Share Your Case

Thanks to easier ways to share information, content is today’s business trend. It makes it easy for anyone to be a thought leader or idea provoker. And, in the promotional products world, our customers appreciate idea provokers. They like to see what others are doing and generate their own campaign concepts based on these ideas. It’s why case studies are an increasingly important marketing tool. But you will get no mileage and no leverage out of case studies, white papers, blogs or any other content channel unless they are properly distributed.

Part two of Promotional Consultant Today‘s case study series shares these tips for marketing and distributing your case studies.

1. Define your audiences and your objectives for the case study. You might find that you have multiple audiences, such as marketing managers from several different industries. Look at these audiences and determine how they like to receive this information.

2. Clarify your objectives for your case study. Do you want industry influencers to quote your case study? Do you simply want to share your case study as a “reason to believe” that a potential customer should do business with you? Determine your goals, as this will affect your distribution strategy.

3. Optimize your case study and your website. When writing a case study, it’s important to include specific key words in the headlines and subheads of the case study to make it more appealing to search engines. These key words should be terms that your audience would type into a Google search box. This will make your case study more searchable.

4. Establish a resource page on your website where you can house case studies and other reference materials. From this page you can create a separate landing page for the case study so it will not only be optimized for search engines to get found, but also offer a direct link for companies to use on their social networks. On the landing page, include a clear call to action above the fold to drive visitors to download your case. It’s also important to use key words in the headline and meta data of your landing page.

5. Consider implementing a lead form for visitors to fill out in order to download the case study so that you can capture your potential customers’ information.

6. Beyond just listing on your website, use the power of online distribution to get your case study in front of prospects. If you want to attract trade media to your case study, then send a press release about your case study through PRWeb, PR Newswire and to relevant industry bloggers. Also post a link to your case study’s landing page on your social media sites as well as other influential social media sites. For example, if you participate in a LinkedIn group, share a link to the case study as a way to answer a group question.

Read tomorrow’s PCT, as we take a further look at case studies and other content to determine its most effective point in the buying cycle.

Source: Cassandra Johnson is a tech-savvy marketing communications consultant and freelance writer. She reports on the latest trends in the promotional products industry, public relations, direct marketing, e-marketing and more. She supports clients in a variety of industries, including promotional products, hospitality, financial services, technology and healthcare.