By Leo Valiquette
If “location, location, location” is the axiom of real estate agents, then “reference customers, reference customers, reference customers” is the public relations equivalent.
Customers who have deployed a vendor’s product or service provide validation and demonstrate uptake in the market. They can speak in dollars and cents terms about why they adopted a particular product and the benefits and return on investment they have derived from it. This, more often than not, will make an editor sit up and take notice.
I’ve seen promising editorial opportunities with big name media outlets drift away for the simple reason that a client could not provide a happy customer willing to stand up and provide that third-party endorsement.
But is having the platinum, diamond-encrusted reference customer eager to shout your praises from the rooftops the ticket to piles of positive media coverage?
It certainly helps. However, that customer story must still be developed and presented in a manner that fits the current editorial needs of the media being targeted.
One of our clients, for example, has an enthusiastic reference customer on board who can articulate the pain points that were addressed by our client’s product and how it contributed to the overall growth and success of the customer’s business during a dramatic market boom.
However, the industry in which both client and customer operate is, like so many others right now, experiencing a downturn. Several of the media that I contacted no longer have the appetite for the growth and success story that was the obvious angle to pursue during the market upswing. That’s yesterday’s news. The angle that is timely and relevant now is how the customer is going to weather the downturn and how our client’s product will provide the operational efficiencies and cost savings that will improve margins and boost the bottom line.
As one editor put it, “It’s easy to succeed during a boom. The real test of a company’s viability is how it survives a downturn.” For many media outlets, that’s the story that is relevant now. Can we deliver that angle? Yes. But only by directly contacting the media most important to our client with a solid story angle and having an informal chat with each editor were we able to determine what elements of the reference customer’s story are the most important to garner the ink we want for our client.
