Thirsty children in Nepal drinking fresh water from a suitcase is the best way to showcase Global Water Awards funded from Dubai and explains the importance of compelling case studies for PR.

Hi, welcome to this episode of SpeakPR. My name is Jim James. And I have some tools and some tips that can help any business owner to get noticed that are cost effective and time efficient. Today, I'd like to just share some thoughts about the use of case studies. Because most people are so busy writing about themselves, that they forget to write about the people that they do good service for. I'm reminded of this because I've been working on a client project today, and also new business prospect today. And both of them will talk about them, not about the real heroes of the story, who are their customers. And that is what I'd like to share with you today, how to make your customers into your heroes using case studies. Now in our SpeakPR methodology, we talk about the need to storify, to personalize, to engage, to amplify and to know. And the storification is about showing how your business is creating an opportunity for your hero to accomplish what they would like to accomplish in their life. So stories are about the people - be there your team or your partners or your customers, who are engaging with your business. In order to move somewhere they're all buying some product or service from you to get something else. And so often companies have busy writing about their own story about what's in it for them. And why they do this, that they forget that actually people don't care, what they care about is what they're going to get as a result, storification that is the first part of that now, personalization is about defining the avatars, which people do you need to write about which people are those people that are experiencing the value that you're creating, and that you could then use them as a showcase, an example. So other people, like this avatar, can engage with you to get the same result. And you're going to show them that by creating engaging content. This is what we talked about in the SpeakPR program. Suggests let's look at what would go into a case study. Now a case study is an example of somebody working with you or buying from you and doing what they need to do with it. Now, I've been working with a global water awards recently out of Dubai. And one of the winners of their awards is called LiquidX out of Singapore. And what we want to do is to get more people to enter the awards. And in order to do this, we've issued a press release. But what we've also started to do is to work on a case study. So we have found this company LiquidX who won this award $100,000 Prize for their compact water purification system, actually the size of a suitcase, and is portable and can be powered by solar or by pedal power, for example, just 12 volt route of a car battery. So the awards program out of Dubai, these are our clients. But actually the way to get the client more entries is to profile the winners. We've been in touch with the very nice people in Singapore that run LiquidX that had won this award. And we're just editing today the story of what has happened for them since they entered the awards. And since they won this prize, and it's fantastic. They have managed to become part of a global water related incubator, where they were chosen out of a global group of entries, to qualify for some funds and also to be part of community that all have an investment from this fund. And then can have mentors. They through having been involved with this water investment group got access to the World Bank, and the World Bank actually is the largest donor of water related investments. They've also had a company from Sweden, write to them and ask if they can do a joint venture to license their technology that's within this suitcase size water purification system and to take it into other applications. So by winning this award, this company LiquidX has moved from being a Singapore company with a an exceptional product, which is being used in the field to purify water into being a leader worldwide in water purification technology. Now, they were already on their way, but the awards give them the endorsement, in this case of the Dubai Water Authority arranged event. So they now have got the credibility of this award, this third party endorsement that has introduced them to all of these other community and participants and investors. So our job is to interview them, and to write the article. Now the article came back as a narrative to me about the company. And that is in itself part of the story. But what I also needed to do in editing the piece that came from the journalist who has interviewed the CEO of liquid x, I needed to add some context. So when we talk about amplification, within the speakPR program, we talk about content needing to be new, to be simple, but also to be context sensitive, or context relevant. Writing about LiquidX on its own, winning the awards, and without the context of water scarcity, and without the context of Southeast Asia doesn't create a way for the readers to connect with the LiquidX story. So a case study has to include how that, in this case, the hero's LiquidX, how they have participated and won the award, what is meant to them. But the next part of the journey, the next part of the story, is how that has impacted other players within the story, in this case, children in Nepal, for example. What we need to do then, as PR people, is to draw in the statistics that give the credibility to the water story, the number of people that have to live without water, for example, the challenges that are faced across the world, where literally billions of people without water, it's about 134 million people don't have access to water every day. But that number is growing, and forecast to be billions in the next five years due to global warming. So we need to connect the liquid neck story to the global problem, and show them as being one of the participants in this awards program that's addressing this global problem. So the case study, is our way of making a chapter for the Dubai Water Awards. Within the overall novel, which is the award program, it's in its third iteration, it comes out every two years. So it's in the third cycle. And our job is to engage people that are innovators in water tech, and get them to enter. And we can do that by helping to understand what a company like them has already accomplished. And what that would mean for them. So they can start to visualize themselves as entering and winning, and helping to play their part on a global scale and meeting other water tech companies, meeting other investors, and also to meet companies and organizations like the World Bank as a result of being participants in this award. I was sent today, a brochure by a friend who's got a travel business. And it's a beautiful brochure. And he asked me to have a look and say, What do you think we're going to send this out to people around the world for our specialist travel business? And my response was, where are the people? Where are the customers and his travel service partners in the field who are going to make these extraordinary stories? In other words, where are the case studies. So often, we are writing about ourselves, sending wonderful images of ourselves and actually that's not what sells. What sells is the news, the testimonial that other people, like the customers that we're seeking, have already been successful by working with us. So I share this because as you look at your own marketing materials, maybe you're creating a case study, maybe creating a brochure or a website, how can you make that about them, not about you. As we know, if we go to a social situation, and we meet people who just stand there and talk about them selves, then of course, we all will eventually walk away. It's just the same in marketing except for, they don't walk away in front of us, they just drop away from our website, or don't ring our phone number, or reply to our email. So there is this invisible decision to ignore us. And that's reflected in our bounce rates on our websites, our low open rates on our newsletters, or the lack of response to our advertising campaigns. In the SpeakPR program, we talk about creating engaging content, which is simple, new, and context sensitive, it has to be relevant. And to be relevant, it needs to be about other people, like the avatar, like the customer that you're seeking now. So just a thought, as you look at all the things that you've done, all the successes you've had, how can you engage the people that were successful, because actually, they are the heroes of your business, as much as you might want to be the hero, I might want to be the hero of my own business. And she must like a parent, we're all very proud of our children. And we don't go around telling people we're great parents, we go around being proud of our children. And we obviously do that in a discreet way. But the same principle applies. We need to talk about our wards, our charges, those people that we enable, those people we facilitate, to be successful. And by doing that, others who are out there looking for the same result will read and relate and come to you. Thank you so much for listening to this short, and hopefully useful episode of CPR. My name is Jim James. If you like this, do please subscribe to our newsletter, Eastwestpr.com you get a compendium of articles every Friday. If you're interested in a mastermind, a six week course, helping you to use technology to create great content and to amplify and to know the results, check out our website at SpeakPR.co. So in the meantime, I wish you the best of health, a sustainable business. And if you're going to be creating content, make the center of the story, the hero and that hero is someone that's benefited from being involved with you and your business. Thank you so much for listening.