3 tips to write case studies that convert

Case studies can be very useful for businesses, in particular for those who are operating in the B2B segment. An excellent case study can get many natural backlinks which improve the search engine ranking of the website. However, it is mostly used to generate leads and convince prospects to buy offerings. If you are proud your past work, you can just put it in the form of a case study. You can also use your industry knowledge to write papers with compelling data and statistics that can be utilized by your audience. If your content appeals to the users, they don’t mind providing their contact details or subscribing to your newsletter to get actionable insights from your company. You can even position yourself as a thought leader in the industry by creating good case studies.

Use the following tips to write great case studies that deliver results:

Elements of a Case Study

A business case study has four key elements namely, a problem statement, the business challenges, the solutions provided by the company (includes research, etc.) and the outcome. You must identify and define each of these elements. None of the components should be vague or left to open interpretation. Also, the situation, facts, and figures must be close to the reality if not exact (many times the writers have to withhold actual figures due to confidentiality agreements).

Tell a Story

You must tell a compelling story through the case study. The function, facts, and concepts may be technical and complex. However, you need to write it in such a way that a person with no relevant background can understand and impressed by your services. In other words, you should tell a story that can be understood by a layman. Note that your customers may have an expert understanding of your industry. However, many times the decision makers, the buyers and the users are different in a B2B buying set up. Thus, your story should be able to make an impact on the decision makers who have no relevant background.

The best way to do it is to give a contextual example from our daily business activities. Putting emotions and feelings also makes the case study more humane.

Structure and Formatting

Design and content structure of a case study determine whether users are going to read it or not. A great story organized in a difficult-to-read format will never perform well. While creating the structure and the presentation, you need to take care of the following:

Length of the case study – Keep it short, crisp and direct. Don’t go into background details. 1-3 pages long case studies are ideal for many businesses.

Headlines – Use compelling headlines that grab users’ attention. The headlines must create curiosity in the users.

Formatting – Attention span for most of the users are very short. Thus, make your case study skimmable, which means the users can easily skim the content and get a gist of the entire story in a few seconds.

Design – The design must be clean and minimal. It should complement the content and help users discover the content.

Conclusion

A case study can be an excellent marketing tool for your business. The three tips mentioned above will help you get most out of the investment you make in developing a business case study. Once prepared, make sure that you place it in a prominent place on the website and promote it aggressively across all the channels.