In the first four parts of our series on case study best practices, we looked at identifying, capturing and writing impactful stories.
But it’s not enough to merely produce a great case study, you have to be equally adept at distributing your content. Once you have a complete, approved case study, it’s critical to get it in front of as many potential customers as possible. We wrap up our series by providing several best practices for gaining visibility of your case studies.
- Website: Create a tab on your website to host case studies. This “home” for your case studies is key, as you will send people here often. These should be “live” on your website, not PDF links. Each case study should have a unique path, and you should link to that anytime you talk about the case study (social media, digital ads, etc.).
- Social Media: When you publish a new case study, feature it on each of your social media channels, tease it with copy and a photo or video and link to the full case study on your website. You can also feature existing case studies. Look for reasons to feature existing case studies (e.g., company just expanded, seasonal feature, Throwback Thursday, etc.).
- Email: Regularly email case studies to your customer and prospect databases. This can be done as a templated eblast, a personal email from salespeople or as part of a regular digital newsletter. By regularly distributing case studies, you communicate ongoing innovation and success for your business, plus share new ideas. Minimum frequency—quarterly; maximum frequency—monthly.
- Handouts: Professionally designed, printed handouts of case studies remain viable communication tools, often used at trade shows and in mailings from sales reps. The files can also be saved as PDFs and emailed to customers and prospects.
- Sales Presentations: An often-overlooked B2B tactic is integrating case studies into sales presentations. Ideally, the case study customer and topic should relate to the receiver of the presentation. In some cases, you may want a full case study, while in others you may want a slide with just a customer logo and quote or results.
- Internal Meetings: Case studies should be shared with internal staff for three reasons. First, it gives employees pride in where they work and what the brand accomplishes. Second, it helps build a culture of the kind of work the company values. And third, it gives employees stories to share in their spheres of influence.
- Graphics: Case studies can be summarized in large wall graphics/posters used at trade shows and in corporate offices to help tell a brand’s success stories.
- Public Relations: Case studies offer excellent content to pitch to industry media for story ideas. The key is to frame the case study around an industry problem or trend you helped address, which could then be of benefit to readers of the publication/website.
- Speaking Opportunities: Case studies can be turned into presentations shared at industry trade shows and symposiums. Pick your most relevant, noteworthy case study and pitch it to an industry association. Typically, pitching merely requires providing a topic, outline and speaker biography.
- Digital Advertising: Another way to drive traffic to your case studies is to tease them in digital advertising then provide a link to the case study. You can also gate the content and require a reader to give their email, thus helping you build a database.
- Boosting Social Posts: When you do post about a case study on social media, you can pay to have those posts boosted and appear to more viewers. This almost always increases traffic to content.
- Links: Whenever you electronically share case studies, be sure to link to other case studies in case the reader wants to explore more deeply.
If you missed any posts in our five-part series on case study best practices, check them out here:
Part 1: Introduction and Identifying the Right Story
Part 4: Writing the Case Study
And if you need assistance identifying, capturing, writing or distributing great stories about your brand, give us a shout. We’d love to talk about how we might be able to help you!
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