I love case studies, and so do potential customers. In my offline portfolio I have several case studies that I walk prospects through so they can see exactly how I can help businesses with their blogging and social media. Case studies are powerful because they allow the customer to visualise the success you bring easily, and it makes you memorable. You have a blog and you share content on your Facebook page, Twitter account, and the next step is to convert some of those fans to customers without going all scary-sales on them. That’s where the good ol’ case study on your blog comes in.
Why bother creating and publishing case studies?
There are several good reasons why case studies should be part of your business marketing, whether online or offline
They:
- give you something to tweet and FaceBook about.
- Keeps you at the front of people’s minds.
- Allows you to try tools in a deeper way than you might have otherwise
- Helps to educate you – you might learn a better way to do things
- Helps to educate your readers and make it easy for them to refer to you
- Gives your blog stickiness
- Allows you to show transparency, which means you can build trust
- Forces you to put your ALL into it, from start to finish so you can report the amazing, successful, or unexpected results
- Holds you accountable – you will do what you say you’ll do
- Are a vehicle in which you can soft sell any tools or products involved, as an affiliate
- Are fun for you to research and create
- People love to read case studies
But if you are only going to be half hearted and write half a case study…. then you are better off not creating one at all.
There are some common threads of a good case study that you should know about before you start planning them.
The main point about your case study is that it has to be something that will be of interest to your readers. Not only that it should have a wow factor. A real wow and not a pretend or fake wow.
The case study should be in your niche or industry, and the niche your readers are following you in. It should not be about your shiny white van and its fuel consumption unless that is your niche. You don’t see me writing fuel consumption case studies here even though I have a shiny white van, although I may share the secret to generating 15 good leads a day with virtually no SEO on a shiny white van site.
A good case study should also have measurable results (see my case study threat in the previous paragraph). Have you ever met a person selling Aloe Vera products? They always say how great they feel and I’m very tempted to say “…And”. You can’t just tell someone how much better you feel, that’s not a real quantifiable result you need to get specific.
- I earned $$$ more in the last quarter than the 2nd quarter
- I lost 15 pounds and 6 inches in my waist
- I increased my optin list by 40%, this landing page (affiliate link) converted 27% better than that generic page
- It took me 1 hr. less time to do xx with this tool
- Drinking Aloe Vera cleared my skin up in just 2 weeks
See? Measurable.
If you are not comfortable talking cash (and I’m not) then talk percentages – business increased 5% when using xxx company.
One idea with case studies is to invite your readers to join in as well, I did this with my Pinterest case study a few months back. They can be on the same path or doing something parallel. Or it might be a good idea to tell them about the case study in advance to get them intrigued and thinking creatively. You can also build up anticipation on your Facebook Page and Twitter account – You want them to visit and read your blog again and again in order to build up the transparency and trust.
Are you sitting here shaking your head thinking you can’t do a case study in your niche? Are you wondering what to do case studies about?
Keep the factors in this post in mind, then look at tools you already own and use or have been saving for a rainy day (don’t lie and pretend you don’t have one… we all have do) and see what you can create.
Case studies are educational and informative for you and your readers but best of all they win you customers and help grow your business. All things considered, case studies are a must have on your blog if you want to win more business.
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