Use a Case Study to Demonstrate Excellence through the Words and Eyes of Satisfied Clients and Boost Sales
Tuesday, October 27, 2009**************************************
Save $$$ on case studies for your biz when you buy 2--now thru Nov. 18, 2009. Click this link for details.
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Case studies can be a powerful sales tool for any business, but especially for service businesses and custom-order businesses in which it is difficult to provide samples or demonstrations. A case study highlights the best qualities of your product or service as seen through the eyes of a satisfied customer. It can help you to overcome objections from prospects by demonstrating how the issue is dealt with or really not an issue at all.
While a testimonial lends credibility to your company, service or product, a case study is much, much more. A case study is a detailed account of how your company serviced a customer with excellence and provided a satisfying customer experience. It can also demonstrate how you interact with customers and how you go above and beyond expectations.
Concerns and objections often raised by customers can also be dealt with in a case study and sometimes eliminate the concern up front. To do that, relate how the customer was concerned about something the beginning and how your company dealt with it or why it turned out not to be an issue after all.
While you can certainly write a case study yourself, hiring a professional writer is often a better way to go. Your case study should revolve around interviews with the customer. Interviewing can be challenging and often uncomfortable if you haven’t done them before. However, a professional writer knows what questions to ask and how to elicit better responses from the people being interviewed.
Your case study should start with a headline and lead that gets your prospect interested in reading further. Write your case study with a combination of good storytelling and effective sales techniques so your prospects see the advantages of hiring your company or using your products. A professional case study writer knows how to apply those techniques effectively and write a case study that is interesting, appealing and informative.
Conducting interviews and writing a case study can take a lot of time and distract you from other important tasks. Hiring a writer frees you to do what you do best, while getting a more effective case study written.
Whether you hire a professional to write your case study or decide to do it yourself, publish your case study in a way that is attractive to customers and easy to use. Popular formats are full-color 8 ½ x 11-inch brochures, a glossy one-sheet format, PDF format for downloading off a web site, Flash presentations, and as a static web page. Sometimes a case study can be formatted as a press release for distribution to media outlets both online and offline.
After publishing the case study, verify that sales reps are sharing them with customers to make sure they’re being put to use. Don’t forget to put a teaser and link to the case study in a prominent location on the home page of your web site. Monitor online viewing and downloading.
NEXT STEPS:
Review a report on how Washington Correctional Industries uses case studies I wrote to promote their company and head-off serious objections about their workforce: http://www.fikopy.com/case-studies/CI-case%20study.pdf.
Take a look at several case studies I’ve written for other clients:
- http://fikopy.com/Portfolio/Fike-HRS_Case_Study.pdf
- http://fikopy.com/Portfolio/Fike-TCE_Case_Study.pdf
Washington Correctional Industries case studies
E-mail or call me to talk about getting a case study done for your company: john@fikopy.com 419-371-2302
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Save $$$ on case studies for your biz when you buy 2--now thru Nov. 18, 2009. Click this link for details.
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Labels: Case Studies, Case Study, Content, Marketing, Writer, writing
posted by John E Fike @ 10:51 AM,
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