Why Do Case Studies Create Better Leads?

If you’ve been to our website, or follow us on Twitter, you know that we’re huge fans of case studies as a tool to attract buyers and convert them to customers.

That’s because we’ve seen case studies improve both the quality and the number of conversions for our clients, and we have the receipts to prove it!

What’s so magical about case studies?

Unlike the usual “Joe’s team is Awesome!” testimonials, case studies give potential customers an opportunity to see the kind of work you do, and how you solve problems in homes just like their own. Where testimonials are essentially cherry-picked reviews, case studies tell the story of how you helped a customer through the buying process and delivered on those promises for them. 

You can add reviews and customer feedback in your case studies as well to make them extra-powerful. (Third-party verified reviews like those with Google are best.)

Whether you include a review in your case study or not, the story you tell in the case study helps people understand what they can expect from working with you- and that helps build trust, setting you apart from other contractors.

In addition, we make sure we have several calls to action embedded in each case study. This lets potential customers take the next step and get more information about you and the products you install right then and there- helping to boost conversions.

How do you KNOW they work?

We started writing case studies for one of our clients in the middle of 2016.

His case studies feature the type of homes and locations where he wants to attract more buyers.

Over time, we’ve built up the case study library to include jobs from all over their service area, and just about every home construction and architecture type you can imagine - from condos, historic homes, contemporaries, ranch and split-levels to capes and colonials. 

Case studies are a library of powerful information we can now feed directly to top of funnel leads, to help demonstrate the contractor’s experience and expertise. This helps educate new leads and makes the salesperson’s job much easier when they meet the customer face to face.

Most of the important questions have already been answered, so the potential customer spends more time discussing job specifics and pricing rather than whether you are qualified to do the work- they have that answer already!

All good case studies are stories of successful jobs and happy customers. Besides acting as great content for the website, case studies are also useful in Facebook ads, email marketing campaigns and even mailers, targeting specific customers in specific areas. The time spent on case studies ends up paying the contractor back over and over again, with evergreen content that meets the needs of new leads- helping build trust and increase your conversion rate.

Over the past 4 years, we’ve seen contractors double their business year over year- twice! 

Seasonally, every contractor can see incoming leads drop as the weather moderates. The key to weathering this storm is to make sure that even if the number of new leads drops during certain times of the year, the conversion rate on each lead increases- meaning you are getting higher quality leads, and more jobs for every lead in the door. Case studies help boost that conversion rate, boosting your bottom line revenue.

How Does it Work?

Using marketing automation software, we set up email automation that sends out informative, educational emails to new leads.

So when “Cathy” from Town A fills out a form, we follow up with emails featuring case studies that speak to other jobs we’ve done in her area, or in homes just like hers.

Cathy can learn more about the contractor and his experience, and it even helps her become more informed about the best solution for a problem or a home like hers.

Do Case Studies Really Help HVAC Contractors Close More Jobs?

Here's the best way for me to answer that. The contractor we started writing case studies for in 2016 published more than 200 unique case studies on his website over a two year period.

Since then, his case study library has resulted in 26,833 page views with an average visit time of over 2 minutes per page.

That translates to 62,000 minutes or 1,021 hours of buyers spending time on his website that they might not have otherwise. 

But we only care about selling systems, right?

Those 26,833 visits to the case study library represent the first point of contact for more than 250 customers. Not prospects; that number is over 1,100 and more of them close every day. Look at the number of pages some of these customers viewed before they bought.

Case studies give buyers exactly what they want and you can see they love it.

It's gratifying to know that your buyer is taking a guided tour of some of your best installs and in the process, getting to know, like and trust your company.

The result for this contractor; more than $3.5 million in revenue attached to people viewing case studies at some point in their buyer's journey over a 3 year period.

Based on some back-of-the-napkin math, that's an ROI of 30 to 1 on his investment in case study content.

What drives you crazy? Your Customers feel the same way.

You know what happens when you get a sales call at home.  You try to get off the phone as soon as possible. You don’t really want a parade of strangers coming to your home trying to sell you something expensive- unless you’re pretty sure you need it.

Your potential customers feel the same way, and the last thing they want is someone wasting their time.

That means salespeople have a very short period of time to establish a rapport and get down to the bottom line. That’s why pre-educating your leads with case studies is such a great idea.

Using the same marketing software, we know how many times “Cathy” has opened the emails we’ve sent her with case studies and information about the different systems- and even what pages she’s visited on the website and how many other case studies she may have read. This information is incredibly helpful to sales people, who know what information the customer has already seen, and anticipate what questions they may still have. 

That means every salesperson has a better idea of what the customer knows before they sit down to talk- wasting less of their time, and the customer’s as well. The best salesperson spends less time on cookie-cutter pitches and more time getting right down to business. 

Stop wasting time. Start converting more leads to business. Give us a call here at Comfort Media Group and find out how a case study platform can transform your business over time into a powerhouse of conversion.