Learn Best Practices for Launching a B2B Case Study Program
Providing content for each stage of the buyer journey is vital. While early-stage content types like blogs are popular, many B2B technology companies struggle to find a hard-working asset for the consideration phase of decision-making. The answer? Case studies.
According to research from the Content Marketing Institute, 73% of B2B companies use case studies to tell their company’s story through the success and voice of their customers. What could be better than using your clients as ambassadors for your brand?
Launching a B2B content marketing case study program requires preparation, a dedicated resource and commitment to make the program succeed. After developing successful case study
programs for several clients, MSPC recommends six best practices.
6 BEST PRACTICES
for a Successful B2B Case Study Program
1. Executive buy-in
When getting a case study program off the ground, many B2B technology companies are unsure where to begin. As with any new initiative, it’s important to start at the top with buy-in from the executive leadership. Give your executive sponsor, usually a CMO or VP of marketing, a high-level overview of the program, why it’s important and how it can help your organization. Once you have their buy-in, they can help evangelize the concept higher up in the organization and with the sales team.
2. Sales team collaboration
With an executive champion in your corner, it’s important to engage with sales leadership. Your sales team is one of the key audiences for your case studies as they are the ones who will share them with clients and prospects. More than that, though, they will help you develop a pipeline of case study candidates from their customers to keep the program fresh and relevant.
3. Legal approval
Before you launch the content marketing case study program, it’s important to get your legal agreements developed and approved. For a case study to be successful, you must ensure your clients agree to be named and that they agree to follow the process through to completion. A simple agreement outlines their responsibilities as well as yours. Your legal department may have additional requirements so it’s wise to get those details worked out in advance of launching the program.
4. Sales enablement
Your sales team will also need enablement materials to help them articulate the value of the program to their clients. It’s also wise at this point to develop a document that outlines the process so that customers, sales and the case study pipeline manager are all on the same page.
5. Benefits first, technology second
A good case study isn’t about your company. It’s about how your technology helped a client solve a business challenge. Don’t expect technical writers to be able to tell your customer’s success stories. You need writers who can articulate the business benefits of your technology in a way that doesn’t come across as salesy and that puts your client front and center.
6. Where appropriate, let the clients speak for themselves
Offer your clients multiple opportunities to be featured in different ways. For privacy reasons or competitive reasons, some can’t agree to full case studies but can provide brief testimonials or quotes. Others only allow logo usage. Still others agree to be featured internally or to serve as references on conference calls with prospects.
A Defined Content Marketing Case Study Creation Process
Conduct a meeting between the writer and sales team before the actual interview with the client. It’s an opportunity for the writer to understand the background of the story, get to know details about the interviewee and learn if there are any topics that should be avoided during the interview with the customer.
After the prep call, the writer develops questions, which are shared with the sales team to make sure they are on point.
The reference manager sends the final questions to the client prior to the interview, which should be scheduled by the reference manager and should include a sales contact who is familiar to the customer.
Once the interview date arrives, it’s important that the writer:
- Makes your client feel at ease
- Is prepared to ask follow-up questions that may not be on the list to show they are interested and to enrich the story.
- Strives to get at relevant data points during the interview.
Tip: Remember to record the interview.
After the interview is complete, the reference program manager sends the interview recording to be transcribed. The transcription is the base from which the writer develops the story outline. An outline should be approved by the reference manager and then by the client or sales team to ensure that the writer has captured the story correctly.
Tip: You can pay a professional transcription service or use AI tools to transcribe your interviews.
From the approved outline, the writer begins the actual writing process. It’s important to define word counts for your success stories. Set word counts up front with the writer and stick to them. A story that’s too long may not be read. A story that’s too short may not provide enough information to be useful. Be sure the writer includes data points.
Tip: A general guideline for length is 500-700 words.
The written case study should then be edited by a professional editor and reviewed by the reference manager and sales contact before it’s shared with the client.
A Word doc draft—a clean version that addresses all edits and comments received so far in the process—is then shared with the client. Note that the review process can take time, depending on the level of review required by the client and their organization. Some smaller companies are quick to review as they don’t have as many layers of approvals. Other larger companies may take several weeks or even months to grant approvals. The reference manager must be patient but persistent to get these drafts through to final approval.
Key Customer Reference Program Roles
Reference Manager
The reference manager keeps all client references on track. This role is arguably the most important for a case study program. The reference manager functions much like a project manager, working with the sales team to nurture leads that are handed off from the pipeline manager, interacting regularly with the clients to explain the customer reference program and ensuring all of the stories are moving through the process in a timely manner.
Pipeline Manager
To be truly effective, a content marketing case study program needs a pipeline manager who can be a conduit between the sales team and the in-house content creation team or agency partner. The pipeline manager ensures advocates for the case study program, works with the sales team to identify the right clients, answers any questions they might have and then hands the appropriate clients off for content development.
A Hard-Working Success Story Design Template
A well-written case study that uses data points and showcases the client’s voice is important for your B2B tech company, but the story falls flat if the design lacks the proper “oomph” to make the content stand out. This is where some of the principles of magazine design can be an asset.
Your case study template should include multiple entry points to help the reader navigate through the story.
A large stat can highlight how much time or money a customer saved using your software.
Pull quotes from the client interview get readers engaged in the content. Make sure they are large, so they pop off the page.
Visuals should also help tell the story. A photo of your client is a great way to showcase their involvement and make them the star of the story.
Graphic elements including infographics, charts and graphs showcase strong results of a success story.
Final review process
Once your case study is laid out by your content marketing agency designer or your company’s graphic designer, the design should be reviewed by your agency or in-house editorial team. Another read-through of the text is important to catch any lingering typos, widows, orphans, etc.
After the story is polished, it’s ready to be sent back to the client for their final approvals.
Tip: At this point, a PDF is recommended as a more final format, as most clients are less likely to suggest changes that aren’t crucial if they view a PDF, as opposed to a more easily editable file.
Website and Distribution Plan
Make sure your website is SEO optimized and that each of your success stories has metadata to make them highly discoverable by Google. On the website, include enough information to make each story crawlable by Google.
But don’t rely solely on organic search. Make sure your distribution and amplification plan includes email and social media. X and LinkedIn are popular B2B social media platforms. Paid amplification can also be employed to enhance the visibility of your case studies online to specific audiences.
Finally, it’s wise to provide templated sales enablement decks that include a synopsis of each story and its data points, any client quotes, prepared tweets and LinkedIn posts, etc. This gives the sales team the tools they need to spread the word about your company’s successes.
Build Your Own or Tap an Agency
Many B2B tech companies have well-established teams that can handle the client reference program from start to finish. Others tap a content marketing agency with case study development and management experience to handle all of the editing, writer management reference manager and pipeline work.
MSPC has worked with several B2B tech companies to start, manage and improve their customer reference programs. We’d love to help you, too.
About Us
An award winning content marketing agency based in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, MSPC partners with leading technology brands to reach business audiences by creating and delivering relevant, informative content to their readers.
Regardless of the audience, MSPC develops and delivers vibrant storytelling that is informative, compelling and impactful.
We hope this e-book sparks conversations within your team to better serve your content marketing strategies, planning and execution.
Experiences that stand out.
Content that enriches.
At MSPC, we use data-driven insights to plan, design and scale your content marketing program.
Built with Shorthand