Transforming Your Testimonials into Powerful B2B Case Studies

In any marketing, the success stories of your prior clients can make a particularly large impact on your marketing efforts… more so than pure statistics typically do. This is because client accounts help provide a sense of authenticity to the claims your marketing makes. Hence, precisely why client testimonials are so impactful. 

On top of that, there’s no denying that their impacts can be amplified by expanding them into full-blown case studies. Let’s go over how you can do so for your business’ benefit from start to finish… obtaining a testimonial, acquiring permission to expound upon it, and crafting an account that aligns with best practices.

To start, let’s review the various benefits that B2B case studies provide to those who utilize them.

How Can a Case Study Help Promote My Business?

The benefits of producing case studies are numerous and significant:

A good case study can cement your reputation as a credible and trustworthy provider.
By demonstrating your past success and naming the names of those involved, you show that you are accountable for what you say. After all, if a prospect is so inclined, your claims are easy to fact-check.

A case study provides practical evidence of how effective your services actually are.
Dipping into a bit of B2C advice here, a study by Forrester indicated that the two most trusted voices when it came to marketing were perceived peers/colleagues and objective third-party analysts, whereas vendor salespeople were the least inherently trusted. A case study (even coming from your business) is seen more as coming from the voice of your client as they share the experience they had with you.

Leads can be accelerated through the buyer’s journey to encourage sales.
Sometimes, a case study can be all it takes to help push that final decision to make a purchase, simply by showing what a prospective buyer can expect from their investment. By taking someone interested in learning more and providing that knowledge, you set a positive expectation in their mind.

Case studies can provide search engine-friendly content.
Perhaps the most natural place to find common SEO keywords and direct answers to popular questions, a case study can serve as a great magnet for search engine crawlers… particularly if you also share the testimonials that inspired the case study, ideally in multiple formats.

How to Turn a Testimonial into an Impactful Case Study

First and foremost, you must be sure your topic holds enough weight to be convincing.
When a client gives you a testimonial, consider how engaging their story inherently is. Can they provide you with both qualitative and quantitative praise, not only expounding on the relief or confidence your services inspired, but giving cold, hard, statistical evidence of the benefits they saw?

It also helps to identify clients with different challenges from one another to highlight. This not only assists you in diversifying the services you’re promoting, but it also helps reinforce your flexibility as a provider and makes all your case studies more influential. After all, who wants to read the same story told multiple ways with slightly different cast members?

Second, just as you would when collecting a testimonial, you need to ask permission whenever you want to compose a case study.
The core of a successful case study is the fact that it comes from an outside perspective, which means you need a client’s buy-in to share their story. This makes it essential that you obtain permission to share each story, as well as permission to share their names and experiences.

To do so, you need to—thirdly—share some critical information with your contacts:

• The process that you will follow to create the case study itself.
• The intention of the case study, as far as what you plan for it to cover and the project you want to describe.
• How you’ll use the case study to market your services, and what means you will use to distribute it.
• Sample questions they can expect you to ask so that they are prepared to give them ahead of time.
• The availability for your client to approve the final product prior to distribution, to confirm details.
• The mutual marketing benefits you can both enjoy as a result of these case studies.

Once These Steps are Complete, You’re Ready to Craft a Case Study that is Engaging and Persuasive

Of course, there are numerous considerations to make here, because you want your case study to be as compelling and influential as possible. This means you also need to employ good storytelling practices while leaning on the data that supports your position.

How to Draw Readers in With Your Case Study

The idea is to tell your client’s story, structuring things to match a pretty standard narrative arc. Therefore, after introducing your case study’s main character—your client—you can send them on a bit of a hero’s journey, describing the challenges and obstacles they faced before you came in and assisted them. Wrap up with some quantifiable outcomes, and suddenly, you have a roadmap of another business’ relatable experience to give to your prospects. Bonus points if you can add direct quotes from your client or visual elements in the design, as these not only make the case study more compelling but also reinforce the reliability of what you have to say. 

How to Convince and Convert Through a Case Study

Of course, you could tell a fantastic story that ultimately doesn’t convince anyone of anything other than the fact that you are, in fact, capable of telling a fantastic story.

You also need to give evidence that you can address the problems your audience is likely experiencing in a highly effective way. 

Incorporating specific details like the challenges you helped a client resolve, how you did so, and the quantifiable results your client has seen since, will provide verifiable evidence that your services have made a difference… which, of course, suggests they can again. Make sure that your different case studies cover a range of industries, challenges, and services to demonstrate the scope of your expertise, and commit to producing new ones regularly to show evidence of your ongoing efforts.

Don’t be afraid to branch out into different formats, too. A case study doesn’t have to be written down—it can easily work in video form, which adds the benefit of attracting a more diverse audience as well.

Perhaps most importantly, make sure you keep focus on how working with you made your client’s life better. That’s the real power of a case study, as it provides perhaps the most compelling evidence of why someone should work with you.

Testimonials are Great, But They’re Better When Evolved into a Case Study

Don’t miss out on the impact these stories can have on your marketing efforts if properly shared with your audience!

If you’d like to learn more about what a case study can do for you, we’re here to help you embrace them. We can help you put together the assets to boost your business’ impression on its prospects… just reach out to us at 888-546-4384, or visit our calendar to schedule a meeting to discuss adding a case study to your sales kit!