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Evidence, reviews, references. People increasingly expect to do business based on evidence of success.
Why do so many specialist services organisations and marketers struggle to produce case studies that are compelling, timely?
It doesn’t matter whether you call them case studies, client credentials or stories, it all looks easy on paper.
In an perfect scenario, you deliver some fantastic work. You write up the challenge, how you solved it and the favorable effect you had on your customer. You collect testimonials, photographs and perhaps even a few movie. And then, you conserve your case research in a place where everybody can discover it.
This case study can be used to build your company’s reputation and acquire work via pitches, proposals, marketing and PR. And, If you’re lucky you’ll also have a marketing team to help you during each step of the process.
If this is the way your case study process run, then congratulations! You’ve nailed it!
Not so simple…
It’s not always smooth sailing. The fast pace of work, the way organisations are structured and human nature itself can contribute to make a storm that turns this activity into a teeth pulling on exercise together with results.
Let us unpick this from the point of view of the people on the floor.
Teams Will Need to collaborate to create the case studies that will go on to acquire the Ideal work from the Ideal customers
A project comes to a conclusion. 10 hour days the delivery team have been pulling and they’re tired. Is face the blank Word file and produce a 500+ word case study.
If they are great at what they do, they are earmarked for the next piece.
Common (and clear) answers are to procrastinate; dash out a fast piece or assign to a junior member of the group – that may lack necessary insight.
This is where case studies die a slow death. They may never see the light of day due to absence of inadequate quality burial or writing on the shared drive of a team.
Marketing team participation
Now some advertising support could be used by the shipping group. Delivery teams have a propensity to concentrate on the case study’s solution component. Marketing understands the ability of showcasing the project’s impact, and excels at writing copy that appeals to the target customer.
The marketing team is very active. Typically bidding teams who desperately need polish and to locate case studies to reach proposal deadlines that are tight.
And even these are not readily available because, well, they haven’t been discounted, are poor quality or are have been buried on the shared drive of a team.
The advertising and bid teams tackle this by sending out blanket mails (‘Does anybody have some case studies on educational software in Europe? ”) ; and digging around on fund systems and CRMs to chase the individuals from the first project.
That is all very time consuming.
A civilization where a case study is composed to someone yelling against a deadline to it is stressful.
In the worst case scenario, there is a vicious circle created where proactive case study development gets pushed down the to do list as a consequence of fighting fires.
Taking a step back and enhancing case study direction is not easy; And It may take the loss of a bid that is substantial to modify the status quo.
Assessing the case study process end to end, through publication, management and production entails looking at the shipping cycle as a whole, to identify and deal with the pain points.
Collaboration wanted
Be cautious of jumping to the ‘let’s construct a database’ solution.
It’s tempting, but it risks ignoring subtle underlying issues of time stress, lack of writing abilities, concerns about colleagues case research, and confusion about the purpose and audience of your case studies, as well as confidentiality and sign off conditions.
Teams need to collaborate to develop the case studies that will go on to acquire the work that is ideal from the customers that are ideal.
As soon as you have an adequate set of case studies, it is sensible to maximize your return on investment – hoping that your clients will see it doesn’t cut and vaguely uploading them into your website.
Think about pitching to key networking titles first — this can help enhance your SEO and raise your industry profile.
Here is a checklist for placing the best procedures in place to get those case studies completed:
The goal:
- Identify potential case studies as part of strategic business growth
- Strategy customers during the project, together with early draft review
- Make sure everyone understands their role in the procedure, and communicates well. Ideally, a person would take project ownership from the Beginning
- Aim to own case studies signed off within a month of job close
- Maximise business development activities to enhance the value of case studies, like tailoring them to specific bids, or generating press
These processes help you not only save stress and time, they permit you to raise your focus on deepening relationships with your customers, and delivering worth.
That’s a wonderful place to be.
