CASE STUDIES PROGRAM

»	Is the full value of your solution being conveyed to prospective customers?
»	Do your prospects understand how your solution integrates into their environment?
»	Can you back up your claims with real stories that show results?

Answered no to any of these?

We can help.

ARE YOU GETTING VALUE FROM YOUR CUSTOMERS?

Do you take full advantage of your customers' successes?

Selling is hard work. It can also be a lonely job. Making phone calls, knocking on doors, sending letters, and, of course, the endless follow up, follow up, and follow up again.

Even when you find someone who seems genuinely interested in your product or service, they ask an endless string of questions and drag out the sales process for weeks or months. There are often multiple people involved in the purchase and you never know if you've met them all.

Wouldn't it be great to have some help?

Use your current customer base to help you win new business!

Every supplier of business products or services has customers who have benefited from their purchases. In many cases, these customers have achieved major gains that can be directly attributed to the supplier. The product could be anything from an electronic device to a medical instrument. The service could be IT support, management consulting or anything in between.

The point is simply that your customers have benefited by doing business with you and your firm. Take advantage of these relationships by turning the customers into advocates for what you sell.

How? Case Studies!

Case studies can reinforce and energize your message.

Many companies post customer success stories of one form or another on their websites. They go by names like "success stories", "customer profiles", "client successes" and other headings. In most instances, these are brief overviews of the situation with little factual content. They aim to show that the seller has been successful when in reality the reader wants to know about the buyer's experiences.

A genuine case study is different. It tells a story about a company and the people who purchased your product or service. The story shows how they benefited by describing before and after conditions. It provides insight into how the reader's peers have achieved success.

Buyers read case studies for the following reasons:

To learn how others solved similar problems,
To get third party validation for your claims,
To seek out new ideas and new ways of doing things,
To uncover additional benefits they may not have thought about,
To keep up with the competition or at least the industry.

A case study may focus on a narrow aspect of your product. For example, you may want to highlight ease of installation within a market segment or rapid return on investment for finance executives. Developing a set of case studies that focus on various aspects of your products and services provides the maximum sales leverage.

Get your current customers to help you sell to new ones.

Our Case Studies Program can help you leverage your installed base to land new business. We use interview and facilitation techniques that draw out the real feelings about a situation. It's not just about business. It's also about people. The people aspect creates a story that connects with the target audience.

Connecting prospects with their peers creates sales leverage!

Case studies provide the most value during the latter part of the sales cycle after prospects have demonstrated interest in your solution. A case study that the prospect relates to has immense value. The key is to make the story highly targeted and interesting with the best interests of the reader in mind.

Our approach is flexible and collaborative!

We can write a single case study or a set of studies for you. We can interview your staff and customers while writing all the content or work with material you already have. We can handle all layout and design issues or work with your designer. It's up to you!

We tailor the approach to suit your needs, schedule and budget. You'll receive a fixed time and cost proposal before we begin.

Case studies and white papers go hand in hand. For more information, read about our white paper services.

On target!

Most businesses publish some information about their customers. Often, each customer description sounds like the next. They are all alike.

Vendors expect prospects to read about a few customers just to show that real paying customers exist. Frankly, taking a look at a vendor's financial statement will quickly prove whether or not they have any customers. It takes less time and provides more information.

So why write case studies?

The simple answer is to tell a story. However, taking a lesson from the newspaper industry, the story must have a spin. The spin could be an aspect of the product or service, a vertical market that employs the solution, or a departmental organization that benefits from the offering.

As the case study becomes more targeted, it strengthens the bond with the reader. That's why it's important to have multiple case studies where they target different audiences. You can even generate multiple case studies from a single customer engagement.

Customers are a valuable asset. Get more value from yours.

DAMICON can help!