Have you wondered why tabloids attract so many readers? I’m guessing it has a lot to do with the way they tell their stories.

Sure, they may not be the most credible examples of journalism, but they are usually easy to read and are often compelling in nature.

Telling a good story is not, of course, limited to the tabloid magazine. You can find well-told stories in all sorts of publications. They include newspapers, trade publications and on news websites all across the Internet.

Why storytelling matters to your small business is an idea you should consider seriously.

When it comes to telling the story of one’s business success, entrepreneurs often fail to tell it in a story-like format. We plop up brief testimonials on our websites hoping that those words of praise will lead us to the next customer.

Unfortunately for many of us, the simple testimonial does not tell the whole story. In other words, it does not tell the reader the problem that existed before you stepped in to help. Nor does it tell the solution that was offered by you and the result that came about from the collaboration.

Customer Success Stories

Besides writing a great About Me/About Us page for your website detailing the evolution of your success and that of your company, a marketing tool called Customer Success Stories is an excellent way to highlight how you helped a client achieve success. Plus, they also give you a chance to address the challenges your target audience faces and gives any prospective customers who are reading them the confidence that you can help them too.

They really don’t have to be complicated, either. You introduce your customer and his or her problem and then explain how you stepped in to help. Or in the case of this testimonial video, FreshBooks customer Sarah of Milieu Interior Design tells about her frustration with bookkeeping until she became a FreshBooks customer.

Customer success stories can come in many forms, including this creative example. This first provides a snapshot of the success story and then quickly goes into the company’s problems with IT management until a solution was found in Cloud Hosting from Earthlink.

I really like this example because the graphic is easy to look at and the colors are inviting, plus the content gets right to the meat of the issue.

This kind of marketing can be particularly beneficial when talking about products and services. Why? Because readers are more engaged when there’s a human element to the story. After all, products are not manufactured without involving people in the process.

The same is true for the delivery of services. As with most things in life, there is always a challenge to overcome, a solution to provide, and hopefully, a happy ending will emerge. And very often customer success stories can fulfill all three.

Have you tried creating a customer success story for your business? If so, did it make a difference to your sales?