How to Persuade Customers to be Featured in Case Studies
Case studies, testimonials, or customer success stories, are a key component of effective marketing. They provide social and historical proof, two powerful forms of persuasion. They give prospective customers a way to visualize what it’s like to work with you. They allow you to showcase your top customers. They allow you to demonstrate your solution in a more credible way than simply listing its benefits.
But it’s often a challenge to get customers to grant you permission to feature them in case studies. They often don’t want competitors to know how they operate. They’re secretive. They don’t see the benefits for themselves of being featured in a case study. So it’s important to be purposeful about how you persuade customers to volunteer to share their success story publicly.
In this article, I’ll share 3 powerful ways to do this, but first, here’s a story for ya…
Each Saturday I take the day off and go down to visit friends at my local cigar lounge. Next door to the lounge is a Starbucks. My friends and I grab a coffee, get our cigars, and when we finish our coffee we go back to get refills. But Starbucks doesn’t normally allow free or fifty cent refills if you leave the store. Their store policy is once you leave the store, you can’t get a refill. So for fun I conduct an experiment to see who can get the barista to ignore store policy and give us free (or cheap) refills.
It’s not about the money. At most it saves three dollars on the refill. But it’s a fun little contest and experiment.
One of my friends buys the coffee on the Starbucks app. It doesn’t give him an option for a refill. So he always pays full price on the refill.
Another friend throws out his cup and goes back. He doesn’t even ask for a refill, so he pays full price.
But I always keep the cup, go back, and ask for a refill. When I walk in, I say a friendly, “Hey guys, how’s it going?” to the baristas, show them the cup, and ask for the refill. 8 out of 10 times, they give it to me without question (for the refill price of 50 cents). 1 out of 10 times, they give me a refill with no charge. And the other time, they explain the store policy and say I can’t get a refill, so I have to pay full price.
This is a trivial example, but it shows that the way you approach people totally changes their response. If you don’t even bother asking for something you want, you’ll never get it. But if you ask for what you want, and craft your approach in a persuasive way, you’ll often get it.
This applies equally well to persuading customers to be willing to be featured in a case study. Customers are often hesitant to be publicly featured. They may not want it to be known that they use your solution. Their legal team may object. They may be concerned their competitors will gain inside knowledge on their operation.
But there’s a flip side. Being featured in a case study has its benefits. You’ll need to communicate these benefits in order to persuade your customer to take part.
Here are three steps to doing that:
1- Isolate the key decision makers within your customer’s organization
In any buying process, there are a few key decision makers to focus your persuasive efforts on. Getting customer buy-in for a case study is no different. Isolate the key people you’ll need to persuade to let you feature your customer’s organization. In smaller companies, this will likely be the CEO and other executives. In larger companies it may be the head of the department that uses your solution, or the management at a specific factory that uses your solution. Isolate the specific people you’ll need to persuade.
2- Understand the key emotions driving the decision-making process
The number one buying emotion is significance. Find a way to connect being featured in a case study to greater significance for your customer. For example, being featured might give them greater significance within the industry. It might give a specific department or location greater significance within the organization. Or it might give specific individuals greater significance within the organization, by showcasing how their good buying decision helped propel their department forward.
3- Remember the basic needs: to be safe, to grow, and to belong
Three of the core human needs are safety, growth, and belonging. You’ll find some element of these in every successful promotion. Likewise, you’ll need to show your customer that when they’re featured in a case study they’ll be safe, be able to grow, and belong to something bigger than themselves. Emphasize how they’ll remain safe: show them you’ll keep their company secrets confidential, and you won’t publish anything without their approval. Show how being featured in a case study will help them grow, for example as a department, location, or organization. And show your customer they’ll belong to something bigger than themselves as one of your featured case studies.
So: when you’re encouraging your customer to be featured as a case study, put in the effort to make a persuasive case for why they should do so. Isolate the key decision makers you’ll need to persuade, understand the emotions at play, and show how being featured will fulfill their core psychological needs.
You won’t persuade every single customer you want as a case study, but you’ll be surprised at how many do accept it. You’ll end up with a stronger case study since your customer is a willing participant, and your customer will end up with a stronger bond with you since you invested the effort to understand them.
About Scott McKinney: I’m a freelance copywriter specializing in B2B software. I write funnel-friendly copy that helps my clients attract wonderful long-term customers. Unlike other writers, I come from a mathematics background, so I can tackle technical topics and translate them to what the audience needs to know. Need a writer? Email me at [email protected]. I’m currently booking new clients for 2021.