Three Simple Marketing Tools: Part III: Prove You Can Do It Using Case Studies

The previous two marketing tools I have written about – white papers and special reports – need to be free of obvious bias, or they lose their strength to persuade readers. But case studies cover some of the same ground, while making your case, entirely.

One of the beauties of case studies is that they can be long and exhaustive, short and sweet, or any length in between – it all depends on what you have to say and who you want to say it to.

If you expect it to be read online, then I suggest keeping it as brief as possible. Here is a template for a very short case study, but you can use the same template for much longer ones.

How XYZ Gizmo Grommets reduced costs by $50,000 a month.

Client: Ace Motherboard Testing Inc. (AMT)

Industry: Business-to-Business

Challenge: Find ways to reduce testing errors without lengthy server downtime. Now add two or three more sentences that explain the problem in more detail and it’s affect on Ace’s business.

Solution: Gizmo Grommets allowed testers to conduct in situ testing of motherboards. Now a sentence or two more about the procedure and or the special features of Gizmo Grommets that allow in situ testing.

Results:

• AMT was able to reduce time to complete tests by 70%

• Reduced operating costs by up to $50,000 per month

• Was able to offer services at lower prices than competition

• Based on lower costs was able to recruit 6,000 new customers in first year.

• AMT became industry leader in just over 18 months.

Here are a few things to notice: The short form case study can be written in a matter of minutes, once all the information is at hand. This means you can create them almost on demand for your marketing and sales teams. Try to tell an interesting story, but don’t ramble on. Get to the point as to what the problem was and how your product or service solved it.

Finally, don’t forget the results (which you can also call ROI). It represents the kind of payoff your clients can expect if they come to you for help. You can also call your case studies ‘success stories’, as one of our clients did.