How B2B companies can leverage case studies to generate leads
Forum Sheth, AVP of Content Marketing at WebEngage, reveals why content must be evergreen and backed by your own data, and how to measure the impact of case studies.
In a world that’s chasing short-form content, WebEngage’s content strategy leans towards long form.
From ebooks structured as master packs to detailed case studies, Forum Sheth, the AVP of Content Marketing at WebEngage, talks to Natasha Puri, Content Marketing Lead, Pepper Content, about the power of case studies to generate and convert leads, and the secret sauce to creating impactful long-form content.
Creating long-form content that sticks
“Keep things simple, but keep things research-backed. A good way to ensure this is by being original, sticking to your own data. I might research 10 different articles that my competitors have posted. Maybe I'll do that as, you know, 5 percent of my research strategy, but 95 percent of my ebook will rely on the data that the WebEngage dashboard provides.”
There are three basic aspects to keep in mind when creating long-form content like ebooks or even engaging case studies.
Firstly, ensure your content is backed by your own data and research. At WebEngage, Forum and her team have the advantage of having access to thousands of dashboards full of data for their clients across various industries. While internet research is a great way to get started, relying on your own data makes content original and reliable.
Storytelling is an important aspect of content and must be the basis of forming a human connection, to make the content relatable, accessible through real-life examples. It is also a great way to make long-form content digestible.
And finally, having plenty of call-to-actions ensures you are telling the reader exactly what you want them to do after consuming your content and follow them through the sales funnel.
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How to measure the impact of case studies
WebEngage generates case studies that are truly long from and detailed - even up to 20 pages long. The idea is to create a detailed piece of content that other leads can learn from and get insights out of.
By keeping the case studies gated, WebEngage can closely track who is downloading the asset, engage them further, and feed them the right kind of content to move them along the funnel.
“We utilise our own WebEngage dashboard coupled with Google analytics and other, you know, MarTech tools to analyse our downloads and performance of the content.”
The ultimate hack: create evergreen content
Forum talks about an ebook that they created around the time of Black Friday. While most brands were creating content specifically around Black Friday, WebEngage decided to create an ebook around flash sales.
This big picture view of content ensures that the asset created can be used by any brand all over the world during any festival or sale time - from Halloween to Diwali and more.
“So the hack here is to have evergreen content that can be consumed by the entire world as well … It's like a loop where you see that ultimately when a lead converts and you look back at the journey, you know, that there were certain (content) resources that they downloaded, or maybe the sales team had shared it with them, but that's how, you know, the impact overall leads up to the entire picture.”
Edited by Teja Lele