Kronos Retools Case Studies after Insightful Sales Rep Feedback

Marketers work hard to deliver collateral that brings in leads and lands sales. But what really works?

Kronos knows that customer case studies pull their weight.

“We’ve been told by sales reps that case studies are definitely one of the most important pieces of sales collateral and can be the most powerful if presented the right way,” said Ciana Abdollahian, customer marketing specialist at Kronos Incorporated, a leading maker of workforce management solutions.

But like any type of marketing collateral, case studies and success stories must hit the audience with the right information – or they won’t move prospects along in the sales cycle.

At Kronos, marketers across different teams had their own feelings about what should be front and center on stories – products, solutions or industries – but what really brought results in the field?

Kronos did what few companies take the time to do; they embarked on a project to learn more about how sales reps actually use their stories.

Heading the project, Abdollahian interviewed more than 10 sales reps, each for about 30 minutes. She asked them about…

• The target audience for case studies
• The part of the sales cycle where they are used most
• And what orientation to focus on – product, industry, etc.

The investment of time paid off. What she learned surprised Kronos marketers.

“We realized that a lot of sales reps use case studies early on in the sales cycle,” she said. “Before, we thought they were using them later in the cycle, so they were more detailed about the way the products were being used.”

“A lot of reps were telling me they were using them more as an introduction to Kronos, more as validation up front that we can help companies like you, in your industry and of your size.”

In another interesting finding, Kronos learned that the key audience of finance and operations people wanted more high-level facts and numbers.

Up to that point, the company had included details about data flows and how products integrate together in order to address technical decision-makers.

Based on that information, Kronos completely reformatted its case studies…

Before:
Previously, the company created two-page stories in narrative form from beginning to end, covering the background of the organization, why they chose Kronos, the challenge, how Kronos solved the challenge and future plans.

The new case study format keeps the same content but reorganizes it. The first page now features a high-level overview with bullets.

Then page two provides the narrative behind the bullets.

In line with sales reps’ feedback, the company keeps case studies to two pages or less of actual narrative.

Page 1 of the new case study format

Before and now, the cases focus on the featured industry, with language that resonates with each specific industry audience.

Kronos just published its first case in the new format, after getting feedback on the proposed redesign from about 15 reps. Only time will tell whether the stories produce better results for the field. The marketing team will continue to assess how well their stories sell.

“At the start of the new fiscal year, we plan to continue including reps by surveying them on the effectiveness of the stories,” Abdollahian said.