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Case Studies: Understanding the Difference Between Results and Activities

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Case studies (aka customer stories) are one of the most powerful tools in an organization’s marketing arsenal. And for good reason.

If you are an unknown or little-known company, a great case study that names the customer can provide you with instant credibility. Many (most?) organizations are fairly risk-averse, which means they’re reluctant to take a chance on a new solution no matter how much promise it holds. A case study often gives them the confidence to overcome those fears.

If you are an industry leader, case studies are a great way to demonstrate that your reputation is not just a product of marketing hype. You are a substantial company that continues to work hard to deliver value to your customers.

Of course, all of this assumes one key factor: you have actual results to show.

What do I mean by that? Of course you have results! You created all these materials, delivered all these widgets, documented all these exchanges, etc.

Nope, sorry. Those aren’t results. Those are activities.

So while all of those things are good and necessary, they’re just the table stakes. What your readers will really be interested in is what impact all those activities had on your customers, or their customers.

Here’s a quick healthcare example. If you produced a program to help a hospital’s patients with diabetes gain control over their HbA1c levels that’s great. The fact that you produced four YouTube videos, six pamphlets and three infographics gives the reader a sense of the scope of the program.

But those aren’t results. Results would be something like 60% of those who enrolled in the program got their HbA1c levels under 7.0 and 85% lowered their rates by at least two points in the first six months.

What’s the difference? In the first example you did something that was necessary to success but it didn’t cause anything to change.

Had all those same materials been produced but not distributed there would have been no way of knowing whether they would be effective or not because they weren’t yet in the hands of the people who needed them. You might as well have blown up balloons with pictures of clowns on them.

In the second example, the materials you produced were distributed and produced outcomes among those to whom they were targeted. THAT is what your prospects want to know.

They’re not interested in your ability to produce slick materials in a variety of formats. They’re interested in whether the program achieved the intended goals.

This distinction between activities and results becomes particularly important when the case study is repurposed for a speaker application – especially a complex application for an event such as HIMSS.

While all the background and steps that were taken are important, having real results to speak to is critical. I’ve never been in the room where it happens, but I imagine that when HIMSS applications are received the reviewers immediately go to the results section. If all you have to show is activities, the application immediately gets sent to the discard folder.

I understand that securing customers to participate in case studies can be difficult, and often beggars can’t be choosers. If your only option is a customer that either isn’t tracking results (unthinkable in today’s digital world but apparently it happens) or doesn’t have quantifiable results to speak of yet, so be it.

But if that’s the case you need to recognize that the effectiveness of your case study (or speaker application) will be diminished. Prospects will leave a bit disappointed, the media will be reluctant to write their own stories about it, and event organizers will be likely to pass on your speaker application. Expectations for success should be set accordingly.

Case studies are wonderful tools, but their effectiveness is closely tied to the results you have to tout. Understanding the difference between activities and outcomes will help ensure you do all you can to deliver the best – and most effective – case studies to help your PR and marketing efforts.

When Worlds Collide: Is the Merging of PR and Marketing a Good Thing?

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Before social media, cross-platform campaigns and general business trends toward greater economy and efficiency of services, public relations and marketing though often collaborators were two distinct disciplines. Despite a kind of “kissing cousins” relationship, each had its own mission and purpose.

In today’s world, however, public relations and marketing are connected in ways that are both complex and granular. How effectively these well-blended professions work together is key to positively and creatively positioning your business for success.

Two Faces or a Vase?

It used to be that marketing handled advertising and PR handled earned media. Both jobs required that they make the business look good. That’s still true today kind of. It depends on how you look at it, and even then it can be hard to explain.

Let’s start with a visual the Rubin’s vase. This is a rather famous optical illusion that is usually depicted as a simple black-and-white image that can be interpreted differently depending on who is looking at it. One person looking at the image may see the shape of a vase, while another might glimpse two faces in profile facing each other. The person who sees the face can eventually see the vase, and the person who sees the face can see the two profiles, but neither person can they maintain both images concurrently.

This is what PR and marketing used to look like. Marketing helped move the company’s product (two faces), while PR sold the “vase” in the form of the company’s brand and reputation.

Today, those distinctions are not as stark. Businesses are expecting their PR and marketing teams to find a way to see two faces and a vase at the same time. Like never before, PR and marketing need each other to help a business succeed.

A Distinction without a Difference?

OK, so the average business executive may not really care about whether PR and marketing represent a single entity or distinct areas (after all, they care about results, which as we know, always fall freely from the magical Results Tree). It’s OK we’re used to it.

But you should care. More than anyone else in the company, the PR and marketing teams orbit in close and consistent proximity to your customers. Understanding how they best work together can make or break a business. If they are not on the same page, your company will not be on the same page with the customer.

You do the math.

The Content Example

One of the reasons why PR and marketing are “colliding” is that in today’s environment content is king. Byline articles, blog posts, tweets, status updates, e-mail blasts. It seems that every new piece of content is “old” by the time the final stamp of approval is given.

Campaigns highly customized to the business or even a specific initiative within the enterprise maximize your business’s core messages. But they also act in a way to bring a measure of control, discipline and meaning to the tsunami of content most businesses need to produce to stay relevant in hyper-competitive industries.

The success of these campaigns often hinges on how well marketing and PR work together.

With any initiative, the Golden Rule is “early and often.” This means that your PR and marketing pros need to engage early and often in order for the client to enjoy the end result (capitalizing on the success of a campaign or initiative).

PR and marketing teams feed on data both internal (from sales, product developers, c-suite executives) and external (customers and market shifts within the industry). That data will ultimately define the functional aspects of a campaign (the best vehicles and channels to reach prospective customers) and the emotional resonance (how the precise positioning of a message impacts a customer and their willingness to buy from and stay loyal to the business).

Final Thoughts

When I start with a new client, one of my first goals is to get to know the marketing team and what they are working on. I also ask to engage with the sales team. What are customers connecting with? How do they interact with the company? And I don’t accept stock answers. I drill down. Sometimes, a turn of phrase or just the right word can be the different between a lost sale and a signature on the dotted line.

Years ago, I might not have thought to do this. Today, I understand that the data I acquire from them will inform the shape of my PR campaign. I also understand that my PR campaign will affect everything on their side from sales presentations and the keywords and phrases used in a brochure to social media campaigns and the priorities on the content calendar.

Marketing and PR, while still very much distinct, are travelling toward the same goal and often taking the exact same road. There are the occasional places where the two diverge, but understanding those subtle differences is where true collaboration and the success of your business lies.