How to Create and Use Case Studies That Help You Sell

Creating effective case studies is a great way to garner draw attention to your company and improve overall close rates. After all, case studies show that you walk the walk. An average of 74% of B2B buyers cited testimonials and case studies as the most influential types of content (featuredcustomers.com).

According to Gartner (inc.com), in 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships with enterprise without interacting with a human. What this means is that clients and prospects want several types of interactions prior to making a buying decision and case studies can play a huge role in that process.

Why Write Case Studies

Case studies are a great way to better connect your brand and the services that you offer with your clients and prospects. This is even more true if you are selling larger ticket items like; heavy machinery, websites, complex systems, etc.

Here are just a few great reasons why:

• Builds trust and credibility during the sales process
• Relevant to other prospects and how you can also solve their business challenges
• Helps give prospects a better understanding about what your full capabilities are
• Reinforces buying behavior as they transition from prospect to client
• Positions your brand as an industry thought leader

What to Focus On

So, what do you need to begin creating a strong case study? First things first, you have to identify what the strong points are that you want to focus on.  You will want to examine the project that you are sampling thoroughly and will want to identify the key success points that you believe will resonate with your target market.

Secondly, you will need to craft the right “customer success story” of the project that makes it relatable to other companies and their similar challenges. This should be done in a way that simply explains why your solution was the best.

Lastly, talk briefly about the positive results of the project and how it ties to the overall business objectives of the client. It’s vital that this is done with clear intent. Your target audience wants to understand the positive impact that you had on the sample client. If you can, get a written customer testimonial or video clip that can help give validity to the success of this project.

Format

Now that you have all the information compiled and know what you want to convey to your audience, how do you put it all together?

There are a ton of different formats, so mileage may vary a bit on this one, but this is what we focus on:

• Title – big and bold with a clear understanding of who the client is and/or what you did for them.
• The Client – who the client is and why are they relevant.
• The Specific Challenge – what was the challenge(s) that they were faced with and what was their intended business goals to reach?
• The Strategy/Solution – focus on the winning strategy that you developed. Give strong details but also keep everything at a high-level. You don’t want to drag your audience into too much of the minutia, but you also want them to understand why your strategy worked.
• Client Testimonials – Nothing tells you more about a business than what their clients are saying. These can be done through copy or video.

Best Ways to Use Your Case Studies

Now that you’ve put the time in and your case study is finally complete. What do you do with it? Do you simply add it to your website and then move on? Not at all! There are a ton of different ways to best utilize your case studies, but here are a few good ones:

• Printed sales collateral for your team. Your team should have these on the ready to share directly with clients and prospects.
• Case studies can be used for presentations at conferences or key user groups. You’ve already done all of the work, it should be pretty simple to retell this customer success story to a captive audience.
• Adding both the case studies and testimonials throughout your website helps gain credibility and reinforces buying behavior of your clients and prospects.
• Push the case studies out through social media. This is just about reach and again touching your audience with good information about who you are and the types of problems that you solve.
• Include your case study in your next e-book or white paper.

Putting the right case study together can be a lot of work, but don’t overcomplicate it. It’s about showcasing a unique challenge that your client has and telling the story of how you solved it with hard work and your expertise.

Ideally after creating a multitude of case studies, you should be showcasing to your audience the entirety of your capabilities. It allows you to demonstrate how you truly help people with what you do and that’s the real value. When you have people that can tangibly see how you help your clients from start to finish, it’s a big win for everyone.

If you have any questions about creating great case studies that help you sell, or if you just want to talk about other ideas/thoughts/needs that you have, please reach out!

You can check out some more examples of case studies here: https://drivecreativeagency.com/our-work/

 

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