It’s Sunday night and your stomach is rumbling. A pizza sounds divine, but you remember that your cooking skills don’t extend past toasting bread. You resort to creating a mental list of the um-teen-hundred pizza joints on your block. What’s the next thing you do?
Most likely, your decision will be one of the following: You’ll call up a friend for their recommendation, or you’ll pull out your phone to do some online research. In this day in age, 9 out of 10 people rely on online product reviews before making a decision to purchase a product. Why else would you spend your money on a bad experience?
Case studies work in a similar way. They serve as an asset to establish proof that what your business is offering is valuable and high quality. Unlike testimonials, case studies provide an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis through storytelling and measurable data.
Now that you know what case studies are, the bigger question is, how do you create effective case studies? Here are 3 ways you can use case studies to promote your company.
- Tell the story from start to finish.
According to OneSpot, 92 percent of consumers want marketing material to sound like a story. How do you do this? Engage readers by identifying the problem, the challenges and the successes of a situation. An interview with the customer is where you will gather the most information about their experience. Finally, ensure that you follow up with the client in the case study after a few months. This will provide readers with insight on how your products and services have benefitted them in the long run.
- Include measurable data.
Remember when we said that case studies are ways of providing proof that your services work? Well, part of telling that story is to provide factual data. For example, if you helped “double the traffic” for a customer’s website, explain what that means in numbers. Did you double the client’s website visits from 100 to 200 or 40,000 to 80,000? Providing tangible results helps readers see where the customer began before your services kicked in.
- Make your stories easy to find.
Case studies require time and an effective thought process to construct, so make sure that people can easily find them. Utilize these case studies as tools for publicity: Promote them on your website, in sales proposals, on social media, the local newspaper – the possibilities are vast. You can even take it a step further and create a video – four times as many consumers are willing to watch a video than to read text about a product. Properly promoting your case studies can ensure that they reach the people seeking your services.
Case study writing adds value to your business and is a relatively pain-free process. These three tips alone will refresh a stale case study into content the audience finds useful and interesting to read. Want to see what a case study can look like? Check out one of ours here.
We at Red Mallard partner with our clients to tell authentic and engaging stories. If scheduling time to interview customers and write case studies is difficult in your current business, call us today and we will help you get started.
