In the B2B space, as you know, lead gen and conversion strategies are top-of-mind. What if I told you there was a strategy that could do both?
Enter case studies. If you gate them with a lead capture form, you generate leads. If you put them in front of a lead that is almost ready to convert, a case study is the strongest way to turn a lead into a client.
In this article, I will be talking about case studies as a service to delight your B2B clients. If you want to learn more about creating case studies for your actual agency, I highly recommend this article.
As the founder of The Campfire Circle, an agency that grows agencies, every time I work with an agency that has B2B clients, I train and help them by offering writing case studies as a service. They’re just that effective.
Whether you don’t currently offer case studies as a service or you wish your case study crafting were stronger, this post will equip you with everything you need to know.
Offer B2B Case Study Services
To understand just how crucial case studies are for B2B, reflect briefly on the target audience and their behavior:
- These days, when consumers make a purchase decision, they rely on social proof.
- Before purchasing from a B2B brand, consumers want to see that brand’s work in action.
- Then there is the fact that a lot of times, a consumer is close to purchasing, but a business is having trouble getting them over the ten-yard line to convert.
- Last, think about pain points. A B2B brand’s target audience experiences similar pain points and wants validation that a business can solve its pain points.
All of these nuances that make up a B2B brand’s target audience can ALL be solved with case studies. So to set your clients up for success, you need to bring your best efforts and understanding to the table because there is no stronger tactic than case studies.
My Favorite Case Study Resource
I’m obsessed with industry reports and hit gold with a recent report on the state of case studies.
This case study trends and insights report covers how B2B SaaS companies are leveraging case studies. And though niche, the report has great takeaways pertaining to case studies that I can’t ignore.
SaaS marketers ranked case studies the #1 most effective marketing tactic to increase sales—ahead of the general website content, SEO, blog posts, social media, and other tested tactics. It even dives into the effectiveness of case studies, complete with best practices to get great results.
In terms of how businesses are using case studies, I love the data from this report.
I’ve been in B2B marketing for a long time, and I was even surprised at the data in this report. But I promise you if you read the report or the rest of this post, you’ll realize that case studies are the jam for your agency’s clients…
Promoting Case Studies as a Service
If you don’t already offer case study creation, it’s clear that you probably should.
The best way to promote any new service starts with a lead magnet you use as your hub. Meaning all of your promotion efforts lead to a specific landing page with a resource that a target audience fills in a form with their email address to access your resource. So you generate leads that can be nurtured while establishing expertise and awareness for your new service.
Once you’ve created your lead magnet, there are a plethora of ways to promote it impactfully. My favorite strategies that I use are:
- Email to all clients and leads to upsell and gain more clients
- Partner with relevant thought leaders and ask them to share your case study lead magnet with their audience
- Add a blurb on your homepage that you now offer case studies as a service
- Gain a testimonial about how you rock at case studies and leverage that in paid ads on social
- Identify publications that your target audience subscribes to and partner with them for a spot in their newsletter or even an email blast
- Write thought leadership blog posts on case studies and pitch them as guest posts in like-minded publications
With all of these strategies, it’s a good idea to emphasize that case studies are the number one marketing tactic for B2B brands. And, of course, you’ll want to cite a reputable source for this fact.
Promoting Your Clients’ Case Studies
For the most part, clients that you create case studies for will not want you just to create it, they’ll likely want your help promoting it.
Here are case study promotion strategies that work for me:
- Guest posts about the theme of the case study linking to the case study in a non-salesy way
- Email is king, in my opinion, so any contacts you have or even purchasing an email list
- Paid social ads with blurbs extracted from your case study
- Surely you network, so revisit your contacts and ask them to share the case study on their channels
- Feature it on the homepage of your client’s website
Just be sure to track your efforts and use trackable links like Bitly.
Brand to Participation In Case Studies
When it comes to case studies, the most common pain point is getting brands to participate in your clients’ case studies. But I’ve been doing this for so long that I have found ways around it.
Start by having your client curate and send you a list of their happiest customers with their email addresses.
Next, you need an incentive. It doesn’t have to be huge, but it needs to be worth their time. I’ve done well with $50 Amazon gift cards.
Then you email the list of happy customers a friendly message telling them that you’re developing case studies for your client and that you understand that they are very busy so you’re offering them an incentive to participate in the case study.
I found that it’s helpful if you give the customer the choice to participate in the case study either in a phone interview or an email interview.
Case Study Best Practices
Haven’t written a fantastic case study as of yet? No problem, here are the essential steps:
- Start by introducing your client’s brand
- Make your client the hero of the story
- Explain the goals and objectives of your client’s relationship with their customer
- Describe the products or services that made an impact
- Share the results of your client’s services and impacts on their customer’s brand
- Add some visuals like charts
Case Studies Are Crucial
After reading this post, I hope you love case studies as much as I do. I also hope that this post was insightful and helps you with your own case study efforts.
Case studies are crucial for B2B companies to convince their audience that what they are offering has worked for other companies just like theirs.
If time is of the essence, you can get help from agencies like Uplift Content that specialize in case study writing.
And I can’t stress enough that offering an incentive for companies to participate in a case study is a game changer.
Do you have any questions about case study best practices? I’d love to answer all of your questions in the comments below!
