When you have limited time and resources to dedicate to marketing, it pays to focus on things that will really make a difference. Near the top of the marketing priority list is a good set of customer success stories or case studies.

Why do case studies work so well?

Case studies create a powerful response in a prospective customer:

• “You have experience in situations like mine.”
• “People like me put their trust in you.”
• “You have a track record of success.”

As well as providing ‘social proof’, which is a powerful aspect of psychology, case studies can also inspire people to take action and help them understand how your products and services can be used in practice.

Writing an effective case study

Make sure your case studies are believable, insightful, and reasonably brief. Keep them focused on the challenge that you solved for the client, not getting lost in the details of your solution.

A really good case study is written from the customer’s perspective. There is no substitute for picking up the phone and talking to them about their expectations, their experiences and how they perceive the outcomes. Everyone likes to talk about themselves and their work, so to keep them focused on the case-study, try these questions:

• What was the background to the business or project?
• What was the problem? What was it costing you? What had you tried to fix it?
• How did you hear about us? Recommendation?
• How did you evaluate our solution? Did you compare us head to head with others?
• What did you particularly like about our solution or the way we delivered the project?
• What was the outcome? What are you saving? What can you do now that you couldn’t before?
• Would you recommend us?

When you are writing, don’t try to cover everything; choose an angle that leads to a strong narrative and highlights benefits that your target customers will identify with.

Do you need approval for your case study?

I am often asked whether you need the customer’s approval to use their name or logo in your case studies. Some organisations include confidentiality or brand protection clauses in their T&Cs or contracts, so you need to check that carefully.

But perhaps more importantly, think about how your customer would react if you didn’t ask them for permission then they later found it by themself.

Maximising the marketing impact

Once you have got some good case studies, make the most of them!

• On your website, add links from products and services to the case studies.
• On ‘quiet news days’ post them on social media. Make it about the customer and @mention them in the post.
• Incorporate them into proposals, either in summary or in an appendix.
• Encourage your sales people to link to them in follow-up emails or even email footers.