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Prove Your Worth |
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Tell Them a Story
Case studies are stories, and stories are the tools we use for organizing, understanding, and explaining experiences. Case studies provide detailed facts and insights that showcase success and can be highly effective sales tools when used to convert prospects into customers. By demonstrating a proven process that will solve business issues, and by highlighting the benefits your clients have experienced, you will instill confidence in your prospects that these rewards will outweigh any foreseeable risk. Therefore, relevant content is critical. Selecting a solution topic that is appropriate to prospects is a central component when asking potential clients to evaluate your firm.
Prove Your Point
Objective metrics increase credibility. If your solution saved time or money, how much did it save? If it improved communication, what was measurable about the positive outcome? The richer and more complete the data, the stronger and more viable your case. Aligning resources and information gathering are important steps that involve extensive time and effort, but can alleviate a large portion of the burden of proof from the sales process and are well worth the effort! Tying such details into a case study can distinguish your company from others. The more factual evidence, the more compelling you and your company become.
Walk Them Through It
For maximum effectiveness, your case study should flow in a logical sequence from the perspective of your prospect. It needs to clearly depict the critical business issues and pains, details of the solution you proposed and implemented, and the measurable results obtained. Present your case study in a way that is easy to read and easy to follow – keep it less focused on the technical details and more focused on business issues. By keeping the spotlight on your customer, prospects are more likely to see themselves in the story and will begin to realize how a similar solution could help them. Content directed towards the readers and filled with actual accounts will bring the case study to life.
Follow-through
Once you convince your prospect to become a customer, you have an obligation to give them the service, attention, and results that got them interested in the first place. Don’t reinvent the wheel with every customer; try to use the case study as a road map and make sure you follow a process to meet all of the needs of your client. Figure out what techniques your company used in the past that might apply to the new customer and build from there. The best way to get another case study is to keep your customer happy by fulfilling and even exceeding their expectations!
