Case Studies, Customer Stories Impact Willingness to Pay

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You've got the questions,

and we have the data.

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This is the ProfitWell Report.

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Hi, Patrick. Debbie here

from Init Live. I'm curious.

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How do case studies or

customer stories impact

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We live in a fascinating

world where even though our

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advancement as a society has

bred the luxury of individuality,

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we still want to see ourselves

in the others that we want to

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surround ourselves with because this

gives us comfort and trust

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in the relationships

that we undertake.

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Or at least that's the theory of

case studies and customer stories.

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Oh, I know Susan. She

uses that product.

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I guess I can use

that product too.

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Can we possibly be

that primal though?

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Maybe.

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To answer Debbie's

great question,

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we designed a pricing

experiment with nearly thirty

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thousand different subscription

consumers across b to b and b

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to c, and here's what we found.

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To test this, we asked customers

their willingness to pay for a

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product without any customer

stories or testimonials.

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We then ask similar customers

on a demographic basis,

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their willingness to pay for

the same product but with

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different levels of

customer stories.

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In b to b, simply having

a customer ribbon or basic

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testimonials directionally

improved willingness to pay.

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The variation here is pretty

wide but the upward trend

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indicates roughly a five

percent bump in willingness to

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pay with that little

bit of social proof.

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The trend becomes meaningful

when customers were exposed to

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a mini case study or a full

case study with willingness to

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pay gains crossing the ten

percent threshold and trending

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even as high as thirty percent.

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B to c showed essentially the

same exact trend with basic

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social proof coming in a bit lower

than b to b and a full

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case study trending

higher than b to b.

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Further, the specificity of the case

study seem to have a lot of power.

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Most case studies you read are

very, quote, I love the product.

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It had a good result.

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Whereas others get

into incredible detail.

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The detail pays

off as in b to b,

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specific case studies increase

willingness to pay at double

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the rate of generalized ones.

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In b to c,

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specific case studies increase

willingness to pay at five x

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Essentially, if we see ourselves

or at least have enough context to

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understand that a product worked

for someone similar to ourselves,

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we trust that the solutions

being provided will work and

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are willing to pay

for that outcome.

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After all, we've evolved a lot as

humans but our basic characteristics

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of trusting the known is still

something beautiful when it

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comes to product marketing.

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Well, that's all for now.

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If you have a question,

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shoot me an email or video to

p c at profit well dot com.

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Let's also thank Debbie from

In It Live for sparking this

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research by clicking the link below

to share and give her a shout out.

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We'll see you next week.

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This week's episode is brought

to you by ProfitWell Retain.

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churn and stop losing revenue.

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