Build your brand with customer case studies

A 3-part look inside this powerful marketing tool.

Let’s face it. In today’s wired world, most sales start with prospective customers conducting research about you, your products, and your services online. They visit your Web site to see what you have to offer. They look for reviews in trade publications and the business press. And, they seek advice from others across social networking sites—blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter—what top analysts Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff at Forrester Research call the “Groundswell,” a social phenomenon that is forever changing the way we do business. One way to ensure you make the short list in this raucous sales environment is to let your customers speak, praise, even enlighten prospects through customer case studies—comprehensive stories that demonstrate your ability to solve real life business problems. These are not fluff marketing pieces, but rather detailed accounts of customer challenges and the solutions you provided for successful results. Customer case studies can help you build your brand and grow your business in three distinct ways:

• Increase credibility. The more you demonstrate your success through actual customer stories, the more your audience will believe you are a viable problem solver. Customer testimonials woven throughout your case studies will support your message and identify you as a reliable source.

• Expand reach. Case studies can be repurposed to expand your marketing efforts. Use it to pitch a unique or interesting story to the press, reference during sales calls to reinforce your claims, use at trade shows to drive traffic to your booth, and post on your Web site/blog to aid customers in their research.

• Shorten the sales cycle. Potential customers can see a quick snapshot of what you’ve done for others and relate these experiences to their own situations. By illustrating the problem/solution cycle in advance with actual cases, you can highlight your expertise, often shortening the time it takes to close a sale.

In subsequent posts we will cover each of these topics in more detail, as well as get into the nuts and bolts of writing these pieces, to help you build your arsenal of effective customer case studies.

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