Guiding Prospects from Success Stories to Lead Forms

How well do your success stories motivate prospects to leave their contact information?

Many companies’ case studies include links back to their home pages, but I think they're missing a big opportunity. Is the home page really the best place to send someone who has just committed the time to download and read a specific case study about a particular customer in a specific industry that solved a unique problem using your solution? Isn't there likely a better, more relevant piece of content to market to that prospect than the home page? A piece of content that would be compelling enough that the prospect would gladly provide their contact information in order to access? It could be a white paper or a demo or a webinar replay (by the same customer as the case study, if possible) that further convinces them of the value your company can deliver.

Here's my suggestion: Take a look at one of your case studies. What type of prospect would likely read it? What do they learn from it? What might it leave them wondering about? What content do you have, or could you create, that addresses the questions they most likely have as a result of reading that one case study. Determine what that next most relevant piece of content is and link to it from the most relevant point in your case study. Consider doing the reverse and linking back to the case study from that content as well.

It's not difficult to do. It just takes an investment of time and a good understanding of the value of each content piece in your portfolio. Case studies can become lead generators – if you use them to guide prospects to lead-form protected content that is directly relevant to the case study they just finished reading.

Comments

[Casey Hibbard]

Bryan,

Great post and excellent point. I believe that case studies should be freely available to prospects (without registration), so directing prospects to a next step (webinar or demo) that requires registration is the logical approach.

And taking the next step of having those links right in the story keeps them with the story instead of perhipheral where they might be missed.

Thanks!

[Maeve Naughton]

Most of the sales folks I have work(ed) use case studies a bit further down the sales pipeline rather than with a new prospect but either way, I agree that you should not have to register to view a case study as it only turns people away. Site visitors need to be given all relevant information within a few clicks. The more you offer them, the more likely they'll click on the extra links, find out about your company and then hopefully turn into a customer. The easier we make it for a prospect to find relevant information, the better experience they'll have.