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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Marcia Jedd
December 2013-January 2014

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Four essentials make the case for strong case studies

Experience and proof of performance are critical factors in today’s competitive business environment. To this end, case studies provide customer success stories that tell how a product, service or solution addressed and solved a particular problem. Case studies act as powerful endorsements that go the extra mile for your sales, marketing and public relations functions.

 When professionally produced, case studies are one of the most credible ways to market your solutions. In fact, a 2012 survey by the Content Marketing Institute and Marketing Profs polled more than 1,400 business-to-business firms and found case studies were named as the second most effective form of content marketing only behind in-person events like trade shows and seminars, beating out webinars and blogs.

Nuts and bolts

A good case study includes background about the customer’s organization and tells the problems and challenges they faced before adopting your solutions. From there, the piece—packed with direct quotes and characterizing details—unfolds to demonstrate how your solution solved the problem, backed by quantifiable results.

Draw on in-house resources, your customer—the key contributor—and other external sources to tell the story. For complicated projects in industries such as manufacturing, construction or industrial markets, additional sources from other firms such as vendors or collaborators may be in order.

For example, a case study detailing a construction project may include quotes from contractors, engineers and architects. Though it’s optional to quote your own company sources, leverage your in-house experts for the background and review processes.

Case studies typically range from a few to several pages in an attractive layout with high quality, high-resolution photos and at-a-glance information in addition to the narrative text.

Here are four essentials of case studies:

Quotable is notable.  Like an article, use quotes to engage the reader; don’t just interview sources and type up your notes without attribution. Liberal use of customer and other external-source quotes in the piece will make it shine with personality.

Metrics matter. In addition to presenting the customer’s problem and how your solution was applied, don’t forget to include specific results. Showcase the results with dollar savings, streamlined processes, time to achieve ROI and other statistics or data related to the “before” and “after” picture. Was paperwork reduced, time or labor saved? If the customer doesn’t have precise figures, use estimates.

Layout, call-outs and sidebars. Don’t get stuck in rigid formats or set lengths but do keep the design of your case studies consistent with your brand personality, logos and taglines. Use bullets or call-out sections up front to summarize key problems solved, the solution and results. For complex cases, you can even list the project team. In the text, use subheads to advance the narrative. Always include photos or other artwork such as renderings or flow charts.

Doing the paperwork. Fact-checking and reviews are critical. Once your company has reviewed the draft of the case study prior to layout, route it to external sources for corrections and approvals in layout form. As appropriate, route to contributors’ communication or public relations departments. Sources can also sign off on a permissions release to ensure the case study can be marketed and re-purposed.

 Bonus tip: depending on the scope of the permissions granted, you can repurpose customer  quotes from the case study elsewhere in your marketing materials or website as testimonials.

Marketing your work

In addition to creating powerful content that can be posted directly on your website, referenced in social media or used in print, digital or multi-media form at live events and presentations, case studies work hard to serve sales and public relations. Case studies benefit the sales side by acting as in-depth customer references and can be included directly with a response to a request for proposal.

One way to win press coverage (also known as earned media) is to send the case study to relevant industry publications. Many trade journals are hungry for content and will run the piece as is or have their staff customize the content for their publication.

Finally, case studies offer a plethora of re-purposing opportunities with rich ready-made content. Don’t just list case studies on your website; include a summary next to the download. Over time, you can build a database of case studies by category.

Create blogs, social media posts and other content based on information in the piece. Larger projects may warrant video and audio components. Avoid gating your case studies (requiring sign-up to receive), which will aid search and make your company’s content and solutions more accessible.