How To Create Hard Working Case Studies For Your Business

It has been pretty much 5 years since I have had to show my sample portfolio to anyone. In fact, it has recently been moved from a shelf where I could get at all my samples easily, to a blog post that only a select few people visit.
One reason why I don’t have to show samples to people has a lot to do with my profiles on various social and business media sites, all the blogging I do there and the fact that I have been around since the Ice Age.
The other reason is that most of the people I deal with, (consultants, entrepreneurs and marketing people in larger companies), aren’t so much interested in what I have done, but how the work I have done has helped the businesses I have done it for.So for this reason the care and feeding of my case studies is much more important than the care and feeding of my portfolio.

Case Studies…Where The Rubber Meets The Road
Denis Kane

You’d be surprised at how many entrepreneurs marketing people out there simply do not keep track of the performance of the work they do. Yep, it’s the 80-20 Differential again.
I was very fortunate to have worked with a genuine visionary marketing guy named Denis Kane, who taught me a lot about being my own dog in this business.
One of the most important things he said to me, back in the 80s, as digital technology was just starting to develop, was: “Once everything is on line, clients will be inundated with creative people showing their clever work. What they won’t be inundated with is creative people showing case studies, which, to marketers, are much more interesting. Because, for them, it’s where the rubber meets the road.”

The Art Of Creating Case Studies

In the beginning, I spent a bit of time figuring out how to do this, and should really charge you a ton of money for this information. But I’m a nice guy, so I won’t.
This is an edited version of a memo I wrote for a potential client who needed me to write and/or edit some case studies for them.
Building Solid Case Studies
In order to achieve good communication from any case study that you want to post or broadcast, the most important overriding concern should be clarity.

If a case study is written in a continuous narrative: A) It can get boring by reason of its length and B) There will be a lot of unnecessary wording required in order to make the section-to-section transitions. In my experience this transitioning in best achieved when you actually create physical sections in the content/script.
A logical way to approach this sectioning is actually quite simple. Case studies are basically encapsulations of actual projects, marketing processes and results. In a way, it’s similar to a stage play where there are definite ‘acts’.
In this case, these ‘acts’ are announced by subheads or, in video, section panels. I would propose that the sections for a good case study be, more or less, as follows:|
THE CHALLENGE/PROJECT; which briefly describes the project you want to profile in the case study.
THE RESULT; which describes A) A quantifiable outcome of the project, B) The client’s reaction to the outcome, C) Any subsequent information relevant to the client’s longer term situation and, D) If at all possible a positive quote from the client.
THE STRATEGY; which outlines the course of action you proposed to achieve a successful outcome for the client.
THE EXECUTION; which outlines the various stages or elements that constituted this process on its way to a resolution.
Structuring either video or written case studies in this way defines an organized and logical communication structure that makes them easier to follow. They will also be perceived, overall, as more succinct and professional looking, while still maintaining a personal feel.
A Little Poetic License
If you want to get a bit more creative with a case study, and I am not necessarily advocating it, you can add more of a personal touch to it i.e. This would apply to somebody like me, who works in marketing.
THE CASE OF THE WONDERFUL NEW GIZMO - Basic product story.
HOW WE APPROACHED THE MARKETING OF THE GIZMO - The team, the idea and the rationale.
THE PROCESS WE WENT THROUGH TO GET THERE - The stages of marketing.
THE RESULTS WE ACHIEVED FOR GIZMOWORLD - Quantifiable results, client reaction, and anywhere this success managed to take you.As you can see, the key here is having a structure, which allows you to create the case study in a warm and conversational way. This gives the readers A) An easy read, B) A good feel for your levels of confidence and competence and
C) Quantifiable and objective evidence by which to judge you, as opposed to simply using intuition, which we all know is as fickle as a sparrow

Bottom Line

Case studies with the structures I have outlined are the closest a company get to telling its story without the natural amount of hyperbole that comes from first person storytelling or advertising.
The quantifiable results help the prospect immeasurably in their decision making process, and set a high standard for you which is extremely advantageous in competitive situations.

Jim Murray & Charlene Norman are partners in a collaboration called Bullet Proof Consulting. Charlene is a business strategist with an ability to identify and deliver profit opportunities. Jim is a communication strategist, writer, art director, blogger and beBee brand ambassador for Canada. Bullet Proof is located in St Catharines, Ontario and designed to serve forward thinking businesses in the Niagara and Golden Horseshoe regions of Southern Ontario.
Web site coming soon.
You can find out more about us at: http://tinyurl.com/y9zc9gvx
Read other posts in this series at: https://www.bebee.com/@jim-murray

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