PartnerFuel

1. Understand Your Goal

Before you even start writing, it's important to understand what your goals are for the case study.

Are you trying to increase partner awareness?

Drive more traffic to your joint integration page?

Get more customers or clients?

Once you know what your goal is, you can align the rest of your case study around that central message.

This is really important to clarify from the start as the central messaging and call to action will all be centered around this.

2. Choose Your Partner Carefully

Not all partners will make a great subject for a case study. You want to choose a partner who has a good us + them = better customer experience story.

This joint value statement is a great starting point for a case study as it will not only be easy to promote to your audience, but you will also have compelling data points on why it makes your customers lives better

A few other points that help this decision making process are:

The strength of the integration

This should go without saying but if you are doing a case study in collaboration with a technology or integration pattern, you should ensure that the integration that has been buil out is one that is strong in its capabilities. There is no point in promoting a partner, when the integration that is offered does not offer value to your customer base.

How engaged this partner is

As with anything in partnerships, doubling down on partners that are committed and engaged is important. If you are going to write a study about a partner who is not fully invested in the relationship , it can be a waste of time, time that could have been invested in engaged partners.

Are they willing to assist with case study creation

This follows on from the point above, however having a partner that will share the burden of case study creation is really important.

The sharing of resources can speed up the process of case study creation.

3. Get the Details

Once you have chosen your partner you then want to identify a joint customer.

Luckily there are tools that make this easy.

Crossbeam is a tool that I recommend for partnership teams as it gives you clarity around not only your joint customers but also the total amount of crossover that exists.

When partnering on Crossbeam you are able to see a grid that looks similar to this: crossbeam example image

The top left grid displays the total number of joint customers that exist between you both.

If you have a good integration team internally you can cross reference this joint customer list with active installs.

You will then be left with an accurate list of joint customers that use the integration and you can reach out to them and set up an interview. This is where you'll get all of the details about their experience working with you and the integration and the benefits they have received as a result.

4. Write It Up

Now it's time to put all of the pieces together and write up your case study.

Start with a brief introduction that sets the stage for the rest of the story. This should contain a little bit of information about you and your partner and the unique value proposition both of you offer.

Then, dive into the details of the partnership, including quotes from your customer to add authenticity.

Where possible, include data or ROI stats on the value that you and your partner have had for a customer.

Such data could include:

With this partner we were able to save money
With this money we were able to save time
With this partner we were able to provide a better customer experience.

Be sure to highlight how you were able to help them overcome their challenge so that readers can see how you could help them too.

There are some companies that CRUSH the case study game.

Segment are one such company, they created "Recipes", in collaboration with their partners which really show off the full story of how their integrations work.

The actual production of a case study can take a considerable amount of time, and given the fact that most partner marketing teams are under-resourced and overworked, you can also use a marketing agency like Partner Fuel to take the burden away from your team, and make sure you get high quality content produced in the shortest amount of time.

Especially if you have a mature partner program with tens or hundreds of partners the co-marketing burden can be a large one.

5. Promote Your Case Study

Now that you have a great case study, it's time to promote it!

There are a number of ways you can do this, but one of the most effective ways is through social media.

Share your case study on your company's social media channels and encourage your employees to do the same. You can also reach out to influencers in your industry and ask them to share it with their followers.

It is also a great idea to create a central repository or a part of your web site where you list and promote these case studies.

Not only is this a great technique to show off your partners to potential customers, but also works as a way to attract

By promoting your case study, you'll be able to reach a larger audience and show them how you can help solve their problems.

Conclusion

Customer case studies are an excellent way to show off your product or service in action. By following these tips, you can write a case study that is both informative and persuasive.

As mentioned above, the fastest way to create high quality content is through outsourcing your marketing to an agency like Partner Fuel who can create amazing content for your teams with quick turnaround times.