Introduction to Writing B2B Case Studies
I’ve found that explaining a concept to others is the best way to learn it yourself. That is the goal of today’s post. As CEO and co-founder of Bllush, I need to learn how to write great marketing materials that will convince customers to join my side. I’m a strong believer of good practice guidelines. I’ll attempt to summarize everything I learned on the subject while writing my very first case professional marketing material. I’ve included all the resources I used at the end of the post. Here we go!
Hey, nice to meet you.
Introducing the case study. The magical PDF that is supposed to change the game in your favor. The Swiss army knife of the the B2B marketing world. The document that every customer expects you to have and what you know you need to write.
Goals — How does the case study help me?
The general principle is pretty simple actually. For example: our startup offers a software that improves the user experience, engagement and revenue. But how can the prospect believe that statement? I need to show it’s true using a real life example of an existing customer. The case study will tell the facts of what we did for the customer and the actual results he saw. Case studies are supposed to be written in an objective voice, so don’t go overboard with the marketing copy (but some can be forgiven).
How does it fit within my funnel?
At the lower levels usually. Today’s shoppers are more social than ever. Prospects would much rather Google a company and look for resources than talk to a salesmen. Having these documents on your website can help drive relevant leads to your sales teams.
Common Methods — What most companies do
Seems like most B2B companies writing case studies follow one of two options:
- Problem => Solution => Results => Customer Quote
The most common format. It starts off with elaborating what was your customer’s main problem before you came into the picture, which should be similar to the pain your product is solving. In our case it would be along the lines of “Nike wanted to integrate content from social media into their online store, but the amount of work involved was too much for them to handle in-house”. Then you can talk about the solution you offered them and how it was supposed to fix the problem. “We started working with Nike to use our software to generate content pulled from social media and integrate it into their website with our Discovery product”. Now is the time to add integration issues and other technical fallbacks you helped overcome. “Integrating our product with Nike’s catalog of 25,000 products was done by connecting to their product feed and was solved within 2 days.”. Finally we finish off the case study with results / data proving our point. The more detailed you can get the better. Some data could be sensitive, so it’s important to get the client’s permission / check with your legal department regarding NDA’s. It could look like this — “Within three months of using Bllush’s product, Nike saw revenue’s improve from $1.7M to $2.3M, showing a net increase of of 35%”. Finish this baby off with an impeccable quote from the customer: “Using Bllush’s Discovery product saved my content team hundreds of hours and improved our P/L dramatically — John Stevens, VP Marketing Nike”. This method is better at telling the story from the pragmatics point of view (any Crossing the Chasm fans out there?) - Q&A with the customer
Here the idea is to tell the story using a set of questions answered by the customer. Here the goal is more customer-oriented rather than solution-oriented. This could be a better idea if you have a very strong champion within the company endorsing your product and you want to leverage that as much as possible. You could also combine Q&A with the classic problem-solution-results method.
Rules of Thumb
- Tell the story — humans connect with stories better than plain data. Imagine yourself producing a drama film — include names, dates, backgrounds and sprinkle the KPI data as the story climaxes. This will make your case study more memorable and help prospects picture themselves in the customer’s shoes.
- Start with a boom — Include the main business advantages (KPI’s) within the first few sentences or even the title itself. This has to stand out and needs to be click-baity. This is not the place to be modest (“How Nike increased their revenue by 40%”).
- Make the customer the star — The customer is always right. They were right to choose you. It’s not your product which is so great. It’s the client’s use of the product that makes sparks fly. Keep the story focused on them. Even if the customer told you some negative things about their company, remember that they too have a boss. The case study needs to reflect well for them as well. Everyone loves being a star.
- Emphasize the before and after — A classic technique in sales and marketing. Show the customer’s situation before he found your solution. How your product turned him into a star. Similar to drama movies where the lead character is initially shown at the bottom of the barrel and then the climax has him turning his life around. Show them how their world would be different without you.
Most Common Pitfalls
- Too much marketing mumbo jumbo / too long. The prospect came to get iron-clad information on your product KPI’s and solutions. Give the people what they want. Sometimes it could feel as there’s a requirement to output a certain amount of lines just to look professional. There’s no need to fill the case study with information easily found on your website. Get to the point and quickly.
- No data at all — This is something I saw a few times as a prospect or when investigating competitors. I got this far just to see the same information I already knew. No data, no KPI’s, no quotes, no names. What was the point of writing this case study? Just to get my email address? (probably)
- No call to action — We had a point when we started writing the case study, right? It was to help convert prospects into customers. A strong call to action at the end of the case study is vital. Get them while they’re hot.
Summary
Case studies are a great tool to arm yourself with. It’s one of the most effective weapons against a strong corporate pragmatic prospect. You need to start working on case studies. While I only included some high-level guidelines, I’ve included some links below to more detailed articles with finer points which this article doesn’t cover (talking to customers, the use of graphics and videos and more technical issues…etc)
