Capitalize on Business Value of Customer Testimonials and Case Studies

Karl Meszaros

There can be no stronger endorsement of the value of your products and services than customer acclaim. While other marketing tools extol purpose, features and benefits, positive customer feedback and real-world case studies validate claims, especially if quantifiable Return On Investment (ROI) can be cited.

ADVANTAGE TO MARKETING PROGRAMS

Every marketing initiative supports the generation of sales. Some are designed to communicate features, benefits and, if applicable, technical data. Others are designed to reinforce fulfillment of customer need, establish differentiation from competitors, create market interest, and populate sales pipelines. Customer testimonials and case studies amplify messaging of all.

A constant flow of new customer success stories adds creditability to marketing communications and strengthens sales momentum. Readers and viewers (of video testimonials) learn how businesses advantageously use your products and services from irrefutable sources—customers’ executives who in some way oversee business functions affecting profitability, revenue growth and cost containment.

Easily produced for delivery in both electronic and print media, testimonials and case studies make your business value proposition more persuasive at every point in a sales cycle. They can be posted on Web sites, emailed directly to prospects, printed and enclosed with media kits and business proposals, and used by sales executives as customer backgrounders to set up reference calls that could win or lose a deal.

Business and industry media are always looking for interesting content. With permissions from your organization and the subject client, an existing case study can be picked up as is, edited down or expanded to fulfill a publishing need. In the process, free opinion- shaping, lead-generating visibility is gained for both organizations.

A properly executed case study casts your customer in the most favorable light. It identifies their business, the products and services they provide, and how their selection of your products and services contribute to their success. They invariably request to use the case study in their sales and marketing activities, which further exposes your organization’s selling points to their market space.

WHERE TO START

1. Identify and contact candidates for case studies.

Consider your business direction and how a particular customer’s story supports sales objectives. Stories about early users of new products and services help to ramp sales volume. Stories without a shelf life of one to two years, which usually involves older products, may not be worth the effort. Be aware that some of your best customers may, for various reasons, have corporate policies prohibiting participation in vendor publicity. Move on with customers who can participate.

2. Seek quantifiable ROI. The greater a prospect’s planned investment in your products and services, the more justification is needed for senior management to approve. Case studies depicting how other businesses measured financial advantages and report how they quickly recovered their investments to enhance long-term gains help immeasurably.

Ideally, before purchase or implementation, your existing customers established performance baselines for business functions that your products and services improve. They then performed measurements again as your customer after a period of time, and are able to cite quantifiable benefits. If not, all is not lost, but a case study will have a less compelling story to tell for decision makers with P/L responsibilities.

Plan B In the absence of measurable data, focus on business benefits that logically translate to higher productivity and balance sheet enhancements.

3. Choose a professional to do the case studies.

To have a customer cooperate with a case study is a fantastic opportunity. Make it a pleasurable experience for both the customer and your organization. Assign the task to a professional writer, either in-house staff or outsource, with business acumen and case study experience.

The experienced professional acting on behalf of your organization respects time constraints on the customer contact, usually an executive or higher-level middle manager. As much research as possible is done behind the scenes before the initial interview. The prepared professional needs only to ask a few questions to elicit the right information and powerful endorsement testimony. A tight first draft speeds review and approval processes. When properly managed, the entire case study requires less than an hour of the customer’s time—a minimal effort for the bounty of positive visibility gained by the customer organization and cooperating spokesperson.

BUILD A REFERENCE LIBRARY

In all likelihood, your business targets multiple vertical markets. Multiple case studies for each vertical will be sure to demonstrate expertise in the only market a prospect views important—their market. The more case studies at hand, the more options sales teams will have to convince, persuade and sell.

VIDEO TESTIMONIALS AND CASE STUDIES

Although more expensive to coordinate and execute, there is no denying the powerful impact of capturing customer testimonials on video. The visage, voice and on-screen persona of a customer spokesperson establish a pseudo face-to-face relationship with viewers. Edited sights and sound work to deliver stronger messaging from a perceived authority ideally in their business setting. The presentation is passive and easier to absorb versus requiring prospects to have to read copy.

Video testimonials have applications in corporate videos, at trade shows, on Web sites and promotional DVD. Editing allows uses as complete case studies, shorter benefits- only statements or a montage of brief customer endorsements.

The cost of video production, which can escalate with travel expenses to customer sites, is the major cost/benefit consideration. Staging production when multiple customers gather at an event, such as a users’ group conference, is one way to curtail costs.

Customers are as receptive to video as they are to print testimonial. An on-site visit occupies less than a full day of their time, which includes shooting raw footage of their business facilities to the extent permitted by corporate policy.

It’s one thing for your company to say how its products and services benefit customers, and another for customers to say so.

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