A new year is right around the corner.  How will you position yourself to develop more business in 2012?   A great way to start is to share how your happiest, best satisfied clients have benefited from your service in the form of a case study.

The best part about conducting a case study is that, as a recruiter, you have a wealth of resources for this type of marketing initiative:  good interviewing skills, listening skills, and a aptitude for connecting and networking with people.  The hardest part is getting it down on paper.  But, once you do, you have a marketing goldmine - a piece of collateral you can reshape and use again and again.

Prep Work

1.  Make a road map.  You want to use your case study to make a compelling argument for using your recruiting firm.  Prepare a few open-ended interview questions that will help to develop a rich case for your company.  Focus on uncovering problems your clients had that your recruiting firm solved.

2.  Get the cold hard facts.  Think about any metrics that your clients would have that can support your case.

3.  Test the waters.  You may have a few clients who would make great case studies in mind already.  But if not, you can save some time from interviewing the “wrong” client by sending out a short survey, first.  Email potential interviewees with a brief questionnaire to help gauge their interest and appropriateness for doing a case study.

4.  Get them on board.  Hesitant about asking clients to do you a favor and participate in your case study?  Remember that it is positive exposure for their company as well.  And there’s no shame in offering a gift card to sweeten the deal - the pay off will more than make up for the cost.

Get the Story

5.  Prep your interviewee.  Schedule a time to speak with them in advance so they have plenty of time to answer your questions in depth.  In addition, emailing the interview questions in advance may help interviewees to give more developed answers.

6.  Info gathering.  Interview your selected clients in person or over the phone.

7.  Create a narrative.  Everyone loves a good story.  And every good story has conflict and resolution.  As you right your case study, focus on the problem your client had, and how your firm helped them to solve it.  Include compelling quotes and metrics to back up your study.

Market Your Work

8.  Quotable quotes.  Pull great quotes from your case study to use as testimonials on your website and other marketing collateral.

9.  Go Viral.  Turn an interesting point made by a client or candidate into a viral blog post.

10.  Why your firm?  Post the case study on your website or use as print material to send to prospective clients.

11.  Make it purty.  Visualize client metrics in a fun infographic that tells their success story.

12.  Post it.  Share everything with your social networks.

13.  Spread the word.  Ask the featured interviewee to share with their social networks, expanding your audience.

If you start now, you could have a few client success stories ready to rock for 2012.

this article originally appeared at www.sendouts.com