At its heart, a customer story is a proof point. And our goal is to make that proof point as clear and compelling as possible—to demonstrate the difference Salesforce can make for SMBs.
Process Overview
Potentially the first of many, the Vev customer story will focus on Foundations and Agentforce—targeting SMB audiences in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands.
As far as our process, we’d typically work with the Salesforce team to define the overarching story and understand the regional nuances. We would then craft an agenda for a call with Vev—and conduct that call. (We can also work from a recording or transcript of the call, if Salesforce prefers to conduct it.)
From there, we’ll synthesize the narrative and define a right-sized set of assets to support Salesforce’s Q2 campaign. This will include video, written content, and/or info-graphics to be used across social, email, website placements, etc. Different deliverables may have different purposes—from driving World Tour Oslo attendance to nurturing pipeline post-event.
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Planning & Strategy Ballpark Cost:
~$7,500
Story Components: VIDEO
Video is often the centerpiece of an effective campaign—and for good reason. It brings the story to life, boosts retention, and delivers strong ROI across channels.
Customer story videos can range from large- to small- scale productions. We’ve found that they generally fall into three tiers, based on goals, budget, and access to the customer. Assuming there is indeed a video component, we suspect this project will fall in the tier 1 or 2 category. However, to be thorough, let’s take a look at the whole spectrum. (Note, not all of the below are customer stories, rather they are intended to represent the range of production values that may be involved.)
Tier 1
For Tier 1, we’re looking at basic motion graphic pieces—short-form, with modest animation. These are great for high-volume customer testimonial needs. They are generally quick out the door, with a relatively short lifespan.
Ballpark cost for 1-3 minutes:
$5,000-$7,500*
*Range depends on length and amount of conceptual development
Tier 2
For Tier 2, we’d be doing longer-form, more sophisticated motion graphics or simple live-action productions. (And/or utilizing existing footage.) The end products here are anchor pieces that tell the brand story—and definitely merit promotional support.
Ballpark cost for 1-3 minutes:
$10,000-$30,000*
*Primary budget variable is length
Tier 3
Tier 3 productions are fully-baked live shoots, involving a well-considered pre-production and a strongly curated production process.
Ballpark cost:
$40,000+*
*Primary budget variables are length and number of locations
Story Components: WRITTEN & VISUAL CONTENT
Customer stories can also be told through eBooks, site articles, info-graphics, or other static content.
Often, the story is built out in several formats to suit different channels and get the most mileage out of the content. An infographic might be the perfect bite-sized asset for a social post. But an eBook is a better fit if there’s a heavy-duty, data-intensive value prop that can be harvested from the story.
Ballpark cost:
$3,000-$12,000*
*Range is exceptionally large, as the scope of these assets varies dramatically
Promotional Components
A story is only effective if people see it.
Once the story assets are defined and developed, it’s time to consider promotion. The cost of campaigns varies wildly, depending on the target reach, the number of components, and granular factors like whether display ads are static or animated. As such, campaign budgets we’ve worked on range from $5,000 to $100,000. So we’ll leave the estimating for later. But let’s take a look at the standard toolkit:
While some assets (like an onsite article) don’t strictly need a landing page to consolidate traffic, it is generally a central piece of the puzzle. Whether the landing page is gated is a secondary question, usually answered based on breadth or depth of audience. Assets that can attract a lot of leads or a small number of very warm leads are both candidates for gating—but overusing it can alienate your audience.
Paid and/or unpaid promotion on LinkedIn, X, Threads, or any other go-to social channel is an anchor for virtually every asset promotion effort.
Email ranks right alongside social as an anchor promotional tool. And typically, our clients establish a range of email journeys that vary in intensity. (Depending on the assessed value of the asset, we may be producing anywhere from one to five emails.)
Assuming your website is mapped with promotional opportunities, onsite placements are an obvious play. That said, if you have a very aggressive content calendar, not every asset will merit the real estate.
Like onsite placements, promotions in your newsletter are a no-brainer. But you may need to be even more choosy about what you include here, depending on the frequency of the newsletter and the amount of space you’ve allocated to promotion. (Making it too ad-heavy is bound to turn off your readership.)
Display advertising is the next step up from social in terms of budget commitment—it’s going to cost some coin, but if the asset is supporting a major initiative it’s almost always part of the mix.
The Wrap-Up
Where do we go from here?
We’d love to get started. To do that, we’d just need to get an idea of the scope, based on the components we’ve set out here. Our instinct for that is:
• Tier 1 or 2 video (budget and timing allowing)
• Ebook or 1-pager
• Landing page
• Paid and Organic social
TOTAL BALLPARK COST:
$45,000-$75,000
*Formal proposal to follow
Postman Content Marketing Sample
