As I mentioned in my previous blog posts, content marketing is essential for B2B companies in today’s business environment. When looking for fresh content marketing ideas, case study is usually top of the list of what we recommend to our clients. For B2C companies, one of the most persuasive sources of information that consumers seek out is customer review; in the case of B2B companies, case study is just equally effective. Here let’s talk about four main benefits of using case studies for your B2B business.

Build Credibility 

The first thing a case study does is to establish your credibility. It provides evidence of how your product or service has been selected and used by real clients. The fact that you have customers who are willing to vouch for you speaks volumes about the quality of your product or service. 

Create Peer-to-Peer Influence

Another benefit of using case studies is that they represent the view of your customers and clients instead of your company. Blog posts, website, white papers, and other types of content that come directly from your marketing team are sometimes viewed as self-serving, therefore people tend to be slightly more skeptical of them. Case studies come from the mouth of the consumer, so they act as a third party endorsement of your brand and thus can better influence your target market.

Generate reusable Content 

One case study can generate a range of useful content for your content marketing such as an article, a video interview, top tips or a PowerPoint presentation. In addition, case studies make great collateral for sales. Often, working a case study in at the right time in the sales cycle can help sales members close deals. When dealing with prospects that have very specific problems or needs, if sales members have a library of case studies to pull from, they can point the prospect to the case study that most closely resembles their situation. 

Improve SEO 

Because the essence of any case study is a specific product or service a customer used to solve a problem, case studies often necessitate keywords that help websites rank higher on Google. Fresh content with keywords pertaining to your products or services often improves the website’s visibility on searches where those words are used, and the narrative structure of a case study makes it easy to incorporate keywords that boost Google rankings for specific searches.