The world of enterprise technologies is a very competitive market, that’s why it’s important to leverage as many communication tools as possible to make your company stand out among the crowd. Most companies initial thought is to employ marketing and public relations efforts including ads, press releases, contributed articles and so on, but one very successful resource that often gets overlooked is the business case study.
Raising brand awareness is the most talked about reason for producing case studies, but it’s not the only reason. There are many overlooked benefits as to why companies should be producing frequent case studies and making this a best practice.
Below are three reasons that highlight why you need business case studies.
1: Internally address challenges and best practices: No matter the technology or product, every enterprise will face challenges. Business case studies can serve as a great before and after tool to help break down and analyze those challenges and the solutions employed to solve them for your IT team.
Although no customer or implementation is always the exact same, business case studies help you gain visibility on a project and see what worked and what you need to change for next time. As you approach situations and customer challenges that are similar, business case studies will allow you to compare and contrast with past implementations. From your case studies you can then build an ongoing best practice guide that your internal team can follow. This will increase your teams productivity by removing the need to start an implementation idea from scratch, saving both time and money.
2: Attract customers: There is no better selling point to prospective customers than having proof of real-world examples of challenges that your company has helped solve. Business case studies reinforce that your product/services work. This increases confidence in a prospective customer choosing between your product/service and a competitor’s.
Additionally, in cases where you are solving a very specific or unique challenge that cannot be easily fixed with a simple solution, case studies can highlight the fact that you are willing to think outside of the box to help a customer solve a problem. It can also serve as a direct proof point that you are actually able to solve your customer’s pain point.
3: Gain more exposure with the media: Case studies are a great resource to start conversations with the media, as you are offering them something rather than asking them for something. Editors have the ability to communicate your key messages to your targeted audiences.
Much like customers, editors resound with customer success stories. Editors are fact-based and case studies show real-world examples that prove your company is a key player in the marketplace. From customers your company has helped to overcoming industry challenges.
Getting a customer angle allows editors to share a tangible, results-oriented story with their readers who might be experiencing similar challenges, rather than just talking about what a product/service could do to help.