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How to Write a Convincing Case Study in 7

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Dan Shewan

Last updated: April 30, 2018

Content Marketing

The case study has long been a staple of marketing departments everywhere.

However, despite the prevalence of marketing case studies and their potential
impact, most of them are dull, boring, and forgettable.

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In this guide, I’ll outline everything you need to do to write a case study that
prospective customers will actually want to read. We’ll cover the structure and
content of a typical case study, as well as common pitfalls to avoid and things
to think about before you sit down to put proverbial pen to paper.

So, ready to write a case study that will leave your audience wanting more?
Then let’s get started.

What Is a Case Study?

Marketers love using the word “storytelling” to describe their collateral.
Everything is a story, if marketers are to be believed.

You are not a storyteller - Stefan Sagmeister @

FITC
from FITC

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02:00

You are not a storyteller - Stefan Sagmeister @ FITC from FITC on Vimeo.

Warning: Some language in the above video is NSFW

However, the storytelling label most de nitely does (or should) apply to case
studies, because stories are exactly what case studies are.

Case studies are self-contained stories about how a real customer overcame
their problems using your products or services. Just like a story, good case
studies have a beginning, a middle, and an end, as well as a protagonist –
your customer – overcoming a problem and achieving their objective, just like
the main character of a story.

By the end of a case study, the reader should be able to visualize themselves
as the hero of their own story. They should be able to relate to the problems
of your featured customer, and see themselves achieving their own goals by
using your product or service.

What a Case Study Is NOT

Case studies are not press releases. Although case studies can be used to
accompany new product launches, they are not merely vehicles to talk about
new products.

Case studies aren’t advertisements. They can be used to advertise new

products or features, but it’s not about you.

Good case studies are about the customer’s journey, NOT your company.

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Help your customers embark on their own epic journeys.

Original art by Ry Spirit.

Most case studies are bland, instantly forgettable crap because marketers
ignore the fact that case studies are stories in the most literal sense. They get
preoccupied with things like brand voice or messaging matrices and forget to
leverage the narrative form that makes stories so compelling. Or, even worse,
they simply can’t stop themselves from harping on about how great their
company is, the gravest of sins when case studies are concerned.

Why Create Marketing Case Studies?

Case studies may not be as sexy as a viral blog post, and as such they’re often
overlooked in favor of other content formats. This begs the question – why
create marketing case studies at all?

The answer is because they’re really e ective.

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In a recent report, B2B Marketing asked a cohort of marketers how they felt
about various content formats, including case studies. The results were
surprising:

Of the 112 marketers surveyed in B2B Marketing’s report, two-thirds

(66%) stated that case studies were “very e ective” at driving leads and
sales, and a further 32% found case studies to be “quite e ective,”
making case studies the most e ective content format included in that
report.
More than half of the marketers surveyed in the 2016 B2B Content
Marketing Report (55%) said they found case studies to be the single
most e ective content format.

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Approximately 31% of respondents questioned in Eccolo Media’s 2015

B2B Technology Content Survey Report said they found case studies to
be the third-most in uential content format, just behind white papers
(33%) and data sheets (39%).

How to Write an Awesome Case Study (with Examples)

Now that we’re clear on what a marketing case study is (and isn’t), as well as
why you should be producing them, let’s talk about how to actually write a
case study worth reading.

To write a great case study that helps close deals, follow these seven tips.

(Need help just getting started? Check out my tips on how to write a
compelling introduction.)

1. Be Realistic About the Goals for Your Case Study

I’ve been working in content for many years now, and I’ve read hundreds – if
not thousands – of marketing case studies. To date, there is exactly ONE case
study I still remember and think of as the “ideal” example of a great case
study.

Most people won’t have a “favorite” case study, or even be able to remember
one at all.

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Before you sit down to create your magnum opus, it’s important to realize
that case studies aren’t that important to your audience. Yes, we want to
create a useful, helpful resource for prospective customers, but let’s be real –
nobody’s winning a Pulitzer for a case study, and it won’t be going viral on
social media, no matter how well-written it is.

Case studies are little more than tools to be used by either self-motivated
prospects researching your company, or by sales professionals as tools to
help convince prospects to convert – nothing more. They’re designed for
audiences that are already strongly considering becoming your customers,
which is a smaller but more quali ed group of people than your general
audience.

As such, be realistic about your goals. Don’t be disheartened if a case study

blog post doesn’t perform as strongly as your best content. WordStream
publishes case studies regularly, but they never receive as much tra c as our
most popular blog posts, and that’s okay. We don’t have unreasonable
expectations about our case studies, and we know that both our sales teams
and prospects nd them useful.

2. Identify a Compelling Angle for Your Case Study

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Last year, one of our Product Marketing Managers asked me to write a case
study for a client that rehabilitates badly behaved and aggressive dogs. My
rst thought was whether there were any similarities between training
di cult dogs and getting to grips with AdWords as a new advertiser.

This thought became the basis for the entire case study.

Bridget and Ray Murphy of Koru K9 Dog Training and Rehabilitation of San
Francisco, CA

The more compelling your angle, the better the story. The better the story,
the more engaging your case study will be.

Try to nd an interesting customer for your next case study. How are people
using your products or services? Are any of your customers using your
business to solve di cult or unusual problems? Get creative when searching
for someone to serve as the basis for your next case study. That said…

3. …But Make Your Case Study Relatable to ALL Prospects

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Yes, you want your case study to be interesting and feature a compelling
angle, but you also want the vast majority of your target market to be able to
identify with it.

Using our dog rehabilitation example from earlier, we knew that the possible
similarities between training di cult dogs and using AdWords as a newcomer
to paid search was interesting. We also knew, however, that despite the
compelling angle we chose to explore, the client in question had experienced
many of the problems common to our core target market of small businesses
with modest monthly AdWords spend.

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Your angle is the “hook” that will catch your audience’s attention, but it’s
essential that ALL prospects can relate to and identify with the problems

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encountered by your case study’s “protagonist.” This means catering to your

core demographics and target markets, and solving the problems most
commonly experienced by your customers.

4. Follow the Classic Narrative Arc in Your Case Study

Remember how we said that most marketers are obsessed with the notion of
“storytelling” despite not actually telling many stories? Well, just as any good
story has a beginning, middle, and end, so too do the best case studies.

Here at WordStream, we typically structure our case studies in a similar way

every time. We introduce the protagonist of our story – the client – as well as
the problems they are trying to solve. Think of this as Act I of your case study.
Although I never use strict rules when writing case studies, this section usually
runs between 200 and 300 words in length; just enough to introduce the hero
of our story and tease the problems they face, but not too much that it would
dissuade more casual readers.

The classic dramatic arc of a typical narrative

In Act II, we introduce the solution, namely our software. I might include a
brief explanation of what drove our protagonist to seek out our products,
before going into more depth about how the client uses our software. This
section will often include direct quotes from the client, and is usually strongly

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bene t-driven. This section is where the real meat of the story is, and is often
the longest of the three sections.

Writers are often told to “show, not tell,” and the nal third of our case study –
Act III, if you will – is where the inclusion of hard data in your case study can
be highly e ective. If possible, I’ll try to include as much statistical data as I
can to illustrate why using our software has been so e ective for the client
featured (more on this momentarily).

This rough formula can be distilled into the following structure:

Problem (Act I) > Solution (Act II) > Result (Act III) > Conclusion

5. Use Data to Illustrate Key Points in Your Case Study

Your case study is a story, but that doesn’t mean you should rely on
anecdotes or whimsy to make your points. Cold, hard data is your best friend
when writing a case study – more so than most other content projects.

Real performance metrics from a WordStream customer, as featured

in this case study
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If possible, the data you include in your case study should directly re ect the
challenges faced by your protagonist in Act I. In our example, this might be
increasing click-through rate, which can be easily demonstrated by charts or
other data.

This is why our sales teams love our case studies; they can listen to a
prospect’s concerns on the phone, identify a common problem, and discuss
how a customer just like them overcame the exact same problem using our
software – oh, and here’s a handy chart showing exactly how they did it.

Of course, not every business is as data-driven as WordStream, and so “data”

may not be relevant to your company. It may be more accurate to use the
word “evidence” instead of “data” in this situation, and this evidence could
include everything from time-lapse video to before-and-after high-resolution
images.

However you choose to do so, be sure to include some data or evidence to

support your major points and reiterate how your featured client overcame
their problem using your products or services. Show, don’t tell.

6. Frame Your Business as a Supporting Character in Your Case

Studies
If your featured client is the protagonist of your story, it’s tempting to think of
your company (or your products or services) as an equal participant in how
the tale unfolds.

However, you should instead think of your company’s role in the story as a
supporting character.

People don’t buy things for the sake of buying them; people buy things to
solve speci c problems. Similarly, nobody uses a product or service for its
own sake, but because a product or service helps them solve a speci c
problem. For this reason, your company should always be positioned as a
helping hand that helped the real hero of the story – your client – overcome
their obstacle.
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There are two primary reasons this approach is so e ective. Firstly, you want
your audience to visualize themselves as the protagonist of the case study.
This is much more di cult if you won’t stop talking about how great your
company or product is. Secondly, adopting a more humble tone can help
increase your credibility in the mind of the reader.

If in doubt, remember that your client is Batman – and your business is Robin
(or Nightwing, depending on where you are in the Batman comics universe).

Batman and his loyal sidekick, Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing. Image via DC Comics.

7. Let Your Clients Tell Their Own Stories in Case Studies

As a storyteller, it’s your job to craft a compelling narrative about how your
featured client triumphed over the forces of evil using your product or
service, but that doesn’t mean your protagonist doesn’t have their own voice.

Using direct quotes from your client is a great way to let them tell their own
story in their own words. This not only breaks up the “expository” text of your
case study, but also provides further validation and credibility by including the

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client’s perspective. This also allows you to draw the reader in using
techniques similar to those commonly found in feature journalism, gradually
revealing more of your protagonist using their own words in an almost
interview-style format.

However, as e ective as this technique can be, it does create certain pitfalls,
namely the risk of repetition. If you’re planning to include a quote from your
client about, say, time savings, don’t explicitly mention time savings in the
paragraph(s) directly preceding the quote; let your client do the talking. Set up
the segue and create room for your client’s quote, and let them do the rest.

Be a Quick Study
Case studies may not be the most exciting content you produce, but they can
be among the most e ective. No two businesses are alike, and case studies
vary widely in terms of style, tone, and format. One thing that all marketing
case studies share, however, is their purpose – to convince prospects that
doing business with you is a good idea.

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Dan Shewan

Originally from the U.K., Dan Shewan is a journalist and web

content specialist who now lives and writes in New England. Dan’s
work has appeared in a wide range of publications in print and
online, including The Guardian, The Daily Beast, Paci c Standard
magazine, The Independent, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and
many other outlets.

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Penny Cooper • 8 months ago

Awesome Tips!!

These tips are really handy when it comes to writing a case study. The main purpose of the
case study is to examine complex issues in real life applications and case study writing is
to understand the cause and effect relationship influenced by number of factors. The three
Key components of case study writing are problem, solution and the results. You should
have deep understanding while writing a case study so if you're not pro then you can
always take the help of Cheapest Essay.Thanks for sharing these tips. Keep up the great
work.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Atique Qureshi • 9 months ago

Oe
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Digitizebrand Pune • 10 months ago

Very good article, thanks!
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12/15/2020 How to Write a Convincing Case Study in 7 Steps | WordStream
e y good a t c e, t a s
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Viola Olah • a year ago

Thanks. This helps. It's not easy to come up with a marketing case study that keeps the
reader engaged but your suggestions will help.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Meg Ward • 2 years ago

This is a great post! Especially love the idea of your client as Batman and your business as
Robin - perfect analogy.
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

raja baba • 4 years ago

Good piece of information as i did not know much about this topic
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

Frederick Alonso • 4 years ago

Very nice article, thanks!
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

akshay • 4 years ago

Good piece of information as i did not know much about this topic but this article clear all
my doubts on case study. I will immediately follow this to have it in my blog.
Thank you
△ ▽ • Reply • Share ›

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