In the world of digital marketing, prospective clients want to see results.
Whether it is a significant increase in social media followers or an impressive amount of sales after a media hit, the public wants proof of your company’s success.
According to the 2020 B2B Behavior Study by Demandbase, 52% of buyers ranked case studies as a “very important” document when assessing different businesses and their competitors. About 76% of participants claimed that the chosen business’s content significantly impacted their decision to move forward.
That is why crafting the perfect case study is so crucial to building your credibility as a professional.
So, what is a case study?
A case study is a document that outlines your company’s process of helping a specific client overcome a challenge. It directly highlights the success of your product by providing data and details about how you solved the problem at hand.
Seems simple enough, right?
But here’s where it gets tricky: A strong case study mixes hard numbers with storytelling techniques. Your prospective customers should not only be impressed by the numbers, but also feel emotionally invested in the client’s growth.
It’s a great way to share what makes your company stand out from competitors—and that’s why they’re so crucial to your bottom line.
That’s not all your case study needs to accomplish, though. You should also earn the trust of potential B2B partners and clients. According to Hubspot, the public’s trust in businesses has significantly decreased, and 65% of consumers do not trust advertisements. About 81% prefer to trust the advice of friends and family over business advice—and that number is too significant to ignore.
The goal: Express your company’s achievements without sounding like a press release.
So how can you showcase your work effectively? Here are five tips for writing the perfect case study to attract customers and bring positive attention to your business.
1. Keep it concise!
When writing your case study, keep it short and sweet. Be as specific as possible when discussing your strategies and results. Avoid unnecessary details and be direct about your process.
At Zen Media, we create case studies for many of our clients. To keep these documents concise, we organize information into three sections: The challenge, the strategy, and the results.
In less than 200 words, we provide a clear outline of our digital campaigns from beginning to end. We also utilize bullet-point lists to keep our results clear and easily scannable.
Basically, we keep the reader interested while getting the point across quickly.
2. Tell a story.
Like all successful pr campaigns, you want your case study to tell a story akin to fairytales, which always have a beginning, middle, and end. In this scenario, your company’s services are Prince Charming, and your successes should sweep prospective clients off their feet. And you can only do that if you’re creative.
While a case study highlights the solutions you came up with to solve a problem, make sure you focus on the client. A strong 90-day campaign means collaboration and hard work from both sides, and your case study should champion the company’s development first and foremost.
3. Add multimedia elements.
Top of mind should be telling prospective clients what you did for a customer, but it is always great to show them your efforts through multimedia elements. Videos, infographics, and graphs are excellent ways to present your data more creatively, and it also gives readers a much-needed break from simply text on a page.
In our case study for AI-powered video editor Kamua, we give users a peek into the product’s user interface. We present an image towards the top of the page, which gives prospective clients context as to what the application is all about. We use images and videos to keep readers engaged with both the campaign and the client.
Many companies choose to create case study videos rather than one-pagers because a case study video combines all of the text, data, and visuals into one compelling piece of multimedia content.
For example, to highlight the success of their #SquareShakes campaign, fast-food chain Sonic made a two-minute presentation on YouTube. Their case study tells the origin story of the Square Shake and includes impressive press quotes and stats set to music, and the bright colors and straightforward text make it engaging.
No matter the format of your case study, consider incorporating some multimedia elements. In Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing Survey (2022), 81% of marketers said that adding videos to their marketing materials had a direct and positive impact on sales. About 89% of the survey’s participants added that video gives them a good return on investment (ROI).
4. Create a call to action!
After your prospect has read your case study, you likely want them to reach out. Don’t forget to include your contact information somewhere on the document, and it can be your business email address, a phone number, or a contact form hyperlinked to the webpage.
We include a Let’s Talk button in our top menu on our website. Once it is clicked, users can access our contact form and give details on how we can help with their next campaign. Make sure that your call to action is displayed prominently in your case study.
5. Edit and upload.
Once your case study is written, sleep on it and reread your draft with fresh eyes. Look at it from the perspective of your target audience. Simplify your word choices and focus on how the information is organized. Is it an interesting document to read, or does it need more visual aids to represent the data? Do you want to add a greater sense of credibility through customer quotes and references? Do you write a compelling story?
When you feel confident that your case study hits all of these marks, click the upload button. It can be easy to overthink when you are writing about your own company and its successes. However, if you are crafting a case study, you have something to be proud of. Shine a light on your hard work and call it a day!
Want help producing a case study? Reach out.
