10 Tips for Creating the Perfect Case Study

Every good marketer wants to create the perfect case study to help entice prospective customers to convert. But, we all know that it’s not as easy as it sounds. It can take a lot of time and effort to find the right client to interview, build out their case study, and add it to your website. And, if it’s not done perfectly, all of that effort might be wasted. Luckily for you, we have put together this list of the 10 best tips to create the perfect case study. Before we dive into the tips, let’s go over why case studies are so important for companies.

Why Are Case Studies So Important?

For the foreseeable future, case studies are, and will continue to be, an essential part of marketing and sales. When a prospective client is looking for a solution, there is a 93% chance that they will look at your case studies before making a decision. And, if you don’t have case studies while your competitors do, there’s a good chance that they’ll choose your competition. Social proof can make or break your sale. Plus, case studies can also be used in your social media marketing campaigns to really pack a punch. Now that you’re familiar with why case studies are so important, let’s dive into how you can create the perfect case study.

1. Format is Everything

When you are crafting the perfect case study, you need to ensure that it is formatted correctly. The format should grab the reader’s attention right off the bat, while keeping them enticed throughout the entire case study. There are four main steps that you should follow when creating your case studies, regardless of your industry or if you are creating a video or written case study.

Get Acquainted 

The first step in any good case study is to introduce your interviewee to the reader. This is to help the reader understand their struggles, and how they use your product on a daily basis. In addition, readers will typically look for case studies that are similar to their own industry so they can get familiar with how your product would benefit them. When writing your case studies, try to interview a variety of industry professionals to help cover as many bases as you can. The case study pictured below is a great example of a company, Visitor Queue, introducing their interviewee, their company, and setting the scene for the rest of the case study.

Storytime

After you have introduced your interviewee, it’s time to start telling their story. Talk about what they were struggling with, other solutions they have tried, and any other information that will help support the case study. The exact information included may vary depending on the interviewee’s industry, job title, background, and other considerations. If you’re looking for an example of a company that does a great job at storytelling, check out Salesforce’s customer success stories.

Problem Solving

Now comes one of the most important steps in creating the perfect case study. You have identified the problem that they are facing within their company or current solution, so it’s time to prove how your company solves their problem. Show features of your product, price comparisons, graphs, and stats that show how your company solves their problem better than any other company on the market.

Results

Finally, it’s time to show the results that your client has received. This is often tied in with the problem solving, or follows closely behind. In this step, you want to give quantitative results, like percentage increases, number of new customers, or other stats that are related to your business. It’s helpful to include a direct quote from your interviewee, and supporting text to help explain their point further. Now that you know the steps to follow when building your case studies, let’s go over a few more tips to ensure you create the perfect one.

2. Choose Your Candidate Carefully

When choosing one of your clients to participate in a case study, it’s essential that you choose carefully. You don’t want someone who is still learning how to use your product as their opinions may be incomplete or negative. You’ll want to choose a client who has been using your product for at least a few months, someone that you know is getting good results, and someone who has not had a ton of questions throughout their time using your product. If possible, you also want to try to choose a variety of candidates from the different industries you serve. 

3. Write a Captivating Title

Similar to writing an email subject line, a case study title needs to catch the attention of the reader. This will encourage them to continue reading. The most successful titles are specific, and touch on the problem the client was faced with. Keep in mind that the title should be under 10 or so words. It can also be effective to include a number or quote in your title to drive home the message. Here are a few examples of effective case study titles:

• This 5-Person Marketing Team Managed 12x More Work While Working Remotely
• Zapier Doubles Conversion Rate with Hubspot
• How FARFETCH saves 42,084 hours per year using monday.com Work OS

4. Format Variety

You want to give your prospective customers a variety of options to choose from. This will increase the likelihood that more people will watch or read the entire case study if they can have it in a format they enjoy. Video case studies and written case studies are beneficial, in both short and long forms. Having a few variations of each will give your prospective clients enough variety to choose from. Video case studies are also a great format to use in advertisements, so it’s a win-win.

5. Supporting Content

You don’t want your entire case study to be a novel. While you may have a lot of information and text to include, if a prospect sees a blog-like case study, there is a good chance they won’t read the entire page. As a result, you may lose a prospect. So, it can be extremely helpful to break up the text with supporting content. Content like images of your product in-action, charts, graphs, or video clips can help your case study look more interesting and enticing. 

6. Be Relatable

The most important part of a successful case study is that readers can relate to the problem that the featured company has faced. This is another reason why it’s so important to have a variety of case studies. If a small company is interested in your product, but you only have case studies from enterprise-sized companies, they will have a hard time relating to the content. You want to ensure that the reader can put themselves in the shoes of the interviewee, and see how they would benefit from using your product on a daily basis. 

7. Short Term and Long Term Success

In your case study, it’s a good idea to touch on your clients short term and long term success with your company. In regards to the short term, they can discuss how easy it was to get started, how amazing your customer support has been or how they thought the demo went. On the other hand, long term success will be quantitative results, stats, trends, how much happier their staff is, how much time they have saved, or other points along those lines. By discussing short term and long term successes, it’s easier to visualize what it would be like to use your product on a daily basis.

8. Avoid Fluff

When writing a case study, it can be easy to include too much information. The more information you have, even if it’s great information, the less likely they are to read the entire report. In most cases, it’s more effective to keep your case study short and sweet. By keeping your case study straight to the point, your prospects will retain more information, and be more likely to read to the end, where your call to action is.

9. Include a Call to Action

When building your case study, you’ll need to include some sort of call to action. I find a lot of companies forget this step, but it’s important to lead your prospect to the next step in your sales cycle. Whether you are providing them with a link to keep learning, other relevant case studies, the ability to book a demo, or a button to start their free trial. The call to action that you choose will depend on your company and industry, but it’s important to include one to decrease your case study bounce rate. 

10. How to Create the Perfect Case Study Even Easier

As you can see, there is a lot that goes into building an effective case study. But, it doesn’t have to be as difficult as it seems. With the help of otrillo, you are able to generate high-quality video and written case studies. Simply enter in the questions that you’d like to ask your client, and send them a link to fill out their custom case study. We’ll do the rest with our Professional Editing as a Service (PEaaS). We will build you professional and effective case studies to display on your website and in marketing materials, to help you generate more conversions and gain a competitive advantage. Join the otrillo waitlist today to gain early access to our one-of-a-kind software.

Final Words

Case studies are one of the best ways to stand out from the crowd while increasing the number of conversions on your website and social media channels. Without social proof, you risk losing your prospective customers to your competition. It may seem like a lot of work to build out successful case studies, but if you decide to use otrillo, you’ll get to skip a number of steps on this list. If you have any questions about crafting the perfect case study for your business, don’t hesitate to reach out.