The value of case studies to your business

Having a great business, with fair prices, a top team of employees and stacks of successful projects behind you is no use if no-one knows about it. The question is, how do you get all that across in a more customer-focused, honest and down-to-earth way?

A set of case studies is a great way to get your sales message across without it sounding like empty advertising blurb. Here at smallpod, we know the value of a case study to doing and attracting more good business; skip along through our guide to get a better idea.

1) Customer Relationship Management: happy, satisfied customers are the most valuable form of advertising for any business. Getting endorsements and testimonials from customers enhances the quality of your product or service offering, as it carries the same trusting message of a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend. For that reason, it is important to be as attentive and supportive as possible to your customers. A little goes a long way, so for some good old fashioned customer service, you can secure great testimonials just by going 10% further to deliver.

2) Aside from glowing praise, some hard facts will help to put things into perspective for your prospective customers. When choosing a service or product, every business person has to calculate the return on their investment in you, so make it easy for them. Using previous customers’ case studies, calculate a rough ROI and make that clear in their testimonial or endorsement.

3) Once your prospective customer knows they can afford your services, you need to also spell out just what they get from their money. Use testimonials to make clear how customers can benefit from your services with examples and plain English; this will help the message to resonate with them as they can apply the same terms to their own needs.

4) A case study, testimonial or endorsement will add untold depth to PR efforts. Simple PR materials from your business, saying how well you have performed, do not make great press stories; publications want to talk to your customers, not you. So, to make sure this happens, ensure that you have a good set of case studies, with statistics, comment from customers and so on, ready to be included in any PR push.

5) As you may be using a case study in any PR you do, you need to make sure that your information is current and relevant to any readers. For this reason, it’s a good idea to keep them up to date, with recent customers and references to new and exciting products or services.

6) The golden case study is one from a celebrity. Celebrities attract media attention without even trying, and so getting one to attach their name to your products or services means that half of the work has been done for you, boosting your PR campaigns.

smallpod works closely with its clients’ customers to ensure there is a constant flow of content delivered to editors desks. We have managed to secure opinion pieces bylined to clients’ customers who are more than happy to see their name and business in print.