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case studies

case studies are a great way to prove you can deliver great results for your prospects

How to produce the Perfect Case Study

By A Helping Hand, Customer Understanding

Case studies are invaluable tools for UK businesses, serving as compelling evidence of your expertise, success and ability to deliver on your promises to prospective clients and your target audiences. To ensure your case studies effectively showcase your capabilities, here’s the way we recommend to you for  producing the perfect case study:

1. Select the Right Client

Choose clients who have experienced significant positive outcomes from your products or services. These clients will be very happy and that enthusiasm will come across in their testimonial. They’re also much more likely to share and comment on social media posts you do to share the case study.

Their genuine enthusiasm can lead to more impactful testimonials, enhancing the credibility of your case study.

People don’t buy a product or service; they buy the result. So the more you’ve chosen clients where the results have been significant, the more they will be liked by readers.

For us, the Systems IT case study was perfect. SME Needs has always done a lot of work in the tech sector (Nigel worked client-side for an IT Support company prior to launching the business). They’ve been a client for many years now (and hopefully many more)  and the results produced have been significant.

2. Collaborate with Your Client

Engage your client from the outset, involving them in the development of the case study.

  • Ask permission. Whilst you don’t actually need permission, its far better if you have it.
  • Draft this with key staff. Your delivery staff/account manager will know the client best; get them to help you get this right.
  • Agree content with your client. Give the draft to them and check they are happy with it.

This collaboration can strengthen relationships and provide deeper insights into the challenges addressed and solutions implemented.

3. Structure Your Case Study Effectively

Organise your case study with clear sections:

Title

Craft a concise and compelling headline. Headlines entice people to read down, consuming the content you’ve crafted. Titles that are just the company name will attract people looking for information about that company, but not help you. Titles that include a key result will be much more effective.

Who is the Client?

Provide background on the client. The aim is for readers to resonate with your client, recognising much of themselves.

What were their Challenges?

Describe the issues faced by the client when you started talking. It’s likely that the reader will have similar issues – again its about them recognising the similarities.

What did you do?

Detail the solutions you implemented. Often the smallest section of any case study, as it isn’t the most effective section. It does need some detail, as that helps readers understand how you work.

Visuals

Use engaging imagery or videos to support the content. Images are great, with video even better. Remember LinkedIn will pull in the main image when you add the URL to a post.

Results

Arguably the most important section of any case study. But also the most frequently missed section, often because small businesses write case studies too soon.

More detail on this below

Testimonial

This is the other bit that competes for the most important bit! More information on this below…

4. Incorporate Client Testimonials

Testimonials within case studies have X roles:

  • They demonstrate that you have permission to publish the case study!
  • The testimonial communicates the delight your client has from working with you.
  • It’s the readers’ peer telling them they should work with you!

5. Highlight the Results

People don’t care what you do. They care about how you can help them. They care about the results you deliver and the value they get from working with you. Putting a reference to the results you’ve delivered as the main headline will grab people’s attention. They will read on to find out more.

Results can be qualitative or quantitative, depending on what you do and what the clients gets from working with you. Looking at a couple of our case studies, Kindling n Things was all about the additional revenue, so quantitative. On the other side, the Charcoalblue case study was much more about helping them start a particular journey with their marketing.

6. Utilise Visual Elements

Integrate high-quality images, charts, or videos to make your case study more engaging. Visual content can effectively illustrate results and processes, making the information more accessible to readers.

7. Ensure Readability

Another common mistake we see with case studies published by small businesses is writing it like a school essay – 1 or 2 long paragraphs that make it really difficult for people to pick up the key points.  Making it easy for people to read, both skim-read and in detail, helps the reader get what you want them to get. It also helps the search engines rank the page, moving you up the search engines.

  • Make sure your headings and sub-headings are H2 or H3 formatted (they stand out and the search engines know what they are)
  • Bullet points quickly communicate what you want people to know because they stand out
  • Concise paragraphs are easier to read than longer ones
  • Italicise and centre the text for your testimonial, making it eye-catching and obvious what it is

The easier it is to read, the more likely people will read the whole thing.

8. Include a Call to Action

Conclude with a clear call to action, guiding readers on the next steps, such as contacting your team or exploring related services.

By implementing these strategies, your case studies can effectively demonstrate your business’s strengths and successes, serving as powerful tools to attract and convert potential clients.  We’re offering a free review of your case studies to help you make them as effective as possible

March 7, 2025
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Case Study Ninja

How to write perfect case studies and use them to maximise sales

By A Helping Hand, Delivering your marketing, Marketing Performance, Small Business Marketing, Uncategorized

image to support article about writing perfect case studies

In a time when much of what you buy is based on peer reviews, there has never been a time when case studies have been more important. This article will take you through how to write perfect case studies and then how to use them to maximise sales. 

What is a case study?

Put simply, it is a summary of your engagement with a specific client. Case studies will describe your client, what you did and what you achieved (more detail to follow). It will be no more than two pages (when printed) and should take only a minute or two to read. 

What are case studies for?

Case studies show people what your company is capable of delivering. In the same way that a 5-star review will prompt people to buy on Amazon or TripAdvisor, a case study will help potential clients to move closer to buying from you. 

How to write perfect case studies

If you haven’t written any case studies yet, the next couple of minutes will give you a very clear, step by step, guide to writing case studies that will be highly effective. 

1. Identify happy clients 

Who is your happiest client? Who has been a client for a long time? Which clients have you generated outstanding results for? 

The answers to these questions will give you a list of clients to develop case studies for. Now all you have to do is ask them. Asking them when you are delivering good news always helps.  

2. Start writing 4 of the 6 key parts of a case study 

These 4 parts of a case study are: 

  1. Who are they? – a description of the client, aimed at helping readers identify with them. Companies like to buy from other companies who understand their industry sector. 
  1. Where is their issue? – what did you help them with? Again, potential clients like to see that you understand the issues they face. 
  1. What did you do?  – probably the least important piece, but still needs to show you know what to do and you have the knowledge and expertise looked for. 
  1. Why did it work? – absolutely the most important part. People buy results and success. They want to work with companies that can prove they can deliver. Include numbers to show your results, but be specific. 96% growth, rather than “doubled sales”. Graphics will help communicate these more effectively. 

At this point there are two pieces missing from the perfect case study. Let’s look at them in a little more detail. 

3. The Headline

The newspapers used to refer to the backbench; where the sub-editors used to sit. They were the highly paid specialists responsible for writing headlines that would sell that paper in the millions. A catchy headline would easily divert people from buying one newspaper to another. They wanted to know what the paper had to say, based purely on the headline. Back then, these were highly paid employees – not any more. 

But the headline is still vitally important. The headline will determine whether someone reads the case study or not. So what should be in a headline? 

One of our latest case studies is headlined: Adding a £million to turnover in six years. It communicates a great result; something any small business owner would like to see happen for them. Headlines should be about something the reader cares about: results, money, solutions – are just some examples. There is plenty of guidance online. 

4. The validation 

Once you’ve done all of the above, you need sign-off from the client, and you need them to validate your case study. 

Sign-off is simple. You send it to them and they agree that what you have written is accurate. The validation is what they write about you and you then use as proof that you have delivered and you have a very happy client. Their testimonial is the final piece of the perfect case study. 

The cynical ones out there could, if there was no testimonial from the client, say you made it up. With the testimonial, that goes away. The only time a happy client is unlikely to give you a testimonial is when you are solving an issue that they shouldn’t have, or they don’t want to admit they have. Insolvency practitioners, for example, can struggle at times.  

The best mediums for your case study 

Written content: accessibility, SEO etc. 

Podcast: Interview with client, audio format.  

You know that video content is highly powerful and is beloved by the search engines. Video testimonials that support a written case study can really improve the impact of your case studies. 

Video testimonials make great social media content too. 

How to use your case studies to increase sales

Once you know how to write perfect case studies, you can use them to drive sales. Case studies work at both ends of the sales funnel. They will nudge people into starting a conversation with you and they will convince people to sign on the dotted line too. Let’s look at where you should use your case studies to maximise their performance. 

1. On your website

This is the first place to put it because it is rare for someone to enter your sales funnel without at least one visit to your website. Make sure it is used in multiple places across your website 

  • A case study page will show website viewers that you have lots of happy clients 
  • Including relevant case studies on the product page will mean they are seen more often, and are more effective. 

 Include links from the case study both to the client’s website/social media and to the product/services they bought. This helps both your SEO and the user experience. 

 At the end of the case study, ask if this results sounds like something the reader would like for their business. Get them thinking… and acting. 

2. Social media

Sharing your case studies on your social media channels increases the numbers of times they are seen, particularly if you have video content. Perhaps you can pin, at least for a while, your latest case study to the top of your profile page to maximise views. Check your Analytics to see if it is driving traffic when pinned. If not, unpin it. 

Remember that individual case studies can go through social media more than once. Only a small percentage of your followers will see it each time. Not everyday of course! 

3. Newsletters

If you use a newsletter to keep your mailing list up to date, make sure you include your case studies in there. Mailing lists include clients, prospects, stakeholders, suppliers and networking connections. Showing them the great results you have achieved for a client can encourage new sales (from prospects and current clients buying more/something else) and referrals. 

4. Email automations  

Email automations are great ways to quickly educate new subscribers about what you do, how you help and the results you achieve. Case studies will help these new subscribers to believe your promises.  

5. Proposals

When you get to the point of developing a proposal for a new client, a great case study, or two, supports your pitch and increases the value propositions. Choose highly relevant case studies. Ones that are for companies with similar issues to your prospect and with a similar profile – industry, company size, location etc. Don’t simply use the same case studies for every proposal. 

 If you use something like CANDDi, you may want to include links to the case studies in the proposal, rather than the whole things. Knowing that they have clicked through shows the prospect really is interested. 

 

Case studies must be part of your marketing collateral. Used properly the perfect case study can be highly effective. It will help you fill your sales pipeline and they will help your Sales function to close more too.  

If your case studies aren’t working, or you haven’t got any, get in touch. We can help you both produce them and then make use of them to drive more sales. 

If you would like to discuss how to improve your case studies, give us a call and let’s talk.

Tel: 020 8634 5911

February 25, 2021
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