Are Blind Case Studies Worth the Time? 5 Tips for Making the Most of Them

You have an awesome product or service and your customers LOVE how your company helps theirs do things better. The problem is, they won’t—or can’t—give you an endorsement via a case study, press release, or even through a quote for your website. Big problem, right?

Not so fast. Yes, there’s nothing quite like a big brand name giving you a ringing endorsement for your product or solution. Who wouldn’t want a customer telling the world how your product or service created a cost savings or made them more efficient? But the reality is many companies can’t act as a reference for a number of reasons. Their legal team may block all such requests, it may be a company policy (if we do it for supplier X, we have to do it for suppliers A-Z), or they may be using your product to do something proprietary or confidential that may impact their competitive stance. Whatever the reason, it stinks not to be able to publicly tout their success.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get some mileage out of their use case, especially if it’s created great results for the company. Case studies are proof to potential customers that your solutions do what they say they do. So called blind case studies—where the company name and any proprietary use is not revealed—can actually be quite useful in terms of showing the world why people use and choose your products and solutions.

There are definitely naysayers who argue not to waste your time with blind case studies and that they may actually hurt your credibility. In looking at the number of consumer products with endorsements from Jenny H. and Shawn B. claiming to lose 40 percent of their body weight, it’s hard to argue that these types of endorsement can lack credibility. However, I’d argue that unless you are blatantly lying or even stretching the truth a little (which is still a really, really bad idea), blind case studies can’t really hurt you. If you are stretching the truth, then yes, you’ll get found out by customers or potential customers at some point, and they’ll make a horrible stink. If you have to embellish, it’s not worth it.

So, why are blind case studies better than no case studies? Because people love a good story, especially one they can relate to specifically. Your marketing materials likely have lots of flowery words that talk about feeds and speeds, footprint, reach, availability, reliability and so on, but it is how your product solved a specific problem that customers can relate to.

Yes, it’s true, when you can’t name the customer, a case study loses a little of its luster. But honestly, just a little bit. Making a blind case study work is all about the story you tell. Here are some tips to get you started:

•          Call out the issue or problem succinctly. People remember stories more than they will your throughput or reach or availability. If your product helped company X solve a big headache for the customer, it’s worth mentioning. While you want to make sure to follow the rules of case study writing, using the standard “Problem-Solution-Results” format, it’s just as important to tell a compelling story with real problems and real results.
•          Tell a short story, and a long one. Make sure you have bite-sized, consumable content for the case studies, but also longer form content to allow people to dig as deep as they want to.
•          Don’t try to identify the customer without naming them. It’s OK to say “a Fortune 100 retailer” when there are 20 retailers in the Fortune 100. It’s not OK to do so when there’s one or two. Don’t give away details that name the company without actually naming them; it could come back to bite you.
•          Do try to segment case studies out on your website, either by vertical market, type of problem solved—or both.
•          Use these case studies internally as well as externally. It’s true, sometimes even in small companies, the left hand does not know what the right hand has been up to. Make sure your team is all up to speed on how customers are finding success using your product or solution. Be careful, however, that internal information does not become public information.

It’s OK to start slow. Make fair claims, and tell a compelling story. Test the waters and see if customers respond to your initial blind case study efforts before jumping in with both feet.