Having a core piece of content can help interest media and open up both coverage and other marketing and social media opportunities.
But what is a core piece of content? A press release about a brand new technology is a core piece of content, as is an in-depth technical article that breaks down a hot technology and offers insight. Whitepapers are also commonly used as core content.
One of our favourite pieces of core content is a good case study. If you can get both your the supplier/vendor and customer on a call to talk about the challenges, the catalyst for change, why they selected the vendor over competitors, solution, benefits plus future plans that is pure PR gold.
If the end-customer is happy to have their name revealed that is a huge plus – as most PRs know no-name case studies are more the norm since companies don’t tend to want to reveal that they had any issues that needed to be resolved by your client.
However, whether you have permission to use the customer’s name or not, case studies have proven to be very useful for us in placing coverage with media – via a release written about the work done, interesting journalists in interviews to speak with your client and their customer themselves, and as sources for writing articles and other editorial opportunities.
Here are just some of the things that you can do with a good case study:
- Draft a case study – obviously the first thing you want to do with a good interview like this is to turn it into its intended format and use it to create a case study that you can offer out to media and get your client to put up on their website, as it is a testament to their work and the customers that they have, so reputation building.
- Turn it into a press release - with a quote from both your client and their customer in it – to send out to all relevant media contacts. Don’t forget that, although you are targeting your own client’s media with this – say B2B technology journalists, you can also expand knowledge of your client within their customer’s media circles, for example, if they are a hotel, with travel, leisure and hospitality journalists. If that hotel customer needed your client then there may well be other similar hotels that also need their help and increase your client’s leads is a great way to prove the success of a good PR strategy.
- Write up the interview - with your client and their customer verbatim as a Q&A – either to send as supplementary information alongside the release and case study out to media or as an individual offer to any media that like “exclusives” as they can print it as if they themselves conducted the interview.
- Do some research - into the challenge faced by your client’s customer – is it a common industry one that has been causing havoc for a while and your client’s service, solution or technology is the answer? Or, is it a new niche in the market that other companies should be aware of or may be experiencing? If the research is interesting or exciting enough perhaps you could create a survey on what you found out to hook the case study too for wider media coverage/interest.
- Draft an article that talks around the customer’s challenge and how your client helped them achieve success. While your article should be promoting your client, be mindful that the best articles are conversational, advisory and educational ones that are neutral and non-salesy so make it industry-wide or specifically insightful and in-depth, depending on which media you want to target it with.
- Edit the article(s) down into shorter blog posts to repurpose in other media or for going onto your client’s website.
- Another idea for your client’s website is to turn the written case study into a PPT slide presentation and then you can share this with analysts or they can share with potential customers or even turn it into a video presentation.
- Obviously be sure to share the case study and any great coverage via social media to inform your client’s followers of its experience and this success. Ideally, if they allow it, tag the client’s customer in those posts as those customers may share those social media posts, which will help your client reach their customer’s audience and may also increase their own followers again.
- For PRs working alongside, or as part of a wider marketing team for their clients, use the case study as part of an email marketing campaign and within e-newsletters.
Whether you have a case study that you want shared to generate media coverage or to increase sales leads, we can help. Contact us via info@vitispr.com or call us on 0121 242 8048.
