You’ve created a wonderful client success story that brilliantly demonstrates the benefits of your product/service. Now, how can you make that case study work for you apart from making it into sales collateral for your sales team and placing it on your website? Below are nine ways to reuse your case study and reap the maximum benefit.
1. Write a blog post
One of the best places to promote and repurpose your case study is on your blog. To draw in readers, have your post title describe the positive outcome your client experienced, e.g., “Case Study: How Business Insider Grew Its Facebook Page to 1M+ Fans With Buffer or “6 Problems Lucid Software Solves Using Kissmetrics.“
Of course, the format of your case study probably won’t be compatible with that of your blog posts, so be prepared to rewrite as needed. Neither of these blog posts I linked to above has a traditional case study format (actually, the second example may not have started out as a case study, but you can see how it could have been one). Both examples are primarily first-person accounts by satisfied customers, but feel free to experiment with what will work best for you.
2. Incorporate it into your email marketing
You can also rewrite case studies for your e-newsletters in ways similar to your blog post. However, you can also use them in their original state as a way to follow up with prospects. E.g., you can email a case study about how you helped a customer in a particular industry to prospects in that same industry. Alternatively, you could use case studies that highlight particular features or uses that the prospect had been interested in. This tactic can help nudge a prospect further along the purchase path or reawaken the interest of a lead that had gone cold.
Since many people are leery of opening attachments that they weren’t expecting, it would be prudent to share a very brief summary of the case study (about a paragraph or so) in the body of your email along with a link to the case study at your website. That means the summary needs to communicate the hardest-hitting facts about the case study in order to get recipients to click through to the case study. But since different tactics work for different people, it may turn out that you actually get better responses from emails with attachments. The only way to really know is to experiment with different approaches.
3. Break Out Quotes to Use as Testimonials
The best part of case studies are happy clients’ quotes about how you helped them and the wonderful results they obtained from working with you, especially when they’re able to express those results in a quantifiable way. Take some of those quotes and place them on your Web pages, in sales presentations, direct mail, landing pages, and basically wherever you can make good strategic use of them.
4. Include Case Study Links in Press Releases
You can add depth to your press releases by including links to case studies as appropriate. E.g., if you’re announcing a B2B purchase, you could mention that other companies, including [the name of your case study subject], have bought your product/service for the same purpose as your customer and embed a link to the relevant case study in the case study subject’s name. That way, interested readers can see all the good things in store for your new customer (and potentially for them if they decide to work with you). And you’re also providing journalists with background information that just might lead to an article idea.
5. Incorporate Text in eBooks, Proposals etc.
You can also make the case (pun intended) for your product/service by incorporating relevant case studies in ebooks, proposals, etc. Write the ebook so that it gives readers useful information. If it focuses on one client’s endeavors, give a step-by-step account of how your client achieved noteworthy results and go beyond your part in the enterprise so readers feel they could duplicate your client’s efforts. Or you could use brief excerpts from case studies to illustrate points in your book. That tactic could also work for business proposals.
6. Webinars & Speaking Opportunities
You can also use the information from your case studies in seminars and webinars to provide concrete examples of how prospects can solve problems or accomplish objectives with your product/service. Ask the customer highlighted in the case study to participate in order to further that third-party endorsement factor. You can book speaking engagements for your customer in which they describe how you helped them as part of their presentation.
7. Create Video or Podcast Versions
Since many people prefer video or podcasts to the written word, it’s a good idea to offer at least some of your success stories in these forms. E.g., global driver risk management company Lytx provides video case studies in addition to written descriptions and transcripts. If you’ll be presenting the case study in different media formats, try to capture as much as you can at one time so that you don’t inconvenience clients.
8. Promote the Study via Social Media
You can also use your social media channels as another way to promote the case study by including a link to the piece. The trick here is to post copy that encourages your target audience to click through to the actual case study. e.g., you could write a tweet that describes the challenge your customer faced, the goal accomplished, or even a series of tweets that highlight those different facets. What you post will depend on the channel and your audience, but a general rule would be to include figures from the case study such as “an increase of 120%” or “11% conversion rate.”
Since LinkedIn is primarily a business-focused social platform, it’s prime a place for promoting your case study. You can rework the text to accommodate LinkedIn Publisher, and add it to your list of publications. Also you can share it in relevant LinkedIn Group, but take care to avoid blatant promotion. Frame it as sharing useful information, encouraging a discussion or furthering a discussion.
9. Pitch it to Trade Publications
If your client is willing to be interviewed by the media, you can also use information from the case study to pitch appropriate media and bloggers. Some outlets will make your story part of a larger piece, others will write about the enterprise from another angle, and a few may use actual case studies (though in those last cases, you’ll need to determine whether they want exclusive rights to the piece, want to publish it first or have some other restrictions or conditions).
Conclusion
What will make promoting and repurposing case studies more effective is if you can make this a win-win for you and your client. Your clients are likely to love receiving recognition, so that’s an obvious benefit of sharing their success story but it’s also great if they can get other benefits such as expanding their network or establishing them as thought leaders. So, while you’re thinking about how to use the case study to benefit your business, take a moment to think about how you might be able to help them as well. Who knows, as word gets around, you may find even more clients becoming willing to be case study subjects (a win-win-win)!
