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Case studies are an invaluable marketing and selling tool. Most customers love seeing concrete data when they’re in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey.
This is true for both personal and professional purchasing decisions. If you were considering online dating platforms, for example, which would be more appealing:
Having that data tied to a case study— where potential customers can learn more about what results you delivered to past or existing customers, and how you helped get those results— is a powerful selling move.
And that’s what we’re here to talk about today, especially since not all case studies are actually written in a way that helps the brand drive sales. So, in this post, we’re going to take a look at four case study examples in-depth, reviewing them closely to look at what they did well and what could be improved.
When considering what makes a great case study, you first need to answer the question “what is the purpose of a case study?”
In most cases, a case study’s purpose is to show what kind of results you can get for your customers. It’s like proving you can deliver on what the tagline promises.
This means that you need to provide proo that it actually solve a customer’s problem— and that it can solve a prospective customer’s exact needs, too.
Because of this, your case study should always have the following:
When talking about how to create strong case studies, most resources focus almost exclusively on what you need to do well to create a great one. Many don’t talk about mistakes you should avoid, or even look at how an okay case study could be improved.
So, we’re going to look at four different case studies that use slightly different approaches and talk about what they do well, and what (if anything) could be improved.
Kosli’s case study (centered around their client Stacc’s experience) is a great example of how focusing strongly on pain and loss aversion can be persuasive.
The title of the case study refers to it, reading “How Stacc passed their ISO27001 audit without disruption or paperwork.” That’s a core pain point— passing an audit without the dreaded chaos, paperwork, and disruption. They hit that point home again in the first paragraph, talking about how the client was worried about disrupting automation and losing freedom.
All of the challenges and solutions highlighted how this disruption and feared loss of freedom would not be a problem, thanks to Kosli’s processes.
There was serious loss aversion— and this is something that many clients face. Will they lose flexibility when switching to your tool? Will they lose their data or integrations? Will it be an absolute implementation nightmare?
The quotes from one of Stacc’s partners drove this home. He feared that the process would mean meetings and checklings and a ton of work, but that wasn’t the case and they passed their audit.
This wasn’t exactly a results-driven case study, which is unlike a lot of case studies you’ll see that promise “50% increased in revenue” or “3,000 more ranking keywords in two months.” Instead, it’s promising that the ease of use is actually as simple as most brands would hope, overcoming a major objection many have.
This case study is well-formatted, it speaks to loss aversion and pain points, and it highlights the pain points and challenges well.
What it could theoretically benefit from:
This case study from Content Harmony starts strong, with the headline “How Break the Web Saves 40 Hours Every Week— and Helps Clients Achieve Rapid Traffic Growth— with Content Harmony.”
We learn:
The case study overall is a good start, with a decent description of what the problem was and what the solution was. The results were also detailed and impressive, with plenty of data.
That being said, a few things could be improved:
Overall, this was a solid case study, but a few changes could potentially improve its performance.
Codeless has several case studies on their site, and they’re a great example to follow if you’re interested in more long-form case studies.
While we recommend that most case studies are brief, sometimes (especially for service-based businesses like agencies) opting for longer descriptions of the work done can be valuable.
This case study starts strong, detailing impressive results in the titles and additional results highlighted across the top of the case study.
They highlight the client’s industry, talk in detail about what the brand offers and the challenges they were facing, and they lay out detailed instructions for how they completed the work in question before sharing the results.
This is a long read, running around 1500 words (many case studies can be completed in 600-700), but it actually adds value. Brands who are reading and wondering whether or not they’ll actually be able to generate the same results can see that there’s a dedicated process and it’s not just luck.
The formatting is also well-done, and they have a ton of great visuals that keep the case study interesting to read.
So far, we’ve looked at a few strong case studies that get things mostly right.
Let’s look at an example of a case study that is checking off some of the boxes, but not in a way that it will help drive sales.
This is a caes study from Transcription Wing. The title is already much shorter and not as descriptive as most case studies we’ve seen: “Little Time, Lots of Research!”
They mention that a “marketing research company” came to them with a specific need to analyze a specific amount of content in “a very short period of time.” It’s okay to write case studies without mentioning a client’s name if needed, especially if it’s the only way to write the case study, but this feels a little vague, especially with “a very short period of time.”
The solution listed is simple, and the results section mostly just says “we got them the data they needed in a fast time frame.” There were no client quotes, details about how this was a competitive advantage, or the impact on the client itself. Data about time or money the client saved would be great, but that’s not here.
Some vague information— like not using a client’s name, or being a little vague about specific results— is okay… but an entire case study shouldn’t necessarily be vague. The client is vague, we don’t really have an understanding of how this impacted the client, and even the images are generic stock photos that don’t have much to do with the case study itself.
The best part of this case study was “the solution,” which did a good job of detailing the process, products, and services used.
After reviewing the case studies above, it’s easy to flag a few best and worst practices.
These are the best practices to keep in mind:
And what not to do:
Case studies help you prove that you can deliver on what you’re advertising. It’s the marketing version of putting your money where your mouth is, and that’s in valuable when buyers are making a purchasing decision.
Case studies can be challenging to write (speaking from experience as someone who is paid to write case studies for their clients), so we wanted to make it accessible for everyone. We have a free case study template available for download, which comes with a blog post going over tips for writing strong case studies.
Use our template to get started, and make sure you feature your case study prominently in your marketing materials on your site. The more visibility, the better.
Ready to leverage case studies for your business? Access our guide to creating great case studies (and the free template!) here!
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Content Camel is a sales enablement tool used for sales content management. High-growth sales teams use our system to quickly find and share the right content for each specific sales situation and measure content use and effectiveness.