Observations
Why Old Case Studies Don’t Work for New Clients: Auditing Your Key Growth Asset
Imagine that you have made the strategic decision to enter a new market segment. For example, you might transition from the retail sector to the financial sector. You are confident of your success. You have a trump card at your disposal: a “golden” case study showing how you helped a large retail chain increase its profits by 59%. You hand it over to the sales team, saying, “This will open any door.”
A month goes by, and you receive some discouraging feedback. They say things like, “Bankers don’t understand how retail is relevant,” “They claim to have completely different problems,” and “The case doesn’t make an impression.” Your main asset didn’t work. It’s a false start.
Why does this happen? It’s not because your case study is bad or the 59% figure is unconvincing. The problem is that it is contextually irrelevant. The strength of a case study lies less in the numbers than in its ability to make a potential client look at the protagonist and say, ” “That’s me! I have the same problem!” When a banker looks at a retail case study, they do not see themselves. Recognition does not occur.
In this article, we will examine three levels of this “irrelevance” that can undermine your proof points when entering new territory. We will also show you how to properly adapt your “sales arsenal” for successful expansion.
Failure No. 1: Irrelevance of Industry and Scale (“This Is Not About Us”)
Old case studies fail at this very first barrier. Potential clients are not just looking for a solution to their problem; they are looking for proof that you understand the specifics of their world.
When you show a retail case study to a banking executive, for example, they will think, ” “They don’t get it.” Their brain instantly generates a list of objections: “We have strict regulations from the central bank,” “Our data security requirements are different,” and “Our business processes are completely different.” They never even consider your ROI figures because they are convinced your experience is inapplicable to their reality.
The same applies to scale. If you try to sell a solution to a Fortune 500 corporation using a case study about a 50-person startup, it will have the opposite effect. Decision-making in a large company is 90 percent about managing complexity, including bureaucracy, integration with dozens of legacy systems, and training thousands of employees. Success in a small, agile company is not proof to them. On the contrary, it can be perceived as naïveté and a lack of understanding of their corporate challenges.
What should marketing and business development directors take away from this? When entering a new strategic segment, whether a new industry or transitioning from SMB to enterprise, the first task is to create at least one “anchor” case from that segment. This is not optional or “nice to have.” It is your “entry ticket” to serious conversations with major players in this new arena.
Failure No. 2: The problem is irrelevant (“You are treating the wrong disease”).
All right, suppose you prepared properly, found a case study from the right industry, and chose the right scale. But it still “does not stick.” Why? Most likely, you are facing the second level of irrelevance: a mismatch of the problem.
The same product can be “hired” for different Jobs-to-be-Done by different market segments. What is a top pain point for one client may be a secondary concern for another. If you proudly demonstrate how you solved a problem that is not one of your new prospect’s top three priorities, they will simply ignore it.
Imagine your product is a marketing automation platform. Your old market consisted of fast-growing tech startups. Their main concern was acquiring new leads. Your star case study shows how you helped Company X increase lead generation by 150%.
Now, you are trying to sell the same platform to a large industrial enterprise. However, it turns out that they have no problem with leads because they have a stable customer base. Their main problem is high customer churn due to poor service. When you present the lead generation case study, they nod politely but don’t see how it solves their primary problem. You are offering them a better way to hunt while their boat is already leaking.
What is the takeaway? Any market expansion must start with researching the dominant pain in the new niche, not showcasing past successes. First, you need to know exactly “where it hurts,” and then you can prepare case studies and presentations that address the issue precisely. Otherwise, you risk spending months offering a remedy for the wrong disease.
Failure No. 3: The Irrelevance of Language (“We Speak Different Languages”)
Language is the final and by no means least important level. Even if you present a case study from the right industry that addresses the right problem, if it is written in a language that is “foreign” to the client, it will not work.
This isn’t about English. It’s about the professional vocabulary, key metrics, and values accepted in a specific industry. Every industry has its own “clan” with its own slang.
Imagine your retail case study is full of terms like “LTV,” “AOV,” and “ROMI.” You show it to the chief medical officer of a large hospital. They may understand the individual words, but they are not central to their world. Their world revolves around terms such as “average patient length of stay,” “bed occupancy rates,” and “quality of care.”
When you use unfamiliar terminology, you unconsciously send the client a message. “I am not from your world. I don’t understand your reality.” This instantly destroys trust and your perceived expertise. Clients feel that they will have to adapt your solution to suit themselves, which means additional work and risk.
Adapting to a new market means more than just changing the client logo in the case study. It requires a deep linguistic effort. Your marketing team must immerse themselves in the new market segment’s world, study its lexicon, and learn to speak it fluently and without an accent. Only then will you be accepted as “one of their own.”
From “Copy-Paste” to “Adaptation”
When entering a new market, it’s tempting to simply “copy” what has already worked. However, as we have seen, directly transferring your best practices and most convincing case studies from one segment to another almost always leads to failure.
Success in a new niche requires thoughtful adaptation at three levels: industry and scale, key problems, and professional language.
Your old, successful case studies are not a ready-made “arsenal” for expansion. They are valuable “raw material.” Your team’s task is to process this raw material and create new, highly precise tools calibrated for each new target market.
Conduct an audit of your key case studies. Ask your marketing and sales directors to evaluate them based on three criteria: relevance to the industry, relevance to the problem, and appropriateness of the language for the new target market. The results of this audit will serve as your roadmap for building an effective “sales arsenal.”
