What Does an Effective Case Study Look Like?

Determine the objective

First off, we need to decide what the case study is going to accomplish. What will the client have accomplished by the end of the study? What is this study going to say to the readers? What are you trying to prove to your prospects? These are only some of the questions that you need to answer in this first step, as long as you are featuring one of your client’s objectives.

Find the right candidate

Picking the right candidate is a seriously important part of writing a case study. Before you even start writing, get permission from the client first. When you’re selecting the candidate for the case study, pick a customer that deeply understands your product or service. The more they can speak to what your solution does, the more value your case study will have for those who read it. It’s also important that the case study covers a client with the best results. The better the results, the stronger the case study.

Ask the right questions

Without the right questions in place, it’s going to be easy for your case study to not show the best side of what your company offers. The questions you ask your clients are meant to give you insights into how your processes worked for them, what they were accomplished with your product, and how it’s set them up for the future. Use questions like:

• What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
• What made us stand out from our competitors?
• What guided your decision?
• How have you benefitted from using our product?

Publish and promote

Once you have finished the case study, make sure that people know it exists! There are a lot of ways to promote your case study, but the easiest is to host it on your company website. A lot of companies devote entire pages to customer case studies, as a way for prospects to peruse the success stories of your clients. Additionally, you can publish your case studies in a blog, where you can even require an email address for a downloadable file. Anyone interested enough to have a case study emailed to them is interested enough to be contacted for more information. No matter how you choose to promote your case studies, make sure that they are in a prominent place for people to find them.