Making a Case for Case Studies: Use Your Customers to Get More Customers!

Everyone knows that the best sort of sales leads are recommendations – referrals from satisfied customers who have experienced your business and are happy to tell others just how great your organisation is.

The trouble is, no matter how enthusiastic these ‘brand ambassadors’ might be, simply hoping they will remember to refer you – if and when they have the opportunity to do so, is not a particularly reliable sales strategy.

However, there’s a really easy way you can take control, using the strong relationships you’ve developed, and the projects you’ve successfully delivered, to proactively leverage further sales opportunities – by capturing your success stories as case studies.

Case studies are a powerful way to showcase your projects, the customers you work with and the results you get for them. They have a number of advantages which make them particularly effective:

Case studies are …..

….. Versatile: Case studies can be used in both digital and hard copy formats – use them to support a wide range of sales and marketing activities including:

• New business presentations
• Direct mail
• Events

….. Dynamic: Because a case study brings your business to life through a real-life story, it is far more emotive than a list of products or services can ever be!

 ….. An Independent endorsement: A third-party endorsement is an extremely powerful validation of your expertise, and vital for converting a prospect into a customer.

What should a case study look like?

While there are no strict rules, most case studies will follow a similar format with regards to content. Here are some guidelines for a typical structure:

Your customer: Briefly introduce your customer, explaining a little about who they are, what they do, and the position they hold within their market sector.

The challenge: Set out the story of the challenge your customer faced, and the ‘hurt’ their business was feeling before they made the decision to engage you.

The result: Detail the outcome you were instrumental in bringing about, and explain how your customer’s position has improved. The more evidence you can introduce to qualify how successful the outcome was the better. If possible, express results as real, specific measurable – ‘an X £ saving’ or ‘an X % improvement’ for example.

Customer testimonial: Your case study should finish with a short testimonial from your customer, summarizing how pleased they are with the work you did. It’s important to attribute this to a senior person and to include their name and job title.

Keep your case study reasonably short – no more than 1 or 2 sides of A4 as a guide (though the format you use is up to you), and make use of good imagery to support the words you use

If you’re not already using them, consider adding case studies to your sales and marketing collateral.

Each time you deliver a project that highlights a different aspect of your offering, or a new market sector, get into the habit of capturing the appropriate words and images – drop them into your template to keep your portfolio of case studies fresh and right up to date.

Can we create case studies for your business?

We’ve created case studies for all kinds of businesses.  To discuss your project, or to request examples of case studies, call us now on 07801 192552 or email us at hello@deep-mc.co.uk.