How to write a conversion-worthy case study
Marketers can talk about how great their company is and the wins clients will achieve, but proving it with real-world examples is where most sales prospects convert.
Enter the case study.
Case studies are the ideal way to combine your marketing collateral with client testimonials and prove out your services or product offering. It’s the chance to show how your other clients have found success and persuade potential clients that they should give your company a try.
Sounds great, right?
Well, writing a compelling case study can take a lot of time and effort from a variety of people, not to mention the time needed to compile all that data and information into an inspirational story.
Fear not, there are ways to streamline this process and create case studies that convert.
1. Identify good partners
Talk to your sales and customer service representatives to find good candidates for future case studies. Try to find a mix of industries and businesses if possible so you have options to market to the right audience when the time comes.
Sales and customer service can help open the conversation about a case study and get a feel from the client if they’d be willing to share their data and testimonials. Always get permission from a client if you’re using their name or any identifying data, otherwise make sure to anonymize the case study by removing company names, people’s names, and logos from the design.
2. Collect the right data
When I develop case studies, I ask my sales reps for the following data:
- Client name (may be anonymized if they wish)
- Client industry
- Size of company (# of employees and revenue, if known)
- What do they do?
- Where are they located?
- How long have they been a customer?
- What were their main pain points or challenges we helped them solve?
- Why did they choose us?
- What products do they use?
- How did we help them choose and then onboard them?
- What were the results?
- What’s next?
- Client quote
- Anything else of relevance to add
Yeah, it’s a lot. But I need that information to create a story around the client’s purchasing decision.
With this data I can start to outline the case study and figure out what information I need to collect from the client directly to build out their story, and make sure I’m asking the right questions.
3. Interview the client
Once I have my outline and interview questions, it’s time to get the client on the phone, or at least send them an email.
The key here is to ask open-ended questions to get answers to the why and how behind their decision to work with us. Don’t be afraid to ask for specific examples of how they use your product or how it’s benefitted them, and if possible try to get a mix of statistical or number-based data as well as anecdotes.
Ask them how they measure success and determine the ROI of your product. You’ll need to know where they started and how they found success to build a credible case study.
4. Build your case study
Now that you understand the story you’re trying to tell, it’s time to structure your case study and put it in the right order.
Like most stories that follow a consistent pattern, people expect case studies to have certain identifiable elements like:
- An informative title (who, what industry, problem, and a major success metric)
- Executive summary
- The challenge
- The solution
- How it was implemented
- The results
Every case study should answer the 5 Ws and the 1 H: Who, what, when, where, why, and how. A lot of this information can be set up in the executive summary, a one to two-paragraph profile of your client.
The challenge section needs to paint the picture of how the company was struggling before working with your brand and possible solutions they tried before trusting you. You can include some of the goals they wanted to achieve in this section.
The solution shows the answer to their challenge, namely your company’s product or service. Share how your companies worked together to assess the challenge, find the right product or service (a great place to show your advantages over the competition), set a budget, and create goals for this solution.
This section needs to answer:
- How it solves the challenge or problem
- What benefits the client would expect
- Any budget and resources needed
- The timeline to implementation and success
Finally, the results section needs to show off how the client benefitted from your solution. This should be a 180 from where they started and how much their business has improved since working with your brand. Use real numbers and metrics the client cares about to summarize the results.
5. Focus on the WIIFM
Case studies should not be treated as advertisements, they need to focus on the client and proving the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) for prospective clients. They can find your ads and marketing materials elsewhere. Your case study should be centered around your client and their success.
Tell their story and focus on their success, not just the benefits of your product. Your client is the protagonist of the story you’re trying to tell. Think of your case study as a story: you have a protagonist, antagonist (their challenge or problem), conflict, climax, and a resolution. Weave in quotes and anecdotes from the client to give their perspective and voice to the study.
Remember, this is about them – not about you!
6. Create a template
Like I said earlier, most people know what to look for in a case study so use a template and a strong format to break your case study up into easily identifiable sections with strong headers and easily digestible paragraphs.
Keep paragraphs small at no more than four sentences and don’t be afraid to use bulleted lists to quickly share information. Visuals and graphs are another great way to share data without too much text and add some color and pop to your case study.
Keep a consistent look to your case studies in case a prospect is looking at all of your available case studies. They shouldn’t have to take the time to hunt down the information they want because it’s not in the place it should be.
7. Share your case study
Finally, make sure your case study can be found by prospects, as well as your sales team to take with them to events or sales meetings. There are a variety of ways to promote your case study and get people to read it:
- Publish it in your resource library or case study page
- Print extra copies for event marketing
- Share on social media
- Run social media and Google ads
- Link to it in email campaigns
- Create a teaser video
- Develop an infographic with important stats
- Create a blog post about it
- Host it as sponsored content on a third-party website
Do you have any tips on creating case studies that convert? Share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter!
