Reinventing customer case studies – how the modern customer case study needs a shake-up for the digital and social world
Customer case studies are dead, long live the customer case study
The power of the customer voice and name has been known since the dawn of the age of commerce. One can easily imagine traders in ancient markets dropping the names of their best patrons as they consciously tried to nurture their reputation for dealing in quality goods. Patronage itself, the support of powerful backers, was the foundation stone for success in many industries.
Today, the customer case study or testimonial has become a mainstay of modern B2B marketing. The psychology is simple, and easy to comprehend. People like the safety of making a choice that someone else has already made and validated, especially if that someone else is respected and influential in some way. A testimonial reduces their perceived risk of making a particular choice and increases their emotional comfort. Whether a customer is considering whether to buy a car or sign a contract, that comfort has huge motivational value – and even more so when a buyer must justify the decision or investment to others.
Customer case studies are dead
For many years, B2B companies made efforts to gain product testimonial quotes, and interviewed customers to write ‘customer case studies’ which showcased how their product or service helped to solve a problem. So far, so good – these were powerful endorsements.
In the increasingly digital and social world of business, many people now argue that the traditional customer case study is no longer effective. Nobody will read such long-form content, they argue. The emphasis has moved on to snackable social and video bites and other forms of endorsement. Driven to some degree by the consumer marketing world, the lexicon has shifted towards social proof, which embraces customer referencing but more broadly, including customer reviews and ratings, and evidence of social engagement. The goal is often more to secure the marque or logo on the website than to reinforce the relationship. Or, it is to secure data; the value of a customer today is often seen to lie more in its Net Promoter Score than in its story.
Long live the customer case study – re-designed for digital
I don’t agree that the case study has had its day. In fact, I would argue the very opposite. Today, the potential of the customer case study is bigger than ever.
To unlock this potential, however, the old-style case study format that many companies still use needs to be consigned to the recycle bin. This focuses on three pillars: Problem – Solution – Benefit (PSB). I’ll explain the limitations of this below, as we look at the three major opportunities for case studies in the digital world.
Four new identities for the customer case study
1. Customer case study as destination
The customer case study in its traditional format appears on websites around the world, often as a web page with or without a PDF case study download available.
The ‘Customers’ zone of the website should be a rich and attractive area of content – yet it is too often where customer stories go to die. Many companies have made good efforts to change this – shifting to video testimonials, for example. Yet this alone is not enough. For companies that grumble the customer pages don’t get enough traffic, it is not only a question of enriching the content types used and making them searchable. Yes, there is often much more that they could do to optimise their website pages, and directly optimise the content. PDF documents can be (but rarely are) meta-tagged to help Google classify them. Videos in YouTube can be significantly search optimised with metadata and smart use of captioning and transcripts too. But this doesn’t get to the real root of the problem.
There is almost unlimited opportunity for a company to disseminate and proliferate links to its customer case studies and stories. They can do it via LinkedIn, Twitter and any other social platform. They can alert and link for target customers via email, and much more. They could certainly do more and more of this. But a visitor clicking that link needs to find something interesting when they get there.
The customers area of a website should be an amazing destination for potential customers seeking answers to questions, and solutions to problems or needs. Those questions, problems, and solutions are search gold – if built into the website. The content they find there at the destination can be gold too – but only if the case studies contain real value.
2. Customer case study as content source
One case study process can and should generate more than a single content output, these days – but companies often don’t set themselves up right to do this. Most think no further than a phone interview to create approved text or capturing a few minutes of a customer CEO on video. Many others think only in triage terms – if we can’t get a case study, get a quote. If we can’t get a quote, get permission to use the logo. If we can’t use the logo, get permission to ‘namedrop’.
The digital marketer’s assertion that the traditional case study is dead ignores the rich content source that is the interview base for old-style studies. The conversations and calls which are conducted to generate case studies are a hugely rich vein of content to be used in a myriad modular manner. Case study texts which contain such detail can easily be repurposed into any number of different formats for sharing, snackable items for socialising, and outputs for sales and marketing.
This potential must be unlocked from within the setup and interview stages of the case study process, however – because it is nearly impossible to creatively re-use stiff, factual case studies of the ‘PBS’ variety.
You can’t add in detail you never captured in the first place. They must be written as rich content right from the start. It means asking the customer for more quotes that can stand alone, more statistics and factoids, and more images and rich media assets, than ever before.
3. Customer case study as social force
Social relies on the power of association. What could be closer to the trend of customer-centricity than writing your story from the customer’s perspective first? When they are well-written, customer case studies are experience-based. Including about a product or service, of course – but also the experience of the brand or service provider itself. Case studies, done well, convey all the emotional aspects that brands wish they could bring to life, and strive to do via their social channels.
Unlocking this essential emotional element is another reason to approach case studies in almost any other way than the traditional ‘problem – solution – benefit’ manner. This approach results in dull and inflexible case studies that focus purely on the rational aspects of the decision. It also encourages a conversation that is all about the product or service, instead about the very things that may have led the customer to be happy to endorse.
4. Customer case study as customer relationship tool
The traditional PSB case study may have been very useful in its day, but only for the product or service provider. Another shortcoming of the approach is that it was never designed to benefit the customer. Small wonder that it is often hard to persuade even good customers to back your brand. They gain little if all that you want to do is talk about why your brand is great, and they are grateful.
Done differently, case studies can benefit both parties and play a significant role in enhancing and adding value to the customer relationship. Selecting the customer carefully is key – find the right target, and they will be flattered and helpful from the start. However, it must be approached as much more of a partnership proposition. That means thinking about how the customer will gain from the social and PR benefits you could drive with the aid of this tool. Perhaps it is an opportunity to show the great strides they are making in their business, how they are investing to help their customers in turn or fulfilling their mission. To do that, those elements must be built into the interviewing approach, so you can incorporate it.
Make them, their mission, and their people, a real part of the story and you invest in them. It is then a far shorter step to engage with them to be a part of your wider mission and turn them into true brand advocates.
These four aspects present powerful enough reasons to redesign and refine your process of generating case studies to support your business.
If you can unleash the power of the customer voice in ways that you can fully leverage, and which give a win-win outcome for all, there is enormous value to be had.
The modern customer case study and endorsement should be a fundamental part of how modern, customer-focused B2B organisations operate. The only way to do this is to shake off old assumptions about the process, the target outcome, and the value proposition of customer case study programmes.
And finally – a few notes on the benefits
During my career I have written hundreds of case studies, developing my own methodology as I learned along the way what not only generated the best outputs, but which told the best stories. It is designed to elicit content, detail and quotes which deliver maximum flexibility for digital use and merchandising, as well as to write a persuasive story. All wrapped in a process to make the experience as effortless for everyone involved as it is possible to make it.
Good customer case studies bring so many benefits to those who create them, as they are
… stories snapped up by journalists and editors who need do little to create strong editorial content
… powerful sales tools to build confidence at critical stages of the buying cycle
… flexible fodder for websites, blogs and social platforms
… real evidence to show customers how proud you are of having their business
… attractors of enquiries from those for whom the stories and decision factors resonate
… newsletter and nurturing campaign deliverables which add real value to targets in your database
… actionable insights for product development and service management to learn more and more about what customers value
Done right, they also bring benefits to those customers who participate in them, as they:
… show the strength and sense of the choices and investment decisions they make
… communicate important messages about the customer’s business and its evolution
… give customers valuable coverage and social exposure that they can in turn exploit
How powerful are your customer voices - are they driving your business? If not, speak to us about how to make that happen.