Case studies have been around for years and are still an obvious option for inclusion in sales and marketing packs. They tick all the ‘look how great we are’ boxes in a neat and tidy package that can be in market for years before the contents become stale. They look great when you hand one over to a prospect, a media outlet, as a third party endorsement, or even as a quick training manual internally on how your products can, and have been applied.
While marketing brochures are effective tools to communicate your services, they often lack the appeal of a success story. Case studies can reach out to your client in a more personal and relevant way than other marketing materials.
Even with all of these factors going for them, the importance of case studies is often underestimated: why? First, they often rely on sales people identifying clients to participate, requiring the sales person’s time, attention and willingness to discuss it with clients. They are also time consuming to produce, rely on your customer’s response times, and need to go through approval processes internally in their company as well as your own.
However, it’s well worth the effort, a well written case study can provide your business with an effective way to communicate ‘real life’ situations, identify problems and solutions and highlight achievements of how the implementation of your product or service has reflected in the client’s success.
