Case Study Guide

Case studies are an effective medium to convert leads into customers. Case studies help to establish your brand, illustrates how your product solved an actual problem for an existing customer, in addition to helping leads see how they too can experience success with your products and services. Case studies are effective tools as they tend to directly position your products and services as an excellent solution in the minds of both potential and existing customers. Even though there are various opinions on whether a company should directly advertise its products and services through a case study or not, there is no harm in doing so as the claims put forth by a company are supported by real data, concrete results and evidence, leaving no scope for doubts. Unlike blog posts, case studies are not created by everybody and hence are more effective as a good case study relating a true customer story cannot be false.

Format of a Case Study:

The elements that one finds in a case study:

1. Title or Headline: A case study should provide a description of the customer, the problem faced by the customer and the result.
2. Executive Summary: An executive summary summarizes the contents of a case study.
3. The Subject: Who is this case study about?
4. Problem or Challenge: It gives an account of the problems or difficulties they had to undergo before arriving at a conclusion.
5. Solution: A detailed account of how your company or your product resolved the issue faced by a customer and how it benefitted a customer.
6. Results: It is always advisable to use percentages where possible.

Steps to writing a Case Study:

1. Identify your subject: There are primarily three criteria to consider while finding the subject of your study.

• How much does the said client use your service or product?
• Have they experienced positive results that can be created into a good story?
• Did your client switch to your service or product from any of your competitors?

 To gather this information, you could consider doing the following steps:

• Talk to your sales team in order to find out if there are any clients of yours who wish to participate.
• Ask your customer support team if they can recommend customers who have had good experiences with your company.
• Evaluate new customers to see if any prospective clients have bought your products and services.

2. Get permission from them to tell their story: In order to that, create a permission letter informing the participating customer what the case study is going to be, what it will eventually look like and what the customer will gain from the case study.
3. Get to know them through an introductory questionnaire: The introductory questionnaire will give you the requisite information that you need and will help you to form an effective case study. Some probable questions that you could include could be:

• What difficulties did you face prior to using our products or services?
• What made you choose our products or services over a competitor?
• How was our product or service able to solve a problem that you were facing?
• What are your objectives as an organization or a business?
• Can you provide us with data displaying your success?

4. Formulate questions for the interview keeping in mind the detail you will need: Some questions that you may consider including in your interview include:

• What problems were they facing prior to using your products and services?
• What guided them in their decision to choose your products and services?
• How did the solutions provided by your organization benefit them?
• How did they use or implement your services and your product?
• What results did they get and if they were happy with the service or product offered to them?

5. Set up a time for interview: First you should decide how you are going to conduct an interview with the participating client and then set up an interview accordingly with the customer. You could choose to conduct your interview through phone, video call or face to face meeting. It is always advisable to document the interview with your client, either by recording the interview or taking notes for accuracy. If you choose to record your interview, make sure you inform your client.

6. Write the case study: The information that you gather should be used to write an effective case study. The format of a case study as follows:

• Title: It should be able to draw the attention of the reader and should state who the case study is about, explain what was done and clearly communicate the result.
• Executive Summary: The executive summary should not usually exceed three sentences and should describe the story of your client. Statistics can also be used to illustrate the success of your customer or client.
• Subject: The subsequent part of the case study should state who your case study is about and provide a short description on the industry that they are in, the services they provide, and mention the time they have been working with your organization
• Problems they have faced: You should write about some of the problems or difficulties that your client was facing prior to working with you and explain some of the tactics they were using as well as state the previous goals of your client.
• How your organization helped them: This section should exhibit the solutions that you company provides in addition to highlighting the changes that your products and services brought to the client. You should also provide them with links to your website highlighting your products.
• Results and Progress: The final section should highlight the progress that your client has made after using your products and services. It is advisable to add visuals to this section tracking their growth and progress.
• Promote and advertise the case study that you have created through email, organic search and social media. Promote it by creating a webpage that features your case study and customer testimonials. Include your case study in your email campaign and create social media campaign for promoting your case study and organization.