Why Case Studies are the cornerstone of your Sales and Marketing
Yep, it’s good to get great feedback from your clients. But there is more to Case Studies than Social Proof. Everyone knows that Case Studies are key components to help your prospects self-qualify.
Here are a few more applications of Case Studies in your Sales and Marketing effort.
Sales Tenders
B2B Case Studies are in the top 3 documents that help buyers select your product or service above your competitors’.
To satisfy the tender requirements bidders need to provide examples of how their product or service has added value.
This is way more than a review or testimonial. This is rather a ‘straight from the horse’s mouth’ account of how you delivered tremendous value to your previous and existing clients.
Gone are the days of ‘features and benefits selling’. In a sales pitch scenario it is your Value Proposition that must shine out throughout the whole of your pitch. As such, it must also be reflected in your Case Study material.
Value Proposition
Many large organisations need their bid teams to achieve consensus around their Value Proposition in order to make their sales pitch as cohesive and potent as possible.
If you already have a strong suite of completed Case Studies under your belt, they can be an important driver towards achieving that all-important consensus.
This is precisely because they are, or ought to be, clear accounts of what your customers most value about the service you provide. They ought to give clues to the most important questions your customers had when making their purchasing decision. And, by extension, they also give real reflections of how well you answered their questions and fulfilled their requirements.
What your customers value about you is non-negotiable in VP consensus building. Look for that in your Case Studies.
Inbound Content
In his seminal book They Ask You Answer Marcus Sheridan asserts that organisations transform their success as soon as they put their customers’ questions at the heart of all marketing collateral. In short every single piece of content ought to be geared around answering your prospects’ questions.
Case Studies are versatile pieces of marketing content that address this need. Your customers have the questions – and the answers – in this regard.
Customer Focus
By putting Case Studies at the heart of your Sales and Marketing efforts you are automatically shifting your focus onto the most important aspect of your business’s success – customer satisfaction.
Yes, your Case Study is meant to blow your own trumpet, and it is a means of promoting your own business. But unless you do that in collaboration with your customers then your message will be somewhat insincere.
To produce a Case Study you need to interview your client. You need to listen to them, receive their feedback and get them to agree to the account you have documented BEFORE you publish it.
In short Case Studies encourage deeper attention on your customer, and a greater sense of partnership with them. And when is that a bad thing in business?
Quality Assurance
I have a client who decided to adopt a Case Study mindset in advance of initiating a new project with his client.
What this meant was that right up front he and his team crafted the ideal Case Study that they wished to receive once their work was complete.
They looked at the whole project through the eyes of the customer, and assessed how his team could achieve the most glowing account possible at each stage. This allowed them to reverse engineer key quality milestones into the project plan.
Case Studies vs Website
A couple of canny start-up clients of mine made the choice to invest in Case Studies ahead of a website platform. They chose to communicate their capability, Value Proposition, social proof and reputation straight off the bat.
The versatility of Case Studies means that they can be attached in their entirety to social media posts, LinkedIn profiles, promotional landing pages and other easily accessible marketing vehicles. Or they can be ‘snippetted’ down to provide material for more sustained campaigns, emails and blogs.
If you have carried out proof of concept projects for clients right at the beginning of your venture be sure to turn these into Case Studies. You can then get them working for you even before you have all the proprietary marketing structures in place.
Summary
From start-up to multi-national, Case Studies are the foundation of your Value Proposition, Quality Assurance, Social Proof, Sales Pitches, Inbound Marketing and Customer Focus ethos. They are the key to integrating your sales and marketing.
Shedule an appointment today to discuss how Case Studies can boost sales and marketing in your organisation.