There is nothing more convincing to a potential customer than hearing about the success someone else has had with your product or service - it's way more believable than anything your sales or marketing team can come up with on their own. In this session you will learn the steps to create an effective case study and start using it to generate leads and close deals. This session is for anyone in product management or product marketing that cares about increasing sales and highlighting how their solutions are being used in the real world. You'll walk away with ideas on how to identify good targets for case studies, how to create an interview guide, examples to learn from and how to keep squeezing value out of it after it is published. About Matt Volpi Matt has been a product management and marketing executive at a number of technology companies, from start-ups such as BigBelly Solar and Modiv Media (acquired by Catalina Marketing) to multinational titans such as Nokia and Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle). Since moving into marketing and product strategy consulting two years ago, Matt has helped a variety of software companies, media businesses and services organizations with market research, content creation and strategy initiatives.

1. Let Your Customers Do the Talking:
Creating and Leveraging Great Case Studies
Matt Volpi | Tovana Consulting, Inc.

2. You’re asking your customers
to set out on a journey

3. You know where they’re
heading… but they don’t

4. No one wants to feel like they
picked the wrong route

5. What is Sales Doing?
Trying to get a meeting
with anyone they can

6. What is Sales Doing?
Bringing out their entire
box of tricks to see
what resonates

7. What is Sales Doing?
Giving demos to wow
prospects with all the
great stuff your
solution can do

8. What is Sales Doing?
Promising the moon to
get the sale, hit their number
and get their commission

9. Your company is talking
about FEATURES

10. Customers care how your
solution will BENEFIT them
Image Credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg

11. B2B Customer Benefits
• Help them do something faster
• Help them do something cheaper
• Help them do more
• Help them stop doing something they don’t
want to do anymore
• Help them do something new
• Help them use their resources differently

12. B2C Customer Benefits
• Make them happy
• Save them time
• Save them money
• Help them do something new
• Help them stop doing something they don’t
want to do anymore

13. Prospects want to see other
customers they relate to…

14. …and how they already
succeeded at the same thing

15. Give them confidence they’re
not alone on this journey

16. Finding the Sweet Spot
Benefit
Industry
Company
Type
Benefit
Interest
Customer
Type
B2B B2C

17. Preparing your
interview guide

18. 10 Interview Guide Questions
• Full name, title and responsibilities
• What got them interested initially?
• Were there concerns and how were they addressed?
• How did they make their decision?
• Who else did they have to convince?
• Where did they find the money?
• Did it deliver on the promised benefits?
• What are the unexpected benefits/drawbacks?
• What were/are the challenges?
• What advice do they have for others?

19. Selecting case
study candidates

20. Casting the star of your story
• Keep the Sweet Spot in mind
• Get suggestions from sales, account
management and customer service
• Make sure there are no potential land mines
• Get their buy in and commitment to let you
publish BEFORE you go any further

21. Conducting
the interview

22. 7 InterviewingTips
• Stay conversational
• Let them go off on tangents
• Pay attention and think of follow-up questions
• Always look for the great quotes
• Dig for measurable successes and shareable stats
• Ask if there’s anyone else you should talk to
• Leave the door open for either side to follow up
with more questions/information

23. Now you’re ready to
craft a case study

24. Find a theme to
focus on

25. Create a relatable narrative
your prospects can relate to

26. Let your interview subjects
be the stars of the story

27. Show the imperfect path
taken to realize the benefit

28. Keep the audience of
potential naysayers in mind
Image Credit: Leonardo Rizzi

29. Don’t forget
the visuals

30. Celebrate your
customer’s success

31. Get your customer to
approve the final versions

32. Arm your salesforce and work
it into their presentations

33. Use the raw components
to create additional material

34. Broadcast it using all
available channels

35. A QuickWord About
Me andTovana Consulting
• Tovana Consulting, Inc. – http://tovana.com
– Providing market research, strategy & marketing/
content creation services since 2002
– Clients in a range of industries including technology,
financial services and education
• MattVolpi – @mattvolpi
– 20-years in product management and marketing
– PM at (former) mobile & Internet giants
• CMGi, Nokia and Sun Microsystems
– Executive roles at two start-ups
• BigBelly Solar
• Modiv Media (acquired by Catalina Marketing)