It’s pretty straightforward: HCSS launched a customer-as-the-hero campaign that delivered a 53.6% increase in annualized revenue.

Furthermore, they achieved these outstanding results without even mentioning the product. But how? MarketingSherpa’s article about HCSS is a must-read.

The long-and-short-of-it is that when you make your customers the heroes, when you can translate their experiences with your product or service into meaningful content, you’ll have created one of the most powerful selling tools there are: Testimonials from other customers.

Here’s the A-Ha Moment for Dan Briscoe, Vice President of Marketing at HCSS; “Originally, the idea was to, simply put, to get over ourselves. To quit the sales and marketing obsession to focus only on our company, to talk only about ourselves, and to quit trying to show how innovative our products are and how beloved our customer support is across the industry. Nobody really cares, and when they do care, they don’t want to hear it from us,” he said.

Interesting, right? Especially that last part, where he says, “…nobody really cares, and when they do care, they don’t want to hear it from us.”

Well, then, who DO they want to hear it from? Other customers, of course. This is why earned content is so critical so the success of sales.

In our post called the Golden Content Triangle, we explain the three types of content and break each of them down into specifics.

The proof is always in the outcome. For HCSS, the MarketingSherpa article points out that, “since they stopped focusing on sales, each quarter sets a new record. The marketing team has doubled, and the focus on the customer as a hero has had a permanent imprint on company culture.”

At its heart, marketing is communication. And with all the ways to communicate today, which ways are best for your business? Reach out to us and we’ll help you communicate with your audience in a meaningful and valuable way.