B2B Web Strategy Blog - eMagine

Should your B2B be doing short or long case studies?

November 23rd, 2009 Posted by: Bill Gadless

It’s getting harder and harder to trip up our regular readers, who will probably suspect our title as presenting one of our frequent false choices.  More on that later on, but first…

After noting that short-form case studies – roughly a scant half-page, vs. the traditional 1-2 pages – are becoming ever more common on the Web, Michele Linn points out the advantages of each format in her post on Savvy B2B Marketing.   First, the short type (which Marketo refers to as their “Success Snapshots”):

• More customers inspires more trust.  A simple customer list provides a baseline-level of reassurance;  backing a significant portion of those with capsule case studies kicks it up a couple more notches.
• Easier/faster customer approval.  At least some customers will have an easier time approving a thumbnail-sketch case study than a typical long one.
• Respect reader attention span.  (Pssst:  some prospects just hate to read.)

Michele points us to one of our favorite vendors – Salesforce.com – for a well built-out and structured example of the format;  299 of them at last count, but fear not:  they’re easily searchable by product, industry, region and story type.

Now, some reasons for the traditional long form:

• Evaluation-stage readers need more info than early-stage prospects.
• Some readers need more insight.  For example, CIOs, CFOs and technical evaluators are each likely to look for different things in case studies …and those differences aren’t likely to be conveyed in the snapshot form.
• Sales reps need handouts.  Sure, your website allows for customer self-printing, but that doesn’t replace the impact of glossy leave-behinds in a face-to-face meeting.

OK, back to the question posed in our title… you guessed it, it’s a trick, and the right answer is “both”.  A good way to go about this is to first populate your product-industry matrix with one full-length case study per cell;  then stack up as many additional short-form studies per cell as your resources permit.  They provide such high leverage on prospects that it’s just not possible to have too many.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy