How to Promote Your Case Studies
October 14, 2014
by Elizabeth Snyder
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If you don’t promote your case studies effectively, they won’t help you achieve your marketing goals.
Customer testimonials are a tried-and-true way for businesses to promote their products and services, but the Securities and Exchange Commission’s anti-testimonial rule and the fear of regulatory repercussions make it difficult for investment advisors to share client-success stories as part of their marketing efforts. While advisors are prohibited from using or making reference to testimonials that include any statement about a client’s experience, there are other related tactics they can use to establish credibility with and instill confidence in prospective clients.
Hypothetical case studies are one such inbound marketing strategy you can use to generate awareness and clearly demonstrate the benefits and solutions you provide.
I won’t spend a lot of time discussing how you should develop or structure your case study. (However, keep in mind that a good case study will cover the client’s story, including, at a minimum, the background, challenges, solution and results.) I’ll focus on how you should promote your case study once you have written it.
Feature on the case study your website
If you haven’t already done so, write an article for your company blog that covers the same topic you address in your case study. In the blog post, invite people to download the complete study to learn more.
If you do not have a designated area on your website to display marketing material such as your firm’s newsletters, e-books, white papers or other content, now is a good time to create that page. With that said, your case study should be easy to locate on your website, not buried behind other pages or content. If your site is flexible enough for you to add it to the homepage as a featured resource, make sure to do so.
Share it on social media
Promote your article on social media to generate more awareness. In any social-media post, link to your website so people can learn more about the benefits you offer, your firm and team structure as well as services and other client benefits.
However, sharing your case study on social media one time will not give you an adequate amount of exposure. To ensure that people are aware of your case study, share it on your social-media accounts twice a month for at least three to six months (use your social-media editorial calendar to schedule these posts so that you don’t forget).
While you can promote your case study on all your social-media accounts, focus on LinkedIn. Add the case study to your list of publications, and be sure to spend some time researching LinkedIn groups that would be interested in your content. Share your case study with those groups to encourage discussion among the members.
Promote it via email
A monthly or quarterly newsletter is a great place to feature your new content. By sharing the study via email, your clients and centers of influence will have access to a valuable resource that they can share with people who might be interested in your services or use to explain the benefits and solutions your firm offers clients.
Hypothetical case studies are useful marketing pieces for financial advisors, as they offer an opportunity to share stories about how you help your clients while also getting around prohibitions on direct client testimonials. However, any effort you put into developing your case studies will be wasted if you do not promote them effectively. By featuring them on your website, sharing them on social media and promoting them via email, people will be more likely to read your case studies and then share them with potential clients.
Elizabeth Snyder is the marketing manager for clients of Wealth Management Marketing, Inc., a firm specializing in outsourced marketing department services to Registered Investment Advisors and fee-only financial planning firms. For more information, visit www.wealthmanagementmarketing.net.
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