How storytelling can turn great customers into even greater brand ambassadors
Amazon Web Services (Global)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, helping millions of businesses lower their costs, drive innovation and run operations on a global scale without the need for costly global offices.
AWS realised that they needed to do more to connect with their audience and demonstrate what opportunities awaited them in the cloud. They approached the Walk to help them inspire their audience with stories of the innovation that’s transforming businesses today.
Telling the right story
The first step was in finding the stories that showcased the incredible transformative power of the
AWS Cloud.
We jumped on a discovery call where we discussed what AWS aimed to achieve, as well as what their audience needed to know to recognise the potential of the cloud. We then wrote up an outline based on what we learned from the call. This would become the framework for our customer stories, and would guide the questions we asked during the recorded interviews.
AWS selected two stories that demonstrated how businesses were able to drive innovation, build their skills and improve the expertise of their teams: Nuix and Iress.
Spotlight on Nuix
Nuix is an Australian software vendor whose products transform massive amounts of raw data into meaningful, searchable and contextualised information for more than 2,000 clients across 75 countries.
With the long-term plan of phasing out data-centres, Nuix had elected to start moving the majority of their workloads onto the AWS Cloud, due to the well-rounded support they’d experienced from the platform in the past.
Spotlight on Iress
Iress is a technology company specialising in providing software to the financial services industry to help them perform at their best. Their software is used by more than 9,000 businesses and 500,000 users globally.
Impressed by their robust security and advanced application services, Iress chose AWS as their cloud provider.
Starting at the beginning
To help businesses understand the benefits of AWS, we first needed to show them who Iress and Nuix were, and what challenges they were facing prior to using the platform.
We asked the CEOs of both companies to explain who their brand was, how they worked and what it was they offered their customers. This allowed us to demonstrate the various contexts in which AWS worked, and the amazing opportunities the platform represented for brands working on a global scale.
The journey to the cloud
The next step was for the two companies to outline the unique challenges that drove them to seek out a cloud solution. The CEOs were prompted to talk about how they came to the platform, and what drew them to the AWS Cloud.
By exploring the different journeys to the cloud, we were able to showcase the various problems the cloud could solve, while demonstrating the care and support AWS offered to help customers craft the perfect solution to achieve the best results.
Where are they now?
To demonstrate the transformative power of the AWS Cloud, CEOs were given the opportunity to showcase their business’ success and reveal the amazing transformation their company had undergone since moving to the AWS Cloud. By celebrating their progress we were able to inspire other businesses to imagine where they could be in just a few years with AWS.
Iress and Nuix were also encouraged to talk about where they intended to go in the future, and how AWS was empowering them to reach those goals. This demonstrated how brands, empowered by the AWS Cloud, could continue to grow and change long into the future.
Recycling content for greater reach
Once we’d recorded the customer stories, they were recycled into other forms of content to help AWS connect with their customers.
We produced a long form written piece to explore the story in-depth in a scannable format. Short videos were also snipped from the interview to grab customers’ attention on social media, piquing their interest and encouraging them to click through to the full interview.
By recycling content, we were able to extend the reach of our customer stories, connecting with more businesses on the platforms they were already using.
Telling a meaningful story that connects
Naturally better positioned to connect with the audience, AWS’ customers became the greatest ambassadors for the brand.
Rather than simply rattling off a list of features, the customer stories gave AWS the ability to showcase the real-world benefits of the platform, and demonstrate how they were empowering businesses to innovate, grow and transform with the AWS Cloud.
Our decision not to record our questions in the interviews kept the focus on the customer, so that they could share their story of success in a more natural and engaging way.
