According to research, 73% of business to business marketers are now investing their efforts in creating case studies. There are lots of effective B2B marketing strategies but the great benefit of case studies is that you are able to tell a story about your company and how you solved a problem for a client or customer.
By reading your story, the potential new customer can get a better idea of what your company can do for theirs. You can’t convey this in-depth amount of information using channels like social media, unless you put it into a video, so case studies are the best option to provide all of that extra detail that will persuade a business that they need your services.
The power of case studies will vary depending on the industry that you are working in but regardless of which industry that happens to be, a customer lead will be looking for a service that you provide because they have a problem that needs solving or a need that they have. This is why case studies tend to be structured in a way that describes: The Problem; The Solution: The Results.
Writing about the problem
As an example, their problem could be that the company is spending too much time dealing with email enquiries. A software development company could solve their problem by creating a chatbot for the company’s website that answers some of the more common questions that they receive all of the time. So, instead of receiving 50 emails per day, the emails were reduced by 40 of those emails being answered automatically by the chatbot instead.
The case study would be able to talk through the problem in terms of how many hours per week were being spent on answering these emails, even including the impact such as taking on extra staff, or stopping employees from being able to concentrate on other tasks that will generate leads.
Outlining the solution and results
The case study then outlines the exact way that the problem was resolved and finishes with the results, which should be metric, wherever possible. For example, reduced 10 hours of work per week, or saved £xxx in salary per annum for staff to deal with the enquiries. In this section you want to be trying to show why your company is the best one for the job, rather than one of your competitors. Numbers and facts really do help to add more weight to your story.
How long should a case study be?
The length of a case study is usually around the 750 to 1000 word mark, you need to get enough detail in, without boring the reader with too much detail! Providing a story about your business helps you to build credibility and give a better understanding of what services your company provides. The other factor that makes case studies so good for B2B marketing is that stories are more memorable than just a page of text about a company.
If you haven’t already considered adding case studies to your marketing strategy, it could be the missing part of the jigsaw to help you to convert more leads.
