychology, and business understanding. If this is the case, there’s no better example of a ‘golden trifecta’ as with this line of questioning. Engaging your customers in an active conversation and dialogue about their buying process offers insight into their motives, as well as a direct line of sight into the existence of any pain points within your business’ customer journey and sales funnel. This also opens your business’ eyes to the diverse world of motivations that lie behind each customer’s buying process. In doing this, your business can reach a larger crowd of customers in a shorter amount of time. 

A Beginning, Middle and End 

Customer stories are both powerful and extremely important to a business looking to know more about their audience. When properly utilised and dissected, they help a business develop their customer journey from the beginning, middle and end. It’s all a matter of asking the right question at the right time, and that magic question will guide you along the way.