Let Your Customers Do the Talking: Creating and Leveraging Great Case Studies

Matt Volpi | Tovana Consulting, Inc.

You’re asking your customers to set out on a journey

You know where they’re heading… but they don’t

No one wants to feel like they picked the wrong route

What is Sales Doing?

Trying to get a meeting with anyone they can

What is Sales Doing?

Bringing out their entire box of tricks to see

what resonates

What is Sales Doing?

Giving demos to wow prospects with all the

great stuff your solution can do

What is Sales Doing?

Promising the moon to get the sale, hit their number

and get their commission

Your company is talking about FEATURES

Customers care how your solution will BENEFIT them

Image Credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg

B2B Customer Benefits

• Help them do something faster

• Help them do something cheaper

• Help them do more

• Help them stop doing something they don’t want to do anymore

• Help them do something new

• Help them use their resources differently

B2C Customer Benefits

• Make them happy

• Save them time

• Save them money

• Help them do something new

• Help them stop doing something they don’t want to do anymore

Prospects want to see other customers they relate to…

…and how they already succeeded at the same thing

Give them confidence they’re not alone on this journey

Finding the Sweet Spot

Benefit

Industry Company

Type

Benefit

Interest Customer

Type

B2B B2C

Preparing your interview guide

10 Interview Guide Questions

• Full name, title and responsibilities • What got them interested initially? • Were there concerns and how were they addressed? • How did they make their decision? • Who else did they have to convince? • Where did they find the money? • Did it deliver on the promised benefits? • What are the unexpected benefits/drawbacks? • What were/are the challenges? • What advice do they have for others?

Selecting case study candidates

Casting the star of your story

• Keep the Sweet Spot in mind

• Get suggestions from sales, account management and customer service

• Make sure there are no potential land mines

• Get their buy in and commitment to let you publish BEFORE you go any further

Conducting the interview

7 Interviewing Tips

• Stay conversational

• Let them go off on tangents

• Pay attention and think of follow-up questions

• Always look for the great quotes

• Dig for measurable successes and shareable stats

• Ask if there’s anyone else you should talk to

• Leave the door open for either side to follow up with more questions/information

Now you’re ready to craft a case study

Find a theme to focus on

Create a relatable narrative your prospects can relate to

Let your interview subjects be the stars of the story

Show the imperfect path taken to realize the benefit

Keep the audience of potential naysayers in mind

Image Credit: Leonardo Rizzi

Don’t forget the visuals

Celebrate your customer’s success

Get your customer to approve the final versions

Arm your salesforce and work it into their presentations

Use the raw components to create additional material

Broadcast it using all available channels

A Quick Word About Me and Tovana Consulting

• Tovana Consulting, Inc. – http://tovana.com – Providing market research, strategy & marketing/

content creation services since 2002 – Clients in a range of industries including technology,

financial services and education

• Matt Volpi – @mattvolpi – 20-years in product management and marketing – PM at (former) mobile & Internet giants

• CMGi, Nokia and Sun Microsystems

– Executive roles at two start-ups • BigBelly Solar • Modiv Media (acquired by Catalina Marketing)