How do you leverage customer testimonials and case studies in your B2B software product marketing efforts?
Customer testimonials and case studies are great ways to build credibility with your prospects.
When working on testimonials make sure there is enough context about the use-case as they allow your prospects to see themselves in your current customer's shoes. Often product marketers fall in the trap of just talking about product benefits in a customer testimonial - make sure you don't do that also allow your customers to articulate their motivations, challenges, and use-cases.
Case studies will typically have a standard format depending on your place of work. So there might not be a lot of room to deviate from that. However, keep in mind that in addition to performance metrics, good anecdotes or qualitative insights are necessary to make a case study memorable.
And finally check out Slack's "So yeah, we tried Slack" video case study. It is such a fresh take on case studies - humorous and engaging, while conveying all the benefits of Slack.
Once you get a good customer testimonial or case study, you should consider leveraging it in different assets to maximize visibility. For example, I've used a single case study in:
Blog posts
Sidebars of solution briefs, white papers, and ebooks
Social posts
Sales collateral (slides)
Email campaigns (nurture streams, newsletters, etc)
Web pages - you can have a "featured Resources" section at the bottom of crucial web pages and point to additional content to feed a prospect further into the funnel.
One of my teammates has also used the interview to create short social videos.
Let's be honest; People don't trust what we say about how good we are.
They need a 3rd party to validate it.
They need a 3rd party to validate that they are not "crazy" and others already made the decision they are considering - people need social proof.
So, it is a matter of building reputation, trust, and confidence.
The best testimonials are the ones that are not on your own website. It is better if they see it on a review site or similar. Because they know that in our website everything is tailored, so kind of artificial.
One way is to reference those external reviews on your website and link to them.
Remember, the customer knows they are being sold, so they will always want more external proof points that they are making the right decision.
Case Studies
This goes beyond the testimonial, and usually, they read it when already investing in a more detailed discovery of the product - they want to understand the real implementation and impact, and they want the story.
This should always be available, but you can direct prospects here in the consideration phase.
Make sure you make the content attractive - storytelling, video, and audio are great for a more lively and "real" experience. But some people also need to see numbers/data, so make sure you add that.
Use photos of real customers to make it more real and relatable.
If you do or participate in events, invite your customers to present a case-study with you. The event organizers love this (vs. sales pitch), and Customers love to feel important when they are on stage ;)
Overall, think of how you can make your marketing more like Customer-to-Prospect; you are enabling and bringing them together.
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