Customer reference stories only work if they are credible, relatable and can demonstrate a tangible difference between before and after.

A customer story works best when you can relate to the pain that the client originally had, understand the journey that they travelled before they discovered your solution and, see and hear first-hand, the transformation that your solution made to them.

Customer Reference material and case studies do work. And often they can be the best sales tool that you can use to convince a prospect at the point of decision making.

The world’s biggest B2B brands use them to win global contracts and smaller companies can often use reference or customer advocacy stories to open up new channels or as a ground-breaking way of increasing market share faster.

Producing a poor quality case study isn’t likely to make much difference to your bottom line and you’ll need to choose a partner wisely so that you remain in safe hands.

After all, you’re trusting your best customers with an external provider so make sure they know exactly what they are doing and reflect your level of professionalism.

A customer reference is simply a fancy name for a Customer Testimonial and used by agencies to make it sound different.

A customer reference programme is different to a simply customer testimonial or single reference as it is more of a strategic approach used by companies who have reference programmes, to gain very large contracts with like-minded global clients.

It’s a name given to producing a strategic plan and then implementing that plan on a global, regional and local basis, which exclusively involves management of key case study clients.

The programme sits within the marketing function and is an essential advocacy tool used to convert prospects into paying clients. The programme covers everything from globalising the approach, key messaging, plans to reach new markets and production of support material to give credibility to marketing claims for a company, brand, product or service.

This is the process of putting together reference materials (films, written case studies, infographics etc) in a way that provides an advocacy platform for your organisation and its products or services.

Essentially, it’s identical to client reference but the term generally applies to the overall function of what you are doing – using customer advocacy to promote your key differentiators and benefits.

A hybrid case study is a term which means mixing different elements, such as the written word, infographics or video within one particular format (like an immersive or interactive PDF).

It can also refer to a hybrid approach to producing a case study; for example, where a reference production is made in the format of a blog, a video, written PDF, infographic, web page or live-webinar style case study.

The term hybrid simply refers to blending formats within a document or when more than one element is used for the same case study.

For enterprise-level organisations using high-level CMS systems or bespoke SaaS systems, Asset Management or Enterprise AI systems can be used as a way to engage with clients using multiple platforms in a way which can push content intelligently to prospects at the right micro-moment in their purchasing journey.

It is an excellent way for large organisations to repurpose content on the fly and this is where hybrid case studies provide a significant benefit for winning new business.