Case studies are an essential marketing tool for B2B businesses, where purchasing decisions are often made by committees. Case studies offer social proof and real-world results to help build credibility, and they can tip the scales when customers are in the consideration phase or making final purchasing decisions.
To be competitive and demonstrate your organization’s unique value, having a well-stocked library of case studies is more important now than ever. With a broad range of case studies at your disposal, you can create personalized educational journeys relevant to your customer's industry, sector or specific organizational needs.
73% of the most successful content marketers use case studies and consider them one of the top five content assets that produce the best results, but building a successful case study pipeline can be challenging. It involves strategic planning, internal cooperation and resources to identify the right subjects and develop an outcomes-focused story. It’s time consuming and requires diligence.
As a creative partner to global sales and marketing teams, we understand these challenges and help companies pursue opportunities, develop stories and scale their case study programs. Here are some of the challenges we help B2B customers solve.
Address limited internal bandwidth
With a diverse team of creative experts, we help fill gaps and can plug in seamlessly to support your team. Our team can
Provide strategic planning support
Conduct customer interviews
Transcribe interviews
Write case studies
Design in multiple formats
Synthesize information
When developing case studies, a meeting or conversation with the customer and/or internal sales team is ideal but not always possible — nor is it mandatory. Oftentimes, it’s about creating an outcomes-focused narrative from multiple sources of information. Here are the types of communication assets that can be used and synthesized to craft client stories.
Presenter notes
Recorded calls/meetings
Interviews/testimonials
Event transcripts
Digital ad campaigns
Press releases
Questionnaires/client surveys
Once you get the ball rolling, customers will often jump on board and help flesh out the story when they realize how good your case study will make them look.
Create multiple formats
Give your sales team a full toolkit to engage with customers across various settings and channels. Leveraging multiple formats for case study delivery helps maximize the opportunity with prospects — but it can also help you capture as many stories as possible and keep your production pipeline humming along.
Standalone PDFs: Classic two-pagers are easy to share digitally and provide an opportunity to dive deep into performance breakdowns. This format is well suited for case studies focused on highly regulated industries, highly competitive sectors or complex stories.
Videos: The most popular online medium, videos can help generate engagement and interest. Over 90% of B2B customers watch videos online and nearly half of these customers are watching videos while researching products or services. On-site and remote filming options with a professional creative team can also help deliver an impactful and high-quality piece.
Presentation slides: Decks are still a primary tool for sales reps to engage with prospects who crave real-world information that is timely and relevant to their specific industry or region. Consider building a template library of case study slides. Use a design style that is easy to edit to empower other teams to quickly create their own polished, presentation-ready case studies. This can help you quickly capture additional valuable customer stories and significantly increase pipeline volume without dramatically increasing workload.
Social media posts: Once your stories are ready to share, broadcast them everywhere your audience might be. Social media is an ideal way to catch your audience’s attention and pique their interest. Standalone posts are perfect for smaller-scale case studies where you have limited information to work from. You can also extend the impact of two-pagers and video case studies by highlighting key stats or interview segments in social posts that drive views back to the main case study.
Visualize the story and outcomes
Data storytelling is one of the most effective types of B2B marketing content, but it’s not always easy to execute. Visual aids help when you need customers to quickly understand the information (e.g., benefits and potential outcomes), form an opinion and move closer to conversion. A thoughtfully designed case study that uses a smart balance of copy and visuals has a higher chance of engagement. Experts in strategic content development and design can help choreograph the content to maximize the formats chosen, from scannable, digestible collateral to more in-depth stories.
Problem-solving unexpected situations
Unique barriers can arise on the path to developing a successful case study. The most common ones we see are when customers do not want their brand or name featured in a case study, which limits our clients’ ability to showcase their services and accomplishments. While we can’t promise that a creative agency can resolve all problems, there are creative ways to get around these types of roadblocks. For organizations that do not want to be publicly recognized, we’ve collaborated with them (and legal teams) to anonymize the case study, making sure to remove all identifying details. Problems arise, and our goal is to do what’s best for our clients and their customers.
The best way to build a strong case study pipeline is to partner with an experienced B2B creative agency that understands your industry and can help create an outcomes-focused narrative with smart visuals. If you’re curious to learn more about creative sales enablement solutions, consider reaching out to our team and we can explore together.