Why You Should Use Case Studies In Your Marketing Efforts
Chances are, you’ve read at least one review or asked your friends about their experiences before buying a new product. That’s because we trust our peers and often look to them for input about their preferred brands before making a decision.
It’s no different in the business world. Business owners would be remiss to not look to their peers before making a purchase decision; if they didn’t, they would risk having a bad customer experience or wasting their precious time and money.
Enter the case study.
Case studies have been part of successful inbound marketing strategies for years. They’re one of the best marketing tools in your wheelhouse. In fact, case studies rank in the top five Best Performing Content Marketing Formats in a 2024 Content Marketing Statistics report from Forbes
Developing case studies is one of the most effective ways to promote your own business, showing your potential customers the social proof of what you've already done for businesses just like theirs.
When done well, case studies offer many benefits to a growing business, including an enhanced reputation — and more quality leads.
What Are Case Studies In Marketing?
At its core, a case study is a story about how a business achieved success in a specific, real-world application. It’s a great way to momentarily pivot away from telling your customer about what you do to showcasing what you’ve actually accomplished.
When you invest in telling this type of story, you’re proving how your company helped a client boost their bottom line. As any story does, it follows a plot — which includes a conflict, explanation, and solution that your company designed, executed, and reported upon with key metrics.
When potential customers read your case studies, they get to know not only your happy customers on a deeper level, but also your business — and the core values that drive its operations. Reviewing a case study allows them to find answers to important questions they may have about your process, strategy, effectiveness, and brand experience. All of this intel helps your target customers make informed decisions – and build trust.
Types of Case Studies
There are several types of case studies a marketer should consider developing, including the following:
Third-person case studies tell the story of a client’s experience and often include quotes.
Exploratory case studies illustrate the impact of a phenomenon, such as when a new strategy boosted sales by 15% YoY.
Implementation case studies, like a third-person case study, also take a look at a specific effective solution, but focus more on details around how it was used — and the outcomes that were driven.
What Are The Benefits Of Using Case Studies?
A well-written case study enables a reader to experience the customer journey from start to finish — and understand how your end-to-end process will potentially help them meet their unique goals. Further, case studies often feature authentic quotes from the featured client, allowing you to elevate the messaging from self-praise to an understanding of a primary source’s perspective.
Of course, helping a customer make a buying decision isn’t the only benefit of publishing a case study. The benefits can be boundless, but here are our five favorites:
A case study is a great vehicle for publicity that allows you to build a stellar reputation as an industry leader and boost credibility. While you can publish them directly to your website, you might also consider submitting case studies to professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn to share your expertise — and position yourself as a top industry leader.
When you create a case study that features a current client’s success, you’re providing consumers with valuable information when it comes to the effectiveness of your service offerings and optimized buyer journeys.
Your sales and marketing teams will have the ability to share real success stories and have a better grasp on the difference they’re making for your company.
You get to display your success in a way that meaningfully connects with your target audience and offers insights into your business’s perceived value.
Finally, displaying this success generates more quality leads thanks to your position as an industry leader. These leads will allow you to identify business prospects and generate their qualified interest which may lead to new customers.
A How-To Guide: Creating an Effective Marketing Case Study for Your Business
Now that you know the benefits of creating a case study, you might be wondering how to get started on writing one, or creating a library of success stories to support your content marketing efforts. Creating a marketing case study that future customers want to read – and that ultimately elicits profitable action for your company is a process with several layers.
In addition to being thorough with your research method, data analysis, and dedication to problem-solving, your case study content needs to strike a balance between professionalism and approachability – simply collecting data and presenting it is not enough.
Not to mention, you’ll need to figure out where to use your case study. Would it be best on your website? In your sales material? On social media? In an ebook? Or, all of the above?
How We Can Help
At Content by Christa, we’ll help you navigate the content development process for your next set of case studies. We specialize in crafting case studies like this one that showcase your business successes and help turn readers into customers. If you’re looking to reap the benefits of developing case studies as a part of your content marketing strategy, contact us today!