7 Ways Case Studies Can Help You Attract More Customers

Case studies are one of the most powerful – yet most underused – marketing and sales tools. While most people place advertising low on their credibility list, they will often believe information about your company when it comes from a third party. That’s why sharing your customers’ success stories is crucial to helping others see the benefits of using your products or services. Although many marketers take the time to interview their customers and write up success stories, they often fail to use the stories to their full potential. Here are 7 places you can use case studies to shorten your sales cycle and turn more leads into customers:

1. Sales conversations. Drop a few statistics from a customer success story into your sales conversations and watch your prospects take notice.
2. Direct mail. Case studies can help you raise awareness around a new product or service. Include text from a case study in your next direct mail campaign to increase your response rates and generate more leads.
3. Email to a prospect. The next time you touch base with a prospect, email some highlights from a success story. You’ll be more likely to get a response.
4. Voice mail to a prospect. Make your voice mail memorable by citing a measurement from a recent case study.
5. Newsletters or e-newsletters. Do you want more of your subscribers to read your newsletters? Try condensing a longer case study into a short article and sending it to your list. People enjoy learning how others are solving similar problems and will be more likely to read your newsletter.
6. Proposals. Include a few case studies in your next proposal to increase your odds of winning the project.
7. Your website. In addition to posting case studies on your product and services pages, you can feature a case study on your home page. Just be sure to rotate the case studies frequently so your site’s regular visitors don’t get bored.

Whenever you send out case studies, make sure the content is something your prospects care about. Otherwise, even the most compelling case study won’t get read.

What about you? Where else have you used case studies, or where would you like to use case studies, in your B2B marketing communications? Leave your comments below.