Your company has good stories to tell, no matter how sales are going right now. Here's how to present them in a way that showcases your value and makes prospects take notice. These five tips might sound crazy, but following them can generate serious business.

Your business has done important things for clients, and all of those big and small "wins" could be used to generate new business. Every organization facing a business challenge you have solved before, or aiming to reach a goal you have helped others achieve, needs to see those stories. They want to work with printers who understand their issues and have a track record of success.

You Help Your Clients' Brands Every Day. What About Your Own?

Chances are, you're not telling those stories enough because you don't think they're worth telling. Truth is, your team has dozens of gems - some are shiny and obvious (a big campaign you just worked on) while others need to be unearthed and polished (the time a print production idea saved a client money, or the ways an e-commerce feature makes life easier for users).

What have you done lately for current clients that future clients need to hear and understand?

That question underscores an irony: Your company is probably great at helping clients plan and execute all kinds of programs and campaigns as they communicate, extend and protect their brands. But you probably neglect to do the very same thing for your own business.

Understandably, you're fighting against the forces of limited time, scarce self-marketing resources and long to-do lists. At the same time, your prospects are bombarded with messages, empowered to ignore you and armed with easy tools like the DELETE key. They need a good reason to tune in, so you need a good way to cut through the clutter. They need to know you understand the nuances of their market and have solved similar challenges for others. How can you reach targets in a way that will earn their attention?

Start With This Thought: Prospects Care More About Their Future Than Your Past

The best print industry case studies are presented with the audience in mind at all times. Case studies are a marketing strategy, sure, but all the content should be written and presented without sounding like an advertisement.

Prospects care deeply about their future success and less deeply about how "service-driven" or "detail-oriented" or "robust and automated" you are. Reminding yourself of the importance of this fact can help you make smarter decisions about what to show and tell prospects in case studies. Your audience needs to know "what's in it for them."

This Dscoop Guide outlines five surprising steps that can turn your past successes into future business. Follow them the next time you want to place a case study into your prospects' hands or onto their screens.

These 5 Tips Aren't as Crazy as They Seem

On their face, the names of these tips will seem bonkers. But read on, because they'll help you win more face time from people who buy print and marketing services:

1. Act extremely dumb.

Don't assume you already know which client you'll feature, and exactly why your company mattered to that client. Instead, gather your team and begin with an open mind. The easiest way to bring a case study kickoff meeting to a silent, awkward halt is to ask, "So, what's the subject of our case study? What's it going to be about?" Instead, begin by asking:

• What do we know that's of real value to our prospects and customers?

• Where are our areas of distinctive expertise right now?

• How can we show/demonstrate/illustrate our best ideas?

• Who do we know that can provide the content/material for the case study?

• What lasting impression do we want to make on readers?

Your answers will lead you to the right client(s) to feature.

Also, before you begin to write, commit to not adopting an overly "smart" voice - the way your content sounds and feels to prospects based on word choice. Don't mentally put on a stuffy-sounding coat and tie. Corporate-speak ("creating synergy," "establishing a true win-win," "moving forward," etc.) is just garbled nonsense that buries the value and impact of your stories. Determine to not sound stuffy, distant to overly authoritative.

Instead, commit to clarity, simplicity and a voice that's conversational yet professional.

2. Deal with some drama.

Sustaining attention in a case study means creating a level of tension. Conflict is important and is essential to the first part of the typical CHALLENGE > SOLUTION > RESULT structure. Encourage the case study source to describe the business problem in detail - the company's issue and the source's personal recollections and thoughts about the issue. Doing so helps the reader better relate to the problem you solved. 

An important note: If the client doesn't want to be named specifically in the case study, most don't mind if you present the company generally instead ("a health care provider in the Midwest," "a small non-profit organization," etc.) Unless the client is a large, recognizable brand, the reader will focus more on the solution anyway.

Remember this formula: Desire + risk = drama. Here's how it works:

• State the desire. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because it wanted something on the other side - shade, food, a rooster, whatever. Desire is the engine that drives a story, the force that gives it momentum. For a case study to begin, someone has to want something (often, to overcome something). What objective, goal or dream did the customer have? What did its leaders want? Why did this goal matter?

• Articulate the risk. To create an effective story, it helps to articulate the challenges that stand between the hero and the object of desire. In fact, the more intimidating those challenges, the better. What possible things stood in the way of success? What might have happened had the client continued its previous process?

• Develop the drama. Once desire and risk have been established, you have a drama that sustains interest. Now all your tips, hints, secrets, suggestions, illustrations, expertise, customer quotes - all the stuff that makes up the body of your case study - have a meaningful context.

Just one word can make all of this so simple. Near the top of your case study, stick in your "but" (or a "yet" or "however") - a conjunction that indicates contradiction. Start to develop that narrative early, and the story's payoff (the solution and result sections) will be clearer and more impactful.

3. Stop thinking about yourself.

By focusing on a client's success, you can introduce your product or service as a viable means to an end that your readers can appreciate. But the case study should never feel like a sales flyer that just happens to start with a client problem. Stay focused on the customer's point of view, even as you explain your solution.

A compelling case study is built on a core of three basic components :

• The challenge. Using the "Deal with some drama" tip from above as your guide, establish the context - who your client is, where they are, what industry they are in - and the desire. What did your client want? To trim inventory? Save time? Increase revenue? Improve profitability? Reduce transportation costs? Think of the challenge as the reason why your company was brought into the picture in the first place. And always explain the stakes, the "so what?" part of the challenge that explains why meeting or overcoming it meant something for the client.

• The solution. What did you actually do for the client or customer? The key is specificity - you want to paint a word-picture so vivid readers can imagine themselves in your client's shoes. Don't skimp on meaningful details, and keep the focus on the customer as much as possible. For example, what features of your online ordering system helped the client the most? What did the client think about your ability to convert conventionally printed materials to print-on-demand? Focus on how the customer benefitted from what you provided.

• The results. What happened as a result of the client using your product or service? The more specifics, the better. At this point, you should come full circle to the desire stated in the challenge - but now, this is a thing achieved, rather than merely hoped for. When possible, get a direct quote from the client articulating the value your company contributed.

When the challenge, solution and results focus on the customer, your case study will naturally have a theme that's more important the topic itself. It won't really be about creating personalized wine labels; it will be about helping a brand make its customers feel special. It won't really be about stand-up pouches; it will be about boosting a brand. 

4. Help them be lazy.

People don't want to read; they want to glance and skim. Break your case study content into manageable, simple parts. The judicious use of subheads, for example, can cut long stretches of body copy into easier-to-read chunks. But you can also use these other, visually distinctive features to enliven your layouts and make each section of the case study more enticing and compelling:

• Bulleted lists. When you have lots of information that's difficult to jam into a coherent paragraph, don't bother; just list them as a series of bullet points.

• Call-outs. Call-outs are little snippets of text that are visually segregated from the main body with graphical elements such as horizontal lines, boxes, shaded areas, font treatment or any combination thereof. As you guessed by its name, call-outs "call" special attention to the copy you've selected. Appropriate callout content types include customer quotes that directly reflect or address the issue discussed in the main body, and statistics drawn from research that quantify items relevant to your copy.

• Hints and tips. Supporting thought can be offered to help readers start to think of their own situations.

• Commentary. This could include technical explanations (perhaps graphical) of copy addressed in the body that might need further clarification or definition.

• Graphs, charts and illustrations. Any of these can make your content more memorable and easier to understand. The possibilities are nearly endless, but you should always apply this practice: write captions. Don't assume that any given graphic item is self-explanatory. Instead, identify the graphic and explain how it relates to a main idea discussed in the main text.

5. End with the beginning.

Don't write the introduction/summary or the headline until the end. Though it violates the order in which your case study will be presented, it's consistent with the way it should be written - think about the intro last, after you've finished the main body. You can't properly introduce something until you know exactly what you're introducing. Further, writing the intro first confines your efforts; you'll feel forced to conform your body to the introduction, when in fact, the introduction, like tailored clothing, should be styled to fit your body.

For the title, as in all types of writing, try to grab the reader's attention. Rather than simply describe the project, focus on what it achieved. Turn the title "A Case Study on Company X," into, "Company X Boosts ROI By 38%." The second tells the reader what they might expect if they work with you.

Act Like a Publisher, Not a Salesperson

Before you publish your case study in print or online, delete anything (phrases, entire sections, etc.) that seems like it could have been written by anybody in any industry for any audience. Also, change copy that gives prospects promotion instead of information. Even before glancing at the case study, your prospect will know it's from your company, and will expect the content to reflect positively on your team.

Also, no matter how great your case study is, no one will read it if they can't find it. Don't let that happen; deliver it to prospects and clients through a media mix, and get maximum mileage from your success story:

• Include a link to the case study in your email marketing.

• Post PDF and text versions of the case study to your website.

• Write a press release about the story, and invite industry editors to read or publish it.

• Talk about your perspective of the case study in your blog.

• Tweet about the case study's availability; invite Facebook followers to read it.

• Interview the customer on video and post the conversation to your YouTube channel.

• Use printouts of the case study as leave-behinds.

• Insert printouts into proposals for new accounts in the same industry.

• Refer to the case study in RFP questions that ask about recent successes.

Adopt the mindset of a publisher who's thinking about the audience, rather than a salesperson who's hoping to convert a lead. Let the five tips in this article serve as your guide.