Category: Resources

When it comes to social media and B2B marketing, it’s no longer a case of asking “Is it worthwhile?” Social platforms have proved to be an effective B2B marketing channels time and time again.

As recently as this year, Elliot Schimel, CEO of Mission Control Marketing, partnered with Researchscape to survey executives and found that 83 percent of executives use social media in their decision making, and 92 percent of that segment said social media influenced a purchasing decision within the last year.

The question to ask, then, is how B2B marketers should use social media in the years ahead. That’s the question we’ll answer here today by focusing on four things customers will expect from B2B brands on social media next year and beyond.

Chatbots on Facebook and Other Platforms

Maruti Techlabs don’t beat around the bush when they say that AI in B2B sales and marketing will transform the way buyers interact with brands.

For one thing, AI-powered chatbots can be used as a 24/7 customer service assistant on social channels to answer any and all questions. But more than this, AI can also be used to collect data gathered through these channels, thereby enabling B2B marketing teams to develop curated content or offers.

It will eventually get to the point where chatbots are the first point of contact for a prospective customer. In fact, digital marketing strategist Ross Simmonds believes chatbots can be used at almost every stage of the B2B sales journey. This will include:

• Lead qualification. Bots are already being used to gain insights into potential buyers.
• Scheduling meetings. Bots can integrate with calendars to schedule meetings automatically.
• Lead nurturing. Once you have access to someone’s Facebook Messenger inbox, you can get in touch with them instantly.

Simmonds goes as far as to say chatbots have the potential to be bigger than email automation. And best of all, every B2B company can get started with chatbots today. That’s why Larry Kim, founder of Wordstream, calls them one of the best emerging B2B marketing opportunities.

Embedded AR and VR Experiences

The opportunity for B2B firms to benefit from growing augmented reality and virtual reality technology is huge. And as the products become more mainstream, customers are going to be expecting to see B2B companies integrating the technology into their feeds.

As Sheila Kloefkorn points out, all of the major social networks are already investing in some form of AR or VR technology. Snapchat and Instagram have already implemented AR in the form of face filters — and major B2C brands are already using those to promote their products. Mitch Mathern, marketing account manager at Schubert B2B, points to Ikea and their Place app as one of the companies leading the charge, and makes clear that there will be plenty of opportunities for B2B companies, too.

Given that AR is almost always camera-based and that smartphone use continues to increase, augmented reality will likely become both easier for B2B brands to implement and more popular for consumers. Bob Dearsley, CEO of the B2B Marketing Lab, lists several ways that B2B companies can benefit from the technology:

• Product placement. Companies can preview what new equipment will look like in their office before purchasing and without leaving a social media app.
• Virtual tours. Customers no longer have to visit your office or facility if they want to inspect your product. AR and VR makes this possible from a social platform.
• Virtual meetings. Cross-country or cross-globe business meetings can become instantly easier rather than relying on Slack and other messaging apps.

As augmented reality in social media content and in ads become more commonplace, customers will start to expect it rather than see it as a novelty.

Influencer Marketing

B2C companies lean heavily on social influencers to promote their products. But the same can’t be said of B2B companies … yet.

According to Brian Solis, author of the Altimeter Group’s Influencer 2.0 report, only 4 percent of B2B marketers have any kind of influencer marketing programs. Meanwhile, half of B2C firms have one. Almost half of B2Bs admit they are still in the experimental stage.

Richard Wong, VP of marketing at #paid, points to research that suggests the vast majority (87 percent) of B2B buyers give more credence to content created by industry influencers. There’s clearly a demand for this kind of content but, as Wong points out, the tools available to marketers are almost exclusively positioned for consumer-facing companies and not other industries.

This may all change, however, as a new wave of B2B influencers comes to the fore. Kristina Libby, a professor at the University of Florida, that while there aren’t many “cool” social influencers of the B2C-mold to promote B2B products, there are hundreds of thousands of who will become influencers in the future. That means the impact of influencer marketing in the B2B space is only going to grow in the years ahead.

What’s more, a generation of marketers who have grown up with B2C influencer marketing are taking leadership positions in companies around the world. Content marketing consultant Kate Talbot argues that having a whole generation of influencer marketing-native professionals take over leadership roles will naturally introduce the practice to the B2B realm.

Better Targeted Ads

At the start of this year, Facebook announced changes to its algorithm in a bid to focus on “more meaningful interactions.”

This led to plummeting engagement rates on any non-promoted posts from B2C and B2B pages. In essence, this was Facebook all but officially announcing they were becoming a pay-to-play platform. And for some marketers, this was a good move. Katie Newport, head of creative at Blue State Digital, explains how she sees this as an opportunity for publishers to think harder about how they target her, serving her only ads that she finds useful.

Enter programmatic ad buying.

Programmatic ad buying isn’t anything new. Nor is it that new with regard to social media. Even back in 2016, Adobe’s Monica Lay was reporting that half of all display advertising would be purchased programmatically in 2017, and a third of all display advertising would be represented by Facebook.

Ben Plomion, CMO at GumGum, points out that Facebook’s RTB exchange, FBX, is already used by huge media companies like Buzzfeed to promote content to users based on intent signals that they reveal while browsing the site.

Programmatic advertising will be much more important for B2B marketers in the years ahead as customers respond to a Facebook with more targeted ads and fewer organic promotional posts. The need to serve the right ads to the right people becomes crucial.

Shiho Hashimoto, marketing director at Insight Analysis, agrees. Not only do the majority of B2B marketers rank social media as a low-cost lead generation source, she says, but as programmatic datasets grow, more social advertising will naturally become hyper-personalized in the future.

Two years from now, it won’t be surprising for B2B companies to be carrying out Buzzfeed levels of social programmatic ad buying — and benefitting massively as a result.

 
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If any of your readership is in Europe, your website’s browsing experience has probably changed a lot in the last few months.

Instead of seamlessly accessing a website and reading its content, you’ll first have to battle your way through a barrage of popups asking you to give consent to cookies, tracking and countless other things. Fail to accept or agree to the requests, and there’s a good chance you won’t be able to access the content at all.

These kinds of experiences are played out time and time again on the web. The process of accepting or declining the terms of a cookie popup or even navigating away from a website because of them can prove irritating, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they are having an adverse effect on the way users browse online.

So, what are all the GDPR popups about? And are they really having a measurable impact on user experience and the way we browse?

Which is More Important: UX or Popups?

In the eyes of Wired’s Matt Burgess, GDPR has been a long time coming. Original data protection rules across Europe had struggled to keep pace with rapid technological changes. As companies logged the browsing habits of users at a quicker pace, any previous legislation that protected consumer data seriously slacked behind.

Cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier certainly thinks individuals “should be alarmed, both as consumers and citizens” at data collection technologies like cookies. The cause for alarm comes from an ethical concern as to whether businesses have the right to track and store private data.

Love it or hate it, GDPR makes popups a necessity. Writing for the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), Gabe Maldoff notes how pre-ticked boxes or inactivity is presumed inadequate to confer consent under the GDPR. This means any user has to actively opt in for data harvesting.

But should those opt-ins get in the way of UX? Not if UX us as important as most companies believe it to be.

Over the past two decades, UX has risen to become a key part of any web design operation. And according to Jennifer Smith, a UX consultant for Fortune 100 companies, this isn’t surprising. Smith notes how UX impacts the success of an entire organisation — so much so that every dollar spent on UX has a potential ROI of up to 500 percent. With such a high return, it’s no surprise that webmasters are concerned about UX.

For creative director Goran Paunovic, UX is necessary to quickly gain trust, keep users on site and improve brand recognition. Good UX can be the difference between users staying on site and building a relationship with your brand or leaving and never coming back.

Mabl marketing lead Mike Ciulla goes one step further, claiming “UX is everything.” What else could be more important in your company than making your customers happy, Ciulla asks.

But even if it is everything, are GDPR popups really having such an impact on UX?

Drops in Traffic and Damaged Brand Reputation

Wez Maynard at Vertical Leap points out that users bounce more frequently in the face of popups. As a result, website traffic suffers. Further, Maynard argues that popups damage brand reputations in the eyes of users.

Could GDPR and similar future regulations force companies to sacrifice their branding in the name of compliance? Or do across-the-board changes simply normalize clunky web experiences?

An answer might be emerging. Mustafa Mirreh at PerformanceIN cites one study from Mailjet that found brands in the UK and France are cutting back on paid search and retargeting campaigns. As a result, some brands are bracing for a 50-percent reduction in web traffic.

This could still be a good thing, of course. Maybe this just means that the incentives for overly aggressive advertising are disappearing. That’s the optimistic view.

The pessimistic view is that some of the traffic-driving tactics many brands rely could become obsolete.

But Not Having Popups Can Lead to an Even Worse UX

Some sites have opted out of the popup game.

Rather than add more popups to comply with GDPR, they have blocked access entirely. Mikko Hypponen, CRO of F-Secure, noted in a series of tweets how a number of sites and services are severely limiting operations in Europe or shutting their sites down to EU citizens completely. This has left many Europeans without access to their favorite sites, begging the question of which is worse: a bad user experience or no user experience whatsoever?

Context here is important. As data protection expert Brian Honan points out, these companies have had two years to get their act together to become GDPR-compliant. What do their ham-fisted solutions say about their opinion of European users?

And as Port CEO Julian Saunders notes, many of these companies blocking EU traffic still hold data on EU citizens, meaning they are still required to comply with the regulations.

In other words, blocking traffic is pointless and just delivers bad UX with no upside.

The Impact on UX May Depend on the Popup

For most brands, the question isn’t as simple as having popups vs. not having popups. There is no standard popup to appease GDPR, and different companies are taking vastly different approaches. And the truth is the way that popups are implemented could dramatically change user experience and the fortunes of companies.

Journalist Nitasha Tiku, writing for Wired, cites a study by PageFair, a SaaS company that helps publishers to handle ad blockers. PageFair gave website visitors a choice for being tracked: to only accept first party tracking or to reject all tracking unless it was strictly necessary. Only 5 percent of users accepted the first option.

Conversely, retargeting company Criterio tested a small banner at the bottom of the page that told users they consented to tracking by clicking any link on the page. Criterio didn’t provide any data, but it’s not hard to believe that the average browsing experience remained similar to the pre-GDPR experience.

Journalist Martin Brinkmann, writing on ghacks.net, also highlights two approaches to GDPR consent popups and their resulting impact on UX.

The first example he cites is USA Today, which redirects EU visitors to a walled-off version of the site. According to Brinkmann, the page loads instantly and comes without any ads or tracking. But the site comes without a menu, and you can only browse the top headlines. Depending on who you are and how you use the site, this is either a fantastic experience or a terrible one.

The Verge, Brinkmann notes, takes a different approach. There is no option of not giving consent to tracking on their website. You either accept, or you a half-page banner remains on the site for as long as you are on it. However you use the site, this is a terrible user experience.

Projects By If is currently doing some fascinating research into how popups and consent forms can impact a site’s UX. They currently list seven prototypes that show how UX can work with data consent forms to create a cohesive design that enhances the user’s experience rather than hindering it.

Safeguarding Information Can Be Good for UX

But what if privacy popups actually create a better experience in the minds of users?

According to a study by Accenture’s Robert Wollan, Rachel Barton, Masataka Ishikawa and Kevin Quiring, 87 percent of consumers think it’s “important for companies to safeguard their information.” Perhaps, then, the introduction GDPR should be welcomed as an opportunity for enterprises to forge better relationships with consumers. In the opinion of Scalefast, users are more likely to praise a company that works with them to protect their data instead of covertly storing their browsing habits.

Computer Weekly’s Mike Gillespie also thinks that GDPR regulations are a bonus for businesses. Gillespie thinks “it’s not just about confidentiality, it’s about integrity, accuracy and availability – and it’s just plain good business practice.” In this sense, UX benefits from the new legislation because the consumer is more open to engage with an honest enterprise that seeks to protect their rights on the web.

Grace Murphy from Security Intelligence points out a further benefit of compliance with GDPR for businesses. Murphy sees the potential for “stronger collaboration across business units,” which will only serve to foster a “greater sense of community and cohesiveness.” The potential result for user experience? A company that is clear in its intentions and a product that can be trusted — all while the rights of customers are protected.

The Way the Cookie Crumbles

Only one thing seems clear at this point: The impact of popups on UX divides opinions. But perhaps that actually makes complete sense.

After all, as Jennifer Derome at User Testing Blog observes, UX comes down to “how you feel.” As such, UX is ultimately a user-defined quality. Some will find comfort in the protection of popups, while others will inevitably be discomforted. Businesses can do nothing but comply with GDPR — or face fines — and only time will tell whether users are put off by the effects of this compliance.

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Content marketing got its start at least as early as 1732, when Benjamin Franklin launched Poor Richard’s Almanack to share stories, advice and helpful tips — and to promote his own printing business.

In the 18th Century, Franklin could hardly have predicted the rise of the Internet. But he may have foreseen that content marketing provides a powerful way for businesses to connect with customers. He might also have guessed that every technological change in our communication tools would lead to new ways to reach customers via content marketing.

Content marketing has undergone a major change in 20 years. In 1998, such marketing was still primarily paper-based. By 2008, digital tools like blogs, podcasts, video and webinars made up a significant portion of ongoing content marketing efforts.

Now, there’s Alexa.

Voice-activated tools like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa are quickly becoming ever more present in our lives. That presence is still a very recent change, however. Notice how the Content Marketing Institute’s Five Content Marketing Trends to Watch in 2017 makes no mention of voice-based content marketing.

Yet Alexa in particular has become a content marketing channel to be reckoned with.

Why Alexa?

Amazon’s Alexa isn’t the only voice-interactive device available, but it offers two of the most exciting opportunities for content marketing:

• The creation and use of Alexa Skills
• The ability to integrate into the user’s home life in unprecedented ways

An Alexa Skill is, essentially, an app users can download to customize their Alexa’s capabilities. Commonly used Skills include those that allow Alexa to pair with a home’s security system or lighting. Amazon currently estimates that “tens of thousands” of Skills are available for the device, and an increasing number of them are developed by specific brands.

For instance, Sahail Ashraf at Business 2 Community recently praised Ask Stubb, a Skill designed to connect users to the Stubb’s barbecue sauce brand. Users reach Ask Stubb by simply saying “ask Stubb,” followed by their question. Ask Stubb responds with expert advice on a wide range of cooking topics — and it does so in the voice of Stubb’s particular character, creating the impression of talking directly to the brand as one would to a friend or a trusted colleague.

Similarly, the Ask Purina skill offers up advice in its own sphere of expertise, which it defines broadly. When users “ask Purina” a question, they don’t have to limit their queries to pet food. The brand’s Skill can answer a wide range of questions about various dog breeds, helping users determine which pet is the right choice for their family and how best to meet their pet’s needs, according to VentureBeat’s Cosette Jarrett.

A brand’s Alexa Skill allows it to shape its brand message and personality, build connections and reach customers in a highly personalized manner. And Alexa makes it possible to integrate this approach directly into customers’ home lives in ever more intimate ways.

A Pathway to More Personal Marketing

Content marketing has entered the home for decades. Periodicals created by specific businesspeople (Poor Richard’s Almanack) or brands (like the Michelin restaurant guides or LEGO’s fan magazine) have long lived on kitchen tables.

By acting as a voice-responsive part of the home environment, Alexa takes this intimacy one step further, speaking and responding almost like a member of the family.

The “family” feeling isn’t merely sentiment. It’s fact. According to Daniel Terdiman at Fast Company, a recent Google study of 1,600 Google Home and Amazon Alexa users found that 41 percent of voice assistant users say “it feels like talking to a friend, or at least another person.” Many even respond accordingly, saying “please” and “thank you” as part of their interactions.

The study also found that users tend to put their devices wherever the family congregates: 52 percent of voice assistant owners kept the device in the living room or family room. Perhaps most surprisingly, according to Terdiman, the bedroom outscored the kitchen: 25 percent of users keep Alexa or Home where they sleep, while just 22 percent use the device where they cook or eat.

And these users don’t merely accept engagement with brands; they approve of it. More than half of the study’s participants said they wanted to hear about deals or sales from Alexa or Home. Forty-eight percent liked receiving personalized tips, and 38 percent already used their devices to seek customer service or support from various companies.

The result? “Personalization at scale,” a marketing approach that creates a one-on-one feel for each of the thousands or millions of customers that access it, according to Chitra Iyer, editor-in-chief of MarTech Advisor.

The Challenge of Scaling Voice-Based Content Marketing

Past attempts at personalization at scale haven’t always resulted in useful information for customers. In some cases, Rupa Ganatra notes at Forbes, it’s actually pushed people away, as in the common situation where browser ads recommend products that the use has already purchased.

Sometimes, too, marketing efforts will use their best guess as to customer desires based on demographic data, with occasionally off-putting results. “Traditionally, audience segmentation was done by categories such as age, gender and disposable incomes,” Dr. Janet Bastiman, chief science officer at StoryStream, tells Ganatra. “Today, retailers need to be looking at how their customers actually want to engage with them and look at what they’re interested in.”

For Bastiman, this means more ads about smart devices and computer hardware. For users engaging with Alexa or other voice assistant devices, it means focusing their attention on the Skills that are most useful or interesting to them.

Using Alexa For Content Marketing: 4 Tips for Success

Fortunately, Amazon has made it relatively easy for companies of any size to engage with customers through the company’s various voice devices. The Alexa Skills Kit, or ASK, provides the tools necessary to build customized Skills, which can be provided easily to customers through Amazon’s website.

As with any form of content marketing, Alexa can help companies get mediocre results, or it can help companies get outstanding results.

Here are a few key points to consider when launching into the Alexa content marketing sphere. These should nudge your results toward the “outstanding” side of the ledger.

1. Rethink Your Keywords

Humans use language differently when conducting text searches versus voice searches, according to Ashraf, this time writing for Locowise. For instance, a text search often boils down to basic focus words: “best burgers in Seattle” or “how much to feed 8 pound dog.”

When the same query is presented to Alexa, however, it gets longer. The user has to get the device’s attention, then phrase the query in a way that tells Alexa what is needed. Alexa has no response to “best burgers in Seattle.” To get the answer they seek, users need to be more verbose: “Alexa, tell me where to find the best burger restaurants in Seattle.”

Brands and marketers have been calibrating content to fit the short, punchy form of text keywords for some time, but the results from voice systems using these keyword algorithms can come up short. Think about how users might ask the device to access your Skill, and then how they might ask that Skill specific questions.

2. Use Your Subject-Matter Expertise

Whisky maker Johnnie Walker has developed a deep understanding not only of the processes required to make consistently enjoyable spirits, but also of how their own products fit into the wider world of whisky.

The company’s Skill, named “Johnnie Walker,” provides Alexa users with their own personal guide to whisky. Users can find bottles that fit their personal preferences or even participate in a guided tasting session.

While Johnnie Walker could have limited the Skill to a voice-based FAQ, the company instead decided to use its years of accumulated knowledge to become the kind of trusted guide that both novice and experienced whisky drinkers can trust — sharing and thus building its reputation as an expert in the field.

3. Make Existing Information Easier to Access

Many weather apps include pollen measurements, air quality indicators and other tools that allergy sufferers can use to determine how (un)comfortable they’re likely to be on any given day.

However, these tools are often buried within broader apps or websites, which can make them a pain to access. Enter Johnson & Johnson, makers of allergy medicine brand Zyrtec, which created “Your Daily AllergyCast.”

This Skill offers information about weather, pollen counts and specific allergens in response to a single question, saving users time and making them more likely to access its information. The Skill can even build a personal Allergy Impact Score, which allows users to make more informed decisions about their daily needs.

4. Above All, Be Useful

“When you can just speak to your voice device to order your shopping, renew your car insurance, or offer holiday inspiration, the balance of power for brands hangs in the balance,” Content Marketing Association consultant editor Dominic Mills notes. “This places a premium, first on brand presence, and second on utility or helpfulness.”

After all, the power of Alexa Skills as content marketing assets lies in their use. Customers who download your company’s Skill but never use it aren’t engaging with your company or brand. The more helpful a Skill is, the more likely that users will return to it again and again — and place your brand top of mind every time they do.

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Case studies offer a concrete, real-world look at how a product or service impacts a person, organization, process or event. As such, they’re prized by businesses, who prefer to buy things that already work.

But what makes a great case study? The answer is deceptively simple.

We say “deceptively” because case studies don’t appear to leave much room for creativity. The basic structure of any case study is always the same:

• Defining the problem
• Introducing the solution
• Revealing the results

But if you unpack those components just a little, you’ll see a story arc that closely mirrors Joseph Campbell’s outline for a heroic tale.

That’s the key. Great case studies tell classic, heroic stories. That’s the difference between a case study (and any B2B marketing, really) that imprints itself on our memories, and one that is quickly forgotten.

Here, we explore the science and art of creating a compelling case study that’s driven by good storytelling.

It starts where most great tales begin: With a little alcohol.

Tell Better Stories: B2B Marketers Can Learn a Lot From the B2C World

Businesses have understood the power of storytelling for years, and they’ve used it to their advantage. Budweiser’s 2014 Super Bowl ad took the top spot for popularity that year by telling the story of a puppy who makes friends with a Clydesdale.

Budweiser’s success doesn’t surprise Johns Hopkins researchers Keith Quesenberry and Michael Coolsen, who analyzed 108 Super Bowl commercials to explain Budweiser’s success in a Fall 2014 article in The Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. “People are attracted to stories,” Quesenberry tells Harrison Monarth at the Harvard Business Review, “because we’re social creatures and we relate to other people.”

Our neurology also plays a role. According to Buffer co-founder Leo Widrich, writing at Lifehacker, reading or listening to a list of bullet points activates the language-processing areas of the brain, two relatively small parts known as Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area. But that list of bullet points doesn’t travel much further: The rest of the brain is pretty quiet.

Not so when we hear stories, however. The language processing areas of the brain light up in response to a story — but so does every other part of the brain that would engage if we were actually living the story.

Tell a story about eating delicious foods or enjoying a crisp digital view, and a reader’s sensory cortex lights up.

Tell a story about zipping through traffic to deliver a perfectly timed package, and a reader’s motor cortex lights up.

Tell a story about an adorable puppy becoming best friends with a gentle horse, and our limbic system — the part of the brain that handles emotion — goes into overdrive.

The last one is particularly important, Shawn Callahan points out at Anecdote, because strong emotions tend to build stronger memories. Seeking to process and contextualize emotions, the brain builds a story around them that makes sense, and it remembers the story told.

Stories help us remember. Emotional stories stick around the longest. And an outstanding case study leverages both of these facts.

How to Weave Those Stories Into the Rigid Structure of a Case Study

Quesenberry attributes our love of stories to our need for socialization. But a case study “lives” on its own. Potential clients and customers often discover it online, with no human interaction attached.

To convey emotion, build connection and drive memory, your case study will need to stand on its own. And to do that, it needs the narrative body of a great story.

The Challenge

Every great story begins with a challenge or conflict that the hero needs to overcome. And every great case study begins the same way.

Start with the problem the customer or client faced. Robert Levin at Speak SMB offers a list of questions that can help a case study’s creator find a vivid approach to the issue:

• What is the biggest, most aggravating problem our customers have (that our offerings can solve)?
• What are one or two things we do that have the biggest impact on that big, aggravating problem?
• What does success look like when a customer uses what we offer?
• What are the top one or two things we want prospective customers to know about our product or service?

Since the challenge portion of the case study sets up the customer as the hero who will eventually slay the dragon, it’s important to avoid the same major pitfalls that make novel or movie heroes unlikeable.

For instance, avoiding making the hero too weak or helpless. Instead, demonstrate early that the customer had the skills necessary to solve this problem — critical thinking, budgeting, or passion — just not a particular solution.

The Search for a Solution

Once the hero knows what the challenge is, he or she typically sets out on a quest. The quest forms the bulk of most stories. It’s where the emotional stakes start to climb, and where readers start to identify with the hero.

In a case study, this means talking about the search for the solution, not just the solution itself. Amanda Zantal-Wiener at HubSpot recommends asking questions like:

• How did you (the customer) hear about our product or service?
• Who was involved in the decision process?
• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

The Solution

Once your hero customer knows their challenge and has journeyed to find the tools to defeat it, it’s time for the final epic battle. Or, in a case study, it’s time to discuss the solution.

In the solution stage, it’s essential to avoid a too-quick, clichéd ending. “And then we swooped in and saved the day” might summarize the end of the story, but it shouldn’t be the end of the story.

Instead, dig into the details. How easy was it to implement your company’s proposed solution? How long did it take? What did the customer do to get the solution up and running? What difficulties, if any, did they face? What advice does the customer have for anyone who might take the same path in the future?

The Results

“And then they lived happily ever after.”

In a case study, this classic ending looks less like a cozy castle and more like data, Dan Shewan writes at Wordstream.

“If possible, the data you include in your case study should directly reflect the challenges faced by your protagonist in Act I,” Shewan says. In other words, if your customer needed a way to decrease operational costs, the data should show how much those costs went down as a result of implementing your solution.

If the project isn’t particularly data-driven, Shewan recommends gathering evidence in the form of quotes, video or images — anything that shows the results at work.

The Embellishment

Every great story has vivid, memorable details that speak to the sensory, motor or emotional centers of the brain, so don’t forget to weave these into your case study, as well.

Start with a summary, Breonna Bergstrom writes at CoSchedule. In three sentences, shorten the story to the problem, solution and results. Place this executive summary at the top of the finished case study, where it can operate like a book blurb or movie trailer, enticing readers into the story.

Add vivid detail, but do so sparingly. Levin at SparkSMB recommends focusing on concrete, specific details, especially in the use of titles and quotes. “X Corp. Finds Success With Our Product Y” isn’t as vivid or compelling as “How X Corp. Doubled Its Profits” or “How X Corp Reduced Operating Costs by 15 Percent While Improving Product Quality.”

For instance, Christine Parizo recommends offering advice to prospective buyers in the form of a quote from a key person on the customer’s team. Choosing thoughtfully also allows you to set up this person as another hero in the story, further building goodwill. As Parizo notes, “Who doesn’t want to be the IT Director that saved the company thousands a month?”

Next Steps: Introduce Your Case Study to the World

You’ve stuck to the story, polished the details, and produced a compelling tale of business adversity and eventual triumph, complete with pitch-perfect quotes from key connections within your customer’s organization. You’ve succeeded!

Almost.

As Camille Rasmussen at TechValidate notes, a case study that isn’t distributed wisely isn’t any more valuable than a case study that was never written at all.

While your choices for case study distribution depend on the particular behaviors and customs within your prospective customers’ industry or industries, Devon McDonald at OpenView recommends considering popular options like email campaigns, press releases and displaying the finished case study prominently on a website or customer portal. Don’t forget to announce your case study on social media, as well.

Your story matters. Make sure the world hears it.

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