Case studies come in many formats, from short posts on social media to showcasing your work on websites in the form of videos to marketing material to give or send to prospective clients.

The great thing is that once you have the content for a case study then you can repurpose it in many ways. Good content always wins over mediocre content and a case study should be full of great content that demonstrates how you have helped clients overcome problems with solutions that give them great outcomes.

Why do you need case studies?

A great case study will build brand awareness and reputation, illustrate what your company does and prove the worth of your products and services. As with any great content, it should resonate with other clients or prospective clients that are experiencing similar problems.

Building a library of case studies isn’t necessarily easy but if you put the effort in you will get a great return on time invested. Once written, the material can be used in many ways in short or long form, giving you some evergreen content you can use again and again. Case studies can be powerful if you can show the transformation that a client went through from the pain points to the solution to the positive outcome sand therefore has the power to convert enquiries into leads and leads into sales.

Getting Started

When writing a case study you need a few things to get started:

• A customer with a pain point similar to those of your target audience and in a key segment for your business (unless you have the time to write multiple case studies)
• A customer that is enthusiastic about your product or service, is happy to get involved and willing to give you permission to use their story, their logo, images and quotes
• A customer that is ultimately happy with your solution and the value it gave to them
• An individual who is relevant to the case study and has the authority to give permission dn provide a quote.

A case study could start with your own draft of the situation along the following format:

Title – a short compelling title using keywords

Introduction – to the Company (your client), products/services industry, sector, how long your client has been working with you, your client’s logo

An Outline – of the problem or challenges (the pain points) and how it was affecting the business, what were they trying to achieve and why was it failing

The Solution – what was the client decision making process, what you designed or provided, the key benefits of the solution, how it was better than alternatives from competitors, how easy was it to implement, what was the process of purchasing or adopting the product or service

Facts & Figures – these will enhance your content such as growth in sales or profits or reduction in cost or absenteeism, graphics could be used to convey the results

The Outcomes – how business improved after implementation of the solution, what were the results, how did it add value to the business?

A Quote – from a relevant person

Images – of the product in place, the client’s work place, the happy client

Call to Action – which encourages the reader or viewer of the case study to take the next step to contact you, find out more, see a demonstration, book a call etc.

You might want to add an Executive Summary at the beginning or a Conclusion at the end and finish with a.

Other ways to get the case study started might be a questionnaire to your client, followed up with a phone call or meeting to clarify the points. Or it could all be done in a face to face interview.

Top Tips to Create a Great Case Study

Here are my final top tips:

1. Make sure, you take the time to do your research, plan and prepare, select your clients carefully.
2. Ultimately your case study is a story with a beginning, a middle and an end and your product or service is the hero.
3. Ensure it is written in your tone or brand voice and includes your branding.
4. Follow a clear format so all case studies are approximately the same length and have the same headings, consistency will look good if you are sharing more than one case study or showcasing these on your website.
5. Be creative and bold, reveal any quantitative as well as qualitative results, use images, graphics and quotes.
6. Keep it short and focussed you don’t need to waffle on, a good word count would be between 400 and 600 words. Don’t include irrelevant information, stick to the facts, use short, easy to read sentences and paragraphs and easy to scan with headings, bullet points or summaries.
7. If you are printing your case study, make sure it is professionally designed or use some of the professional templates in packages like Canva. Good design should enhance your case study not detract from it.
8. Finally, make sure that you publicise your case studies on your website, circulate to your sales teams, use at exhibitions and events, email to clients and chop it up and use snippets on social media.

If you need any help writing case studies, let’s chat. Call me on 07870 541 726.