The plain old fashioned case study is one of the most effective weapons in any marketer’s armoury.

Provided it’s done well, a case study can perform a number of key tasks at a fraction of the cost of other marketing tools.
Writing case studies can be a time consuming business and requires patience and skill. So if you want to see the benefits and ROI of the case study with minimal investment, it’s probably wise to consider Outsourced Marketing Services from a company that can help to craft creative and persuasive marketing collateral.

1 – First and foremost, a good case study is one of the single most persuasive ways for you to establish your credibility. It’s a cast iron reference from a satisfied customer, someone who was so pleased with what you did for them that they took the time to help out and put their name and reputation to a detailed endorsement of your company. A customer quote is a little marketing nugget that goes a long way to creating trust with your prospects and helps to move them a little further along the pipeline.

2 – Secondly a case study brings the benefits of your product, service or company to the fore in a way that many other marketing tools don’t. Narrating the story of a real-life situation takes you away from the dry, technical features that can dominate marketing collateral in high-tech industries and allows you to focus squarely on benefits. The case study should tell a convincing story of how feature A translated in concrete business benefit B for customer C. It puts hard to grasp features in a context that customers understand, moving them another step closer.

3 – Thirdly, a case study is a hugely versatile piece of marketing collateral. Editors love them, a good case study is a great way of gaining free editorial space in your target trade journals. They’re excellent linkbait, websites have a huge appetite for new material, so a well written, keyword optimised case study can have a profound impact on your site profile, generating numerous backlinks, raising search engine performance and site traffic.

4 – Fourth, let’s not forget that they’re a great tool for the kit bag of the field sales team and excellent supporting collateral for technical sales. A case study can be used as a simple cheat sheet, allowing sales people to speak the language of the customer and identify how the technical feature translates into the business benfity.

5 – Finally, case studies can help to create a new understanding between you and your customers. The simple process of interviewing your clients enables you to get inside the sales process in a unique way. You’ll uncover the thought process, the decision crieria, the ojections and obstacles you faced, the reasons why you succeeded and the competition failed. This can be surprising, but it’s always informative and you may well walk away with some extremely valuable information that can changes the way you do business.

Case studies can add real credibility to your marketing activity and should be a priority when developing marketing collateral.

Success breeds success as they say.

Author Bio: Redmill Marketing Associates is a team of experienced marketing professionals offering Outsourced Marketing Services to companies in the telecoms and technology sectors. Redmill can help with all aspects of marketing, from strategic marketing services. to the design and creation of effective collateral.

Category: Marketing
Keywords: marketing, collateral, case studies, copywriting, outsourced marketing services