According to a Cincinnati-based digital marketing agency, 54% of marketers today consider case studies, in addition to articles, as their primary and most effective form of marketing, and more than 90% of clients Prospects say that reviews from outsiders inevitably influence their buying decision.
So what makes case studies so indispensable for a business, particularly SMEs? Let’s find out:
Provide real-life examples of your company’s problem-solving capabilities.
Well, let’s get one thing straight. How long will you keep screaming about who you are and what you do as a company? It has all its products, services and its benefits well presented and described. Penalty fee! But this won’t get you very far. Your potential customers expect to see real life examples of your business, how you have solved the problems of various customers before they finally convince themselves to use your product or hire your service.
Highlight positive customer experiences.
Lately, there has been a growing understanding among a wide range of industries of the importance of conducting case studies in their respective functional areas. These industries view case studies as a reliable tool for collecting and presenting a narrative that involves positive customer experiences. Such stories create a pathway to build business credibility, drive traffic, and achieve conversions by sharing customer feedback and words of recommendation. Ultimately, case studies go a long way toward building trust in your brand.
Important tool amid growing competition
Furthermore, with competition in the business world gaining momentum with each passing day, small and medium-sized companies feel the need to work twice as hard as large companies to keep their heads above water. So things like case studies start to become important. Such personal accounts of challenges overcome and milestones achieved with your business as a catalyst, provide a solid reason for customers looking for a reliable product or service to focus on you.
Help showcase success stories about achieving results
Case studies help build credibility by showing your company’s ability to provide answers to the problems your customers bring to the table. Positive and powerful testimonials from new or repeat customers can be used to demonstrate how successfully you have implemented your product and / or service and achieved results on time. In other words, potential customers are more interested in learning how you actually solve problems rather than just hearing you talk about it.
An affordable medium for small businesses
What’s encouraging to know is that case studies are affordable for small businesses and there is more than one way to benefit from using them. They can be placed on a website in the form of a simple but effective video, blog, PDF, newsletter, or infographic. What you have at your disposal is an inexpensive way to highlight the challenges you help your customers overcome, as well as the approach you take in different situations, guided by your clearly defined business goals.
Provides space for learning and improvement
In the process, you learn a lot about your business, things that you did not know before. This is because case studies help you look at your business from the customers’ perspective, which in turn is determined by how they view your product or service. From here comes the opportunity to further improve your business by getting better ideas from customers. This, in turn, increases your bottom line.