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How to Choose the Best Case Study Candidate
It might sound like an obvious question, but if you’re going to go to the effort of creating case studies for your marketing and sales teams, you want to make sure you select the right case study candidates. Given that, which customers should you ask to participate? What makes a great case study candidate? Often, it’s tempting to just ask customers that are top of mind—and that will likely agree to participate. But those customers won’t always be your best...
18 Ways to Use Case Studies in Your Email Marketing
We’re always talking about how case studies are one of the hardest-working types of content. They can help you: Build brand awareness Present solutions that solve your audience’s pain Grease the wheels for decision making Showcase results that inspire new leads But did you know that email marketing is the perfect channel for sharing your stories? With hard numbers, big results, and a gripping story, case studies leap out of the inbox. And with email’s special features like segmenting and...
How to Capture Your Target Reader With Your Anonymous Case Study
If your case study is anonymous, how can you be sure it gets read? Every case study should be aimed at a defined target reader. It might be CFOs of SaaS companies, or IT managers of financial institutions, or marketing directors of digital advertising agencies or something even more specific. Usually, you can use your customer’s brand name and logo as a signal to that target reader. Those brands and logos wave a flag, saying, “Hey CFO/CEO/director/etc., here’s a company you...
How to Define Your Case Study Strategy (And Why You Need One)
Unfortunately, few companies have a defined customer case study strategy in place. Often, they’ll just identify a good customer or project (“This would make a great case study!”) and then fly at it. If they get that case study done, they may eventually turn to another good candidate and repeat the process. And that’s as far as it goes. But when you take this piecemeal approach, and overlook the strategy piece, you may run into the following problems: You struggle to...
How to Get Customers in Video Testimonials and Case Studies
How do you ask clients to be in a video testimonial? If you’re nervous about getting your customers to be in a video testimonial—congratulations, you’re normal. Whether it’s worrying about the potential inconvenience of getting them on camera or just not knowing what to say, asking for video testimonials can be nerve-wracking. But with a little planning, you can take the pressure off for both you, and your customer. Here’s how to get a “yes” the next time you ask...
How to Write Powerful Anonymous Case Studies
How do you write anonymous case studies that are worth reading? In a perfect world, every customer would let you tell the story of how you helped them succeed in a case study. But sometimes, customers are constrained by their legal departments—or the story is just too sensitive—and so they decline to participate. Other times, though, customers will agree to share their story as long as their name isn’t attached. Which means you’ll need to learn how to anonymize it. Here’s how...
How to Create Tension in Case Studies With No Before-After Comparison
What do you do when you’re writing a case study with no before-after comparison? A case study where you have no insights into the situation that existed before your amazing product or solution was implemented? How can you create tension or suspense in your case study without that? Because when you distill most case studies down to their bare structure, the story is: Bad thing happens (or, is happening) Solution is implemented Problem is solved. But what if your interviewee...
Is a Metric-Driven Headline Always the Best Choice for Your Customer Success Stories?
One of the golden rules of case study writing is to put an impressive metric into headlines instead of using qualitative descriptions of success. So instead of saying: “How [Customer A] Increased Sales With the Help of [Company B]” or “How [Customer A] beats back the competition with [Company B product/service],” you would say something like: “How [Customer A] Increased Sales by 25% With the Help of [Company B].” Of course, you won’t always have good metrics to worth with,...
Light Up the Brains of Prospects With These Innovative Case Study Filters
Here’s a CRAZY clever bit of copy and UX that I wish more companies were brave enough to try: Our client, KlientBoost, has a fantastic amount of customer success stories—so many that they need to help prospects find the ones most relevant to them. So here’s how they’ve set up their “results” page: As you can see, they provide users with two types of filtering systems. The first system (which I’ve circled in blue) follows conventional wisdom (read: logic). Users...