A Case Study for business is extremely powerful. If your company has at least one strong Case Study for your sales and marketing teams to use when engaging prospects, your business will prosper. But what makes for a great Case Study?
The secret: A great Case Study tells a great story.
This post summarizes how to structure your Case Study for business in a way that will tell a compelling story and help turn prospects into clients.
How to Structure a Case Study for Business
There are five parts to any successful Case Study for Business: the Summary, the Overview, the Problem/Situation, the Solution, and the Results. Take a look at the directions for using our Case Study template to learn about each section in greater depth, but for a high-level overview, read on.
1. Summary
The Summary highlights the most crucial aspect of the Case Study: the big result(s) you helped your client achieve. Remember: Most readers will glance at your Case Study for just a few seconds to determine if it’s relevant, so make sure the Summary grabs the reader’s attention. It needs to jump off the page in both formatting and the message itself. A good example is Tech company increases renewals 22 percent by adopting intelligent billing software.
2. Overview
The Overview is part of the next section, which is the Problem or Situation. This opening paragraph or set of bullet points identifies your client and summarizes the client’s industry, size, clientele, revenue, and any other type of identifying information. It also gives the reader context, sets the scene for your Case Study, and paves the way to introducing the problem. A strong sample segue is Company X realized it was missing out on opportunities for sales to connect with prospects.
3. Problem
After the Overview, transition to the Problem or Situation. This is the core scenario or reason that led your client to your solution.
To enhance the story of the Case Study, make sure you lay out the cause and effect of your client’s situation. It isn’t enough to state that the client was, for example, not seeing many sales. Dig deeper: What does a lack of sales mean for the client, its growth, and its future?
Also, your Case Study will resonate more strongly with readers if you use specific statistics, direct quotes, and relevant images.
An example of a Problem is as follows: Company X wasn’t living up to its expectations in sales revenue (60 percent dip YOY) and realized its key issue was an inability to connect with a portion of prospects. Perfectly qualified prospects continued to walk away from Company X’s product offering.
4. Solution
The Solution is where you’ll introduce a little self-promotion as you break down how your company resolved each and every one of your client’s problems.
Supporting evidence is essential at this point. A direct quote about exactly how your company eliminated the client’s pain points goes a long way toward a successful case study.
And as you did in the Problem section, incorporate specific metrics and details. These elements not only make your Case Study a great story, they also make it a more compelling sales tool. Prospects who read your Case Study will put themselves in your customers’ shoes and see themselves having a similar win.
The following is a sample Solution:
Once we integrated our product, Company X saw an immediate 20 percent boost on close rates. In less than six months, Company X had a library of more than one hundred Success Stories built up for its sales team to recall.
“SuccessKit solved an age-old problem on the sales floor—making sure the sales reps put their best feet forward each and every time they engage an opportunity,” said Jane Doe, VP of Sales at Company X.
5. Results
The Results section summarizes some of your value propositions. It’s best to be specific to the client in question and use facts and figures (e.g., Increased revenue by 15 percent in three months). However, you can be more general as well (e.g., simply Increased revenue).
Bullet points work very well in this section, as this is where most people will look at first to get an idea of what you’re really offering. Make sure it stands out and is easy to read.
Conclusion
We at SuccessKit can help you tell great stories with your Case Studies for business. Contact us at [email protected] to learn how.
