As a small or medium-sized business (SMB) competing for clients, you know firsthand the struggle of making your voice heard. Demonstrating why your products or services can deliver transformational value is an ongoing challenge without a multimillion-dollar marketing budget.

The good news is that you can use client use cases as one of your key marketing strategies. By crafting a series of credible, results-driven stories, you can leverage your existing client relationships to promote your business and influence purchase decisions.

Major corporations define a use case as a short and meaningful recap of how your company helped solve a similar client problem in the past with a solution that had a measurable positive impact on that client’s revenue, productivity or other relevant areas. As a supplier, you have often heard corporate representatives ask you, “Who else have you worked with for a similar solution?” A use case is a credible way to answer that question. Having a set of relatable use cases as part of your marketing collateral can be a powerful selling tool.

The fourfold power of use cases

Use cases are powerful marketing tools for B2B suppliers because they:

1. Serve as credible, third-party testimonials that back up claims about ROI and benefits.

2. Provide some compelling and concrete evidence needed to motivate prospects to take the next step, such as requesting a demo, registering for an event or scheduling a consultation.

3. Demonstrate your business’s ability to deliver tangible value.

4. Level the playing field for SMBs against bigger competitors.

Key elements of a compelling use case

An effective use case needs the following three parts:

1. A relatable business problem or challenge

2. Description of how the product or service solved this problem

3. Quantifiable end results and business impact

The most convincing use cases follow a problem-solution-impact framework to share your company’s strengths and impactful engagements with prospects. Here’s how:

1. Define the business problem

The problem statement of the use case usually focuses on some pain or friction point that clients experience with current solutions on the market. Alternatively, it can highlight an unmet market need that your company identified. Some tips for articulating the problem include:

• Provide specific examples of difficulties faced by customer personas.

• Use data to quantify the issue (e.g., hours lost per week, revenue decline, etc).

• Include client quotations to humanize frustrations.

• Explain the negative impacts of the status quo across business key performance indicators (KPIs).

• Define the problem vividly to set up the value proposition for your solution.

2. Convey the solution

It is important for the use case to provide an overview of how your product or service delivers tangible benefits that relieve a defined client problem or friction point. Storytelling elements to include:

• Brief background on why current solutions fail to address key needs

• Explanation of your product’s standout capabilities or your service’s proprietary methodology

• Description of how specific features and benefits solve stated client pain points

• For services, details on expert personnel, proven frameworks or others

Essentially, this section explains how your solution uniquely fills an urgent client need better than alternatives.

3. Quantifying business impact with hard metrics

This is the most influential section of a use case in terms of driving action. Decision-makers want proof that investing in your solution delivers the relief or advantage they seek. Strategies include:

• Spotlight metrics aligned to the original problem (e.g., productivity increased by 25%, costs reduced by 10%).

• Note industry awards or recognition that validate client-reported results.

• Attach ROI calculations that quantify financial impact.

• Incorporate visual charts that illustrate dramatic gains.

• Use testimonials or quotes that speak to tangible impact.

Such measurable outcomes can motivate prospects to engage further with your business.

4. Other key elements to include

In addition to the core problem-solution-impact narrative, compelling use cases typically highlight:

• Detailed overview of how the client situation in the use case is relatable to other corporations in the industry; relevance is important when sharing use cases for pitching a prospect or as collateral in an RFP response.

• The time frame involved from initial discussions to results measurement

• Challenges or risks mitigated by choosing your company

• How your solution and partnership have now become indispensable to the client’s operations

• How the client from the use case has now further expanded the role of your company and its offerings in their corporation

Structuring the use case matters

Structuring use cases in easily scannable formats removes friction for busy prospects. Be sure to include:

• Frequent use of headings and subheadings

• Bulleted lists highlighting key details

• Relevant images, charts and graphics to make content more visually engaging

• Q&A formats to create conversational flow yielding insights

• Categorizing use cases by buyer persona, company size or industry to enable prospects to self-select the most relevant stories