Industrial Marketer

How to Overcome the Challenges of Creating Manufacturing Case Studies

February 22, 2022 Joey Strawn & Nels Jensen Season 2 Episode 2
Industrial Marketer
How to Overcome the Challenges of Creating Manufacturing Case Studies
Show Notes Transcript

Don’t let your clients’ hesitancy to divulge sensitive information stop you from sharing your successes with the marketplace. In this episode, the Industrial Marketer podcast offers suggestions on ways to replace the traditional metric-driven case study with testimonials and success stories. These are powerful pieces for your digital content library that awaits prospects who are increasingly doing research on your website.


Joey Strawn:

Welcome back, everybody to another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast your place for the tips, tech trends and tactics for industrials who care about driving leads to their businesses. I am one of your hosts industrial marketer, patron and lover, Joey. And as always, I am hosted by my favorite Nels Nels revolution. Now, Jason, how are you, man?

Nels Jensen:

I'm doing very well, thank you.

Joey Strawn:

I am excited to be back again, talking with you in our quarter of industrial marketer foundations. We're talking about a lot of cool stuff this quarter. And this is a passion project for you. Now, I know because no matter what level of industrial marketer we're talking to, whether they're the C suite at the top of the pyramid, or they're, they're directing teams and trying to figure out how to most efficiently get marketing done, or whether they're the grunt force on the ground writing the content and trying to make their sites rank. Whether we talk to whatever level we talk to, you always tell me that they're not thinking enough about case studies, and how case studies can value and be a benefit to their business. So now, today, on the industrial Marketer Podcast, we are dedicating the entire episode to the glory and wonder that is the case study.

Nels Jensen:

Well, it you know what, it's to me, it's just one of those Captain Obvious no brainers it's like, you get a cold call from a salesperson pitching a new product or service? And what's your first question gonna be like, Well, who else is doing this? And how did it work? You know, work?

Joey Strawn:

Are you Charlotte?

Nels Jensen:

Yeah. So, you know, again, this. Anyway, I can go on and on. So I'll just, I'll just defer you here at this.

Joey Strawn:

Here's the thing I want you to go on and on. Now, this is the Episode Episode Two, season two nails, takes on case studies. And I I'm excited because here's the thing, we all know, kind of in our heart what a case study is what it does. Ultimately, it's just to show some sort of proof. Like it's, it's essentially the digital narrative version of walking into somebody's house with a vacuum cleaner, you're trying to sell them and dumping dirt on their carpet be like, see, it works. It sort of that, but but in a narrative form, and way less dirty. And so now, I'm just going to ask it straight out. What is a case study? Like when you think about a case study? How do you define it in your head? Like, what is a case study? Let's just start there.

Nels Jensen:

Yeah, it's kind of a narrative of how somebody used a solution to solve a problem or a pain point. Yeah. And I think we overthink it a lot. I think, you know, because because there is a definite tried and true formula for case studies that gets into what was the tactic? What was the outcome? And what was the, you know, numerical numbers? And we'll get into some of the some of the issues with those. Yes, absolutely. You can tell somebody that you save 10% of time and 12% of money and 15% of resource allocation or whatever, you know, yeah, that's all wonderful. But a case study basically is a story of success. It's a success die. It's a test.

Joey Strawn:

I love that.

Nels Jensen:

Right. So, and as we'll talk more, I think there are, they don't have to be big, giant, formal things. If it's, you know, whatever products or services you're selling, whatever you can, you know, if there's a pain point to be relieved, if there's an issue to be solved. You can do a case study around, it doesn't have to be big and lengthy. It doesn't have to be, you know, super wide or super deep. You know, yeah, that basically tell the story of success.

Joey Strawn:

I love that. I love the idea and the simplicity of saying, Well, what the case i i think a lot of times when you hear the term case study, and I think we're almost all of us are programmed, almost like the word term white papers, like your eyes kind of roll and you're like, oh, like I'm gonna put that in the newspaper. But it's it. I want us to think about case studies in the way that Nels thinks about that is, it's a story of your success. It's a it's a way for you to tell that you have it's a way to brag on yourself, essentially, and brag about your expertise and something that you did as a company that you're very, very proud of that can show other people, Hey, we can bring you solutions and it works and see.

Nels Jensen:

Yeah, well again, we're in marketing, right? This right. This is another term just like a white paper comes from academia. Where it basically is is getting into the details, the deep into the weeds about why something works. works or how it works, or what this does, that's different from the typical way of doing things kind of thing. A case study is another, you know, the traditional business school case study of WHY DIDN'T Kodak you know, phone camera, you know, and gets into all sorts of factors. And, you know, I'm sure the Harvard Business School has has a formula for what their case studies are. But again, we're not talking about academia. We're talking about marketing. So yeah, that is so happy that you said, right, is that is the term? Is it fair to call some of what I consider to be a case study case study? I don't know. It's like a white paper now, or pretty much product promotions, you know, so if you can, and I'm a very, I'm a very literal person, as you know, I get stuck on precise words and things like that. But now let's talk about the possibilities for case studies. Because it doesn't, it doesn't have to be complex.

Joey Strawn:

And that's, that's kind of where I wanted to land. And I'm happy that you phrased it that way. Because that's what I don't want to happen is I don't want people to think, Oh, I've got to put this like story, problem, solution outcome thing together, it's got to be this big, long narrative. There are a lot of ways to approach get putting out a narrative of your success. And that could be, you know, you could do it in social posts, people have done it, I've seen very cool case studies done is like FAQ videos, or short little video segments.

Nels Jensen:

Let's, let's be clear, though, you do follow the formula of problem solution outcome. It's just you don't have to do it in a lot of depth necessarily. Right.

Joey Strawn:

Exactly. You know, whether you're in a structure? Well, it doesn't have to be the academia thing that everybody you know, imagines.

Nels Jensen:

Yeah, in in. I went to journalism school a million years ago. And it was, you know, the first time, you know, somebody said, write the story in one sentence, I was like, we can't? Well, of course, you can't keep TV people do it all the time. Yeah, exactly. You know, and then, you know, you could write it, what would you add, if it was two sentences, you know, you get the idea all the way to 1000 words where you get many, many sentences. But you can tell that you can tell a case study, very simply, it can be very short, but it's going to account for the story of what was the problem? What was the plan solution? And what was the outcome. And you can do that in three senses. In some cases, we had a, you know, we could not get the knot off the lug, we use WD 40. To loosen the bolt, that knot off the bolt. And we reduce maintenance time by, you know, percent because we got these nuts off the bolts fast. There it is.

Joey Strawn:

Study, there's a full case study right there. I hope we're charging for this now, because that was some premium, premium content there. I mean, but it but it is, it can be as simple as that of like, hey, our system saved Exxon Mobil, $45 million in lubrication costs last year. And it's like, that's the end. Like,

Nels Jensen:

That's the that's the the gold. And we'll get into this now, the real world situations, because Exxon Mobil doesn't want to tell you they saved 45 million. Well, of course, they're happy to say that, Oh, yes, we use, you know, some cases happen use the products, but and that's the the chasm between super simple and saving 45 million is what we can talk about, because they're exactly, exactly it's a and that's one of my frustrations with case studies, is we find too many reasons not to do them. We can be doing them.

Joey Strawn:

Well, we have a very special guest in our second on the shop floor segment. And I'm going to ask them that very question. So so hold on, we're gonna talk about some hurdles. But I, you know, we've talked a lot about kind of what it is, but why now? Now, it's like, why would you use a case study, like, in my mind, case study is the quintessential like social proof. It is the Hey, it's not just us blowing smoke. This is us. Like, this is a real thing that we did that solved a problem that is similar to a problem that you have, but like, what are other avenues? What other benefits do you see? So using case a case studies?

Nels Jensen:

So what's the latest stat, the number gets higher? Every time I look for it, how much research do by industrial buyers do before they actually contact? It's in the high 70s? Right? Right. So it's, it is a key piece of content. Now, the evidence, it's like, oh, okay, here's the capabilities of this product or service, okay, I get it. And then, you know, you kind of move through the considerations like, Oh, and, you know, the solution blog, you know, it's like, okay, So this is gonna really help us combine two processes into one. And so it will streamline our, you know, operation and help our equipment efficiency and whatever. And then at some point, it's okay, here's how company, it's, it's just one more piece to move somebody down the funnel before they actually engage. I mean, that's, that's the big shift in digital marketing in the industrial sector in the past few years, is that by the time you finally engage people, they're farther down the funnel. So the the case study is getting people, it's qualifying. And once if they've read it, and they, and they believe it, and they, and they want to know more about it, then that's a lead qualifier.

Joey Strawn:

Yeah. And I will add in, I'll piggyback on that and add in one other element that I think is a very, very valuable just from a logistics and planning standpoint, is when it comes if you have a case study, you now have an asset that you can use in a lot of different places. If you have a good repeatable case study, you can have something that you can give out to prospects through your sales team, you can have something that can live online that could people could find organically without your help, you have something that can be broken up and sent out in emails, you have something that could be created into a video or a social posts, you have ways in our last episode, we talked about content planning, you have now a lot of different pieces and ways you can use that mean, you can even go so far as to strip some of the branding off of it and submit it as a trade article, and have your success stories show up in a trade publication for your industry showing that story to more than just your current audience as well. So, you know, think of it as an asset that you will be able to then reuse and reuse and reuse as proof in a lot of different situations. So one reason to have to create a bunch of them is to have a bunch of them.

Nels Jensen:

Well, I think yes. And to that point, I think a lot of times, we a lot of companies view case studies as our best customer, our ideal customer. And I just don't think we should be limiting ourselves. I think if you have four divisions in your company, you ought to have case studies within each of those divisions. If you have four different products, you know, you why not have case studies for each I just think it's part of the formula. We talked about templated content, I think that's part of it. So I think that it doesn't have to be giant, it doesn't have to be your best customer. If somebody has been coming to you for years. Why there's a case study there in terms of all right, they may just tell you a kind of a testimonial in nature that Oh, their services great. And we love their stuff, and they do what they say, okay, and how did that help them? What is the ultimate? You know, go back to the problem. Solution outcome? Yeah, okay. Just ask a couple different questions of what are your long standing clients? And you turn it around into a case study? Right? Yeah, you know, you might not even know what the exact case study is, when you begin, you just know what the category is for that case study.

Joey Strawn:

Well, and that's, that's something else. But that's another thing I did want us to spend a little bit of time today and talk about is when you're building like how you put together a case study? It is I think asking those questions. So it starts with those questions like, Well, what was the problem? What did we do about the problem? And then what happened? And if you can answer those three questions, or you have answers to any of those questions, you can almost work your way and fill out all three of those segments, because it's your, hey, something really good.

Nels Jensen:

Here's

Joey Strawn:

Let's work backwards.

Nels Jensen:

Why did right, so here's two, here's two different ways to think about what your possible case studies are. Why? Why does a customer continue to come to you? Okay, that could be their answer to that could lead to a case study. And the other one is your customer service people? What are the questions that they hear most frequently? Okay, how do you answer those? What are the examples of it? And could that be a case study? So, you know, we just tend to think about these in terms of like, the pinnacle, you know, a case study is our best customer, it's our best success, you know, not miss, you know, I just think we should be doing them more broadly. I think they should, I think we should have a lot more wider use of case studies. So yeah, your customer service people, what are they frequently asked about? Okay, that's a potential. Because, you know, that's what other people are asking about. So find an example that you help somebody there and do that. And then again, your long standing customers, why do they keep coming back to you? Alright, ask a couple more good questions, and you can build a case study out of out of why they love you.

Joey Strawn:

That first one that you mentioned, is one I think the most underutilized things that any industrial marketer can be doing right now within their own company is just talking to the customer service people and talking to the people that answer your phones and asking, what are the questions that you get all the time. And this is just lead magnet strategy in general, I mean, and nails were specifically talking about case studies. And case studies are a type of lead magnet, they can fall out of that, but just having a thumb on the pulse of what are the questions that we always get asked? Sure, because one of them may be well, it seems like a lot of people don't believe we can do what we say we can do. Well, then there is a prime opportunity to start building some case studies to prove out that you can,

Nels Jensen:

Yeah, and your customer service people also will help you identify trends. And we all love trends in the content side, too. Right?

Joey Strawn:

I agree. I you know what I I've held my tongue long enough. I am excited to get down to the on the shop floor segment to talk to a true expert in this in this realm. Now, so I want to leave some time for our conversation with the expert. Are you ready to head down to the shop floor and meet them?

Nels Jensen:

Yes, let's get down there.

Joey Strawn:

Alright, so the rest of our case study questions and the rest of our case a conversation is going to happen on the shop floor with our very special special guests. Here we go. Doo doo doo doo but but but up music. That was our that was music. Here we are on the shop floor now. And our very special guest today is Nels Jensen. Oh, Nels, oh, I don't know how I've kept this secret. So long. It was more it was harder to keep this secret then about the spider men that were in that new Spider Man movie before the before the break. But I am so happy. When we decided to talk about case studies. I was like, I just want to pick your brain on air. Because you as we've mentioned, and as we've teased, you're a huge fan of case studies and not to put words in your mouth, but you think they're very underutilized, as in a general rule. So I thought who better to ask questions about case studies and how to put them together and really pick your brain on it is really puts you in that in that catbird seat for a little bit. So now, you know we've talked a little bit about you know, how you build case studies, you know, a problem solution outcome, I'd love for you to dive in a little bit more just kind of lay out those questions like How does someone go through and build kind of that segment and more specifically, something you and I were chatting about off air, but the symbiosis between like testimonials and client statements and case studies and how one can feed the other and vice versa? You had a really interesting way of how to build that and think about that.

Nels Jensen:

Yes. So it's, you know, FAQs are really valuable pieces of content to you get to answer questions that people frequently ask people, you know, the testimonials, why somebody, you know, likes doing business with you, the case study there, they're all opportunities for those success stories that we're talking about. And I think that the reason why we view these case studies in the sort of top of the pyramid success stories, is because the really great ones have such good outcome numbers. It's facts, you can't dispute it, here's the the ROI. Here's the hours saved. Here's the there's a metric that just jumps out at you and goes, Wow. And I think the and the industrial side, we we have a lot of hurdles into doing case studies. Sometimes it's proprietary information. Yeah. might be, you might be surprised. How often if you know, you visit a manufacturing facility, and it's like, no pictures allowed? Well, what are we going to show? Well, you never know, if somebody were taking a picture of you know, how parts being made. And it might, you know, this is like a rule of exception that's like, you can't tell from this what's actually happening, but somewhere, some time some spy captured a system and took it back to somebody else and get out of it. Right. But that is the ultimate sort of what if but it's a hurdle, right? We don't we don't want to show something because we're we work for our customer and they don't want this information.

Joey Strawn:

Yeah, that will I've run into that too, with clients. And I know there are some like, especially in the aerospace or defense categories, you know, there are like a lot of NDAs like, we can't even say that we work for rikey or whatever right. And so, you know, there are there will always be situations like that that have to be stepped around. But even in that case, there are usually ways to obfuscate the narrative enough is like we worked for a large metal supplier to do this problem.

Nels Jensen:

A major aerospace person, a major aerospace manufacturer, and You know, okay, so you can tell that it's gonna be McDonnell Douglas or Boeing and Northrop Grumman. It's like, okay, so you can tell it's one of one of these, or it's one of their, you know, tier one suppliers, whatever. Right? Yeah. So in those cases, it's like, you know, once you start talking about some of these products, you know, that the, the potential companies you're talking about is very small, but that doesn't, right, if you can do that, do it, you know, in the end, we want to know, you know, oh, how did they work with the super alloy to machine this part? And you know, exactly, exactly. Okay. So that's what you ultimately care about, you don't care if it was Airbus, or Boeing, you care about, you know, the super high temperature rating that it has to have.

Joey Strawn:

Yeah, or you care about, like the the safety specifications, and it meeting every single, like, vacation,

Nels Jensen:

Right, so that there's a hurdle there that you can get around the, the bigger hurdle usually, is that the very specific metric, right, where people don't want some of this information out, because they feel that it could be used against them on a competitive basis. And that's a tough one to get around. So you end up seeing some, you know, vague case studies about they save significant time doing this, or this, and that's one of those where, you know, you just keep pushing for, you know, whatever you can get if, like 10 10%, or this, this allowed us to free up, you know, X resources to do other things, or, you know, anything you can do to help frame what the actual success is. So that that's a hurdle to. And even the financials can be a big hurdle, right? No one wants to talk about revenues and specific dollars and profit margins. And we even had one client that we worked with, who they were making medical devices, and they bought a new machine that allowed them to combine three processes into one. And they saved, you know, they, they were, they told them, the machine maker that they saved, whatever it was, they turned the the turnaround time for the part went from making these numbers up 56 minutes to 17 minutes. Right? Access, just just, but you know, we couldn't use that in the case study. Because the actual company they are dealing with the belief was, you know, what, if they find out how much help, we can't, we won't be able to charge as much. It's like, well, you know, you just spent 300 grand on that machine, you know, it's like, you got to pay for it somehow. Yeah, they don't care. You know, it was like that, you always have these hurdles. Right. And

Joey Strawn:

But as content creators, that's what we do. Like, that's where that's where, like, if we have all the pieces if we know where the gates are, and what restrictions we have is like, Okay, we can't use the company name. And this one is like, well, let's really focus then on the problem in the solution, and, you know, not worry too much about the company. And there's some it's like, oh, well, you know, this, this situation is notoriously complex. So the fact that we were a part of that, you know, the the problem, and then the solution are the really the main so that narrative. So as content creators, that's what that's where this comes into the art form of creating the content, which

Nels Jensen:

You just keep hammering at what metric can we use? How can we frame the success? And yes, it's very frustrating when you see vague case studies. But to my point, a vague case study is better than no case study. I see. That's, that's why we're in marketing. You know, I was in the news publishing business for a long time. And I argued the exact opposite there. But here, this is, you know, people do so much research online, you know, you got to use, you know, all of your evidence you can and so, yeah, yes, you know, it hurts me to say but

Joey Strawn:

Well, you know, this immediate context matters. You know, it's a, it is a a situation that is dependent on the universe in which it lives in. I mean, and honestly, it's, it's simple. It is consideration marketing, it's can conversion marketing. I mean, if you have a friend come up to you on the street and be like, Hey, you should really read this book. This book is so amazing. You're like, wow, I trust that friend. That friend knows what he's talking about. I will probably read that book. But if like the publisher of the book came up is like, Hey, this is a great book. You should totally read this book. And you're like, well, you're making money off that book. I don't believe you as much If you have a case study out there and somebody stumbles on it naturally, and it's not you actively trying to convince them if they just see the story, and they're like, Wow, that was the problem that I have, and they solved it, I should talk to them. That is a level of social proof that you can't bet by. And if someone's coming to you already convinced that you can solve their problem, most of your works already done.

Nels Jensen:

And here's another way to fudge is the wrong word. But there's other metrics, you can use, like a case study that I described that medical device, alright, so maybe it's a little bit vague, but you still you roll it out there, and you add one of your own metrics, you know, in the past 12 months, you know, we've added five clients to this, yep, machine, you know, whatever. It's, yes, the case study example is device maker. But part of the success story is what you've been able to translate that to. So again, use whatever metrics you can sometimes there, you're your own, sometimes it's you can do them against an industry standard, you know, they don't want to tell you that our margin on this product went up 5%. But you could basically say, This allowed them to go to, you know, a, you know, better than industry average margin, you know, or it's, it's vague, but it's something.

Joey Strawn:

It shows success. And it goes back to what you said at the beginning of this analysis. What is the case story? It is a story of your success. And however you tell that story, if it has the, what was the problem? What did you do to fix the problem? And what was the outcome, that any way you frame those three elements together to tell a story of your success, can and should be working for you as a case study,

Nels Jensen:

right? And I think in terms of how we build these case, studies to think about it in your own place, with the people you work with, you have creative people at your company, and they might not be on the content side. But you know, this is the brainstorming idea where if you get together with sales to talk about what could we do for case study? And then what are the metrics we could do to show success? And that's like, where the groupthink can lead you to a better place? It can somebody is going to have an idea, but oh, well, maybe we could use this or what is this? What is What did success look like for us because of this? And I think the power of groupthink. You know, if you get a bunch of people at a table and brainstorm for a few minutes on case studies, I think you'll come up with something.

Joey Strawn:

I agree and and it's just that is really what, that's where the the art and the creativity come in around it is, oh, well, we can't we can't do a case study because so and so won't let us use their name. That shouldn't be the end of the conversation getting to talk about a way to focus on the problem, or the outcome or this situation, as opposed to the name. And that's where getting those heads together, as you were just talking about can really bring some good opportunities to the table. And I don't want to put words in your mouth nails, because you're the special guest here. But I don't think that people should stop this like, Well, we already have two or three pretty good case studies, we don't need any more, I would think that you would recommend have as many as you can have that are convincing that talk about what you do that you could use as proof.

Nels Jensen:

That's actually a really good point. Because I get a little nervous when I see case studies that are a little too old.

Joey Strawn:

About Okay, oh age,

Nels Jensen:

if this is from a couple years ago, what's changed since then? Maybe a lot. So, yes, case studies, you need to be fresh, and you know, clients come and go and you know, that per whatever, it's just that there's something that you need to consistently freshen Yes,

Joey Strawn:

and this is why we're talking about it this month or this quarter in our foundations section. Now, for industrial marketers, we truly believe that case studies and the ongoing updating of case studies is just a foundation you need established in your marketing practice. It should be you know to speak of the previous episode that have them on your content calendar, have them regularly scheduled every couple months to check out new ones reef recycle old ones refresh and reuse and or, you know, call in some that you don't need anymore, you know, look for ways to keep that fresh and up to date, because analysis point as our as our expert, special guests. If you have like, Well, we did this we solve this problem with the technologies available to us like Oh, really? When did you do that? 1987 No, thank you. You know, so make sure that you have the studies that are going to answer the questions that you're being asked currently,

Nels Jensen:

Right or one client that, you know, sent us some, hey, we could be using these case studies, all of them were 2017 or earlier. It's like, you know, almost so bad if you have one. But yeah, that's not the right mix. Right?

Joey Strawn:

I agree. Well, now as our special guest, is there anything you want to leave our audience with when it comes to case studies and when they need to how they're thinking about case studies, or not thinking about them that you want to leave them with? Before we wrap up today?

Nels Jensen:

Yeah, just keep asking. What does success look like? How can we describe it? What else? How else? What metrics it's, you just keep probing and probing until you find something the middle ground that you can all agree.

Joey Strawn:

I love it. Well, thank you. Nails. Thank you so much for being here today as our special guest, we'll definitely have to have you back. Now our content Commando, thank you for thank you for being here. And as always, thank you, the listener and you industrial marketer out there. Thank you for listening to another episode of the industrial Marketer Podcast. If you haven't subscribed already, please go ahead and subscribe. We're gonna have more special guests coming up. We're gonna have more tools and tips and techniques and trends. And we're going to be talking about all those things that really, really matter to people dealing with the industrial marketing trade. And if you have questions, if you have topic ideas for shows, or ideas that you want Nelson to dive into on the show, email them to us at podcast at industrial marketer.com And we'll make sure that your questions and your and your needs get aired on air. We have we have a blast doing this and we definitely want you guys to be along for the ride. So follow along on social media and follow along online. And if you haven't already, bid to go to industrial marketer.com and read up on all of our newest and best educational opportunities. And until next time, this is Joey announced for the industrial Marketer Podcast