If we consider the best marketing strategies as Marvel’s infinity stones, then case studies would bear the same weight as the highly sought-after purple power stone. They give you the power to harness the persuasive force of real-world examples and success stories. With case studies, you can showcase the tangible benefits of your offers, which can help build trust with potential customers.
This is especially important in today’s digital age, where consumers are often inundated with ads and might be skeptical of pushy marketing claims.
By using case studies effectively, you demonstrate the value of your offer in a way that resonates with your target audience and ultimately drives conversions—which is the goal of any marketing strategy, right?
So, if you want to harness the power of case studies and make them a key part of your marketing strategy, you’re in the right place. Let’s get to work. ⬇️
What are case studies?
In marketing, case studies are simply detailed analyses of a particular company, brand, product, or service. They can be as long (or short) as you feel is necessary to get your message across in an engaging way.
It’s a research method that aims to provide an in-depth understanding of the success–or failure–of the topic being covered. They aim to expose the factors that contributed to the outcome and relay that message to an audience who may be on the fence.
They are typically used to showcase how an individual or organization benefited from their offers and often contain most of these components:
- Information about a company, its offers, and its target audience
- Description of challenges the customer was facing beforehand
- An explanation of the solution used to solve the problems
- A detailed explanation of the results they obtained from the solution
- Highlights, key takeaways, and examples of how you can achieve the same results
Case studies can be a highly effective aspect of your marketing strategy to showcase your brand’s value in real-life situations. There’s really no wrong way to write a case study however, there are a few things to consider to make them as effective as possible. ⬇️
1. Match the case study to the audience
It’s quite common for companies to produce a multitude of marketing case studies.
There’s a simple explanation, though. Each case study is specifically designed to target a distinct audience segment within the company’s intended demographic. For example, your organization might have 10 different products. Each product may have a different group of buyers associated with it. You must differentiate your audience to narrow down exactly who you want the case study to speak to.
When selecting a case study to showcase, you want to choose completed projects that were the most successful for your customers. If you are a newer company, this can be challenging without the right strategy. Remember to always count a win as a win. But as your company grows and has more customers, make it a habit to tap into the new potential in your pipeline.
And when you’ve got an idea for that next case study, the first step you should take is to decide what segment of your audience you are going to target. Narrow in, and focus on the single buyer persona, industry, and demographics. This may restrict your reach a bit, but you’ll speak directly to the people who are most likely to buy.
The narrower your subject, the better the case study will perform.
2. Use key points to weave a compelling story
In order to make a convincing marketing case study, it’s important to decide which aspects you want to shine the brightest. ✨
These key points should appear in the headline and throughout the text—almost how a keyword would work for SEO writing. For example, if a customer’s revenue increased by 90%, this is a crucial detail that should be repeated multiple times throughout the piece.
Now that you have the key points, you want to relay them in a compelling way where the reader can feel closely related. Here is an example of a general story outline:
- Customers struggle before your intervention
- How your offer solved the problem
- Why alternatives are ineffective
- How your reader can experience the same outcome
Whenever possible, use numbers to illustrate your points. Impactful statistics are a powerful way to get them to remember what they’ve just read. Also using images, graphics, or icons throughout will help break up the text and ease the eye strain of the reader.
Are you catching on yet?
Every move we make with this marketing strategy has only one goal: Get the reader to the next line of copy. By incorporating these tips, you can create an engaging and effective case study that will keep readers interested until the end—they might even pull out their wallets.
Present their pain. Press in further. Reveal the solution.
3. Strongly emphasize the great results
As previously mentioned, driving the reader to action is the most important job of any marketing strategy, and case studies are no exception.
We’ve spoken a lot about the text structure of the case study, yet little about the graphical element. You should consider developing a customized graphic that can serve as the “feature image” of the post. This image can be shared on your website and various social media platforms.
This graphic should hoist the main outcome of your case study. “Don’t bury the lead” as journalists would say. Bring it to the forefront of the image and the headline. Make it impossible for the readers to miss.
The objective is to capture their attention—and in this day and age, that’s more difficult now than it’s ever been. Studies show our collective attention span is 8.25 seconds, down from 12 seconds only 15 years ago—even goldfish can maintain for 9 seconds!
If they are willing to stop scrolling for your case study, you have already passed one of the hardest tests on the interwebs. Managing to hold their attention throughout the entire post will increase your chances of making a conversion exponentially.
While not easy, it’s always worth taking the time to work slowly through the wording to ensure you highlight exactly what your target audience is in search of.
4. Ask for what you want
Now that you’re 95% of the way through with developing your case study, you need to encourage your reader to take action. What action?
At the end of each case study, you should be asking the reader to book a call, schedule a demo, or request a consultation. Ask them to make the next logical step in your marketing strategy to complete the customer journey. If you don’t nudge them in the right direction, they will be more likely to click away.
Make it clear and obvious what the next move should be. Don’t leave them guessing which button to click or what form to fill out. Direct them to the place where you want them to land and you’ll have done your job in completing a great case study.
Give them a reason to move and they will be more likely to act.
Final thoughts
Introducing case studies into your marketing strategy can have a massive impact on your conversion rates, there’s no doubt. But what we failed to touch on was the collection process. While not as difficult as traveling through time to secure an infinity stone, it can still be a tricky process.
With UserEvidence, you can find your customer advocates who are willing to share their success stories with the rest of the world. You’ll be able to quickly create and leverage compelling case studies in record time without tons of toil and effort.
Ready to harness the power of customer success stories? Schedule your free demo and get started today.
