Case Studies - List of "How To" Blog Posts

Posted by Raj Sreenivasa July 6th 09

Case studies are a weapon of choice for your marketing campaigns. You might be wondering how such documents can help your brand's growth and monetization. Well, just as we've been showing you that white papers can help you market your products in B2B, IT, tech or social media settings, we believe case studies can help you achieve similar goals. Here we've gathered a collection of interesting articles on how to write case studies and market them on social networks - have a look at them, they could help you improve your business strategies.

Alison Harrison wrote an article titled Writing Better Case Studies. It focuses on how to make case study documents a valuable marketing tool for your company. In this article, readers will learn 5 ways to improve the effectiveness of presenting information in a document. This article captures the benefits of keeping the document organized and simple by selecting a clear customer example.

When we create case study documents, we should provide stories that are mostly aligned to the customer's expectations. Else, the document may not serve the purpose of presenting the required information of the research or case study. Casey Hibbard has highlighted what to avoid when creating case studies in his article titled 3 Deadly Pitfalls When Creating Case Studies. This post focuses on how stories have to deliver results by gaining attention of both "readers" and "skimmers" of the document.

Case Studies Help your customer help you is an interesting and crisp article by Phil Dunn. The article sets very clear guidelines as to writing case studies and gives pointers and insights to improve the quality of your papers. The author also underlines the importance of being prepared for the case studies' interviews.

The ultimate motto of case study documents is to act as a catalyst in the selling process. In the series of articles listed below, Casey Hibbard has done a phenomenal job to explain to the community what to focus on when writing compelling stories made for selling. In a nutshell, the customers that you choose to feature in case studies should mirror the types of customers you want more of. Ideally, your prospects should see themselves - and their challenges solved - in the customer's success stories that you are sharing. The collection of articles are listed below:

Right #1 of Case Studies That Compel & Sell - Right Customer
Right #2 of Case Studies that Compel & Sell - Right Time
Right #3 of Case Studies that Compel & Sell - Right Questions
Right #4 of Case Studies that Compel & Sell - Right Angle
Right #5 of Case Studies that Compel & Sell - Right Results

Here is a post about Writing a Good Software Case Study. It is specifically helpful for those who are in the software industry. Joanna Lees has well captured the challenges she faced during her marketing days and highlights the critical points that we need to take care of while writing case studies. Case studies are very powerful documents for a B2B and software sales approach. This article provides a great amount of tips for targeting software companies.

Anatomy of a case study has suggestions to make your case studies enjoyable. Most of the customers take it seriously and read the solutions provided in case studies. I think it is really important to keep the document as simple as possible and to make sure it targets a particular segment.

The white paper versus case study debate is still generating arguments to this day - which document seems to perform better? Jonathan Kantor in a post entitled Do Case Studies Outperform White Papers? takes a stab at the matter.

In the post A Tale of Two Case Studies, the author has very clearly shown what options to choose from when writing a case study. One of the key highlights from this article is to always look at the options that best represent your ideal customer as opposed to looking for great results with your solution. You’ll find the results will speak for themselves.

Here is a basic introductory article on case study writing by Robert F. Abbott. If you have to persuade others to adopt your point of view, or buy your products, or vote for you, then you might find a case study useful. This article clearly highlights what needs to be stitched together to build a story that keeps the reader hooked on.

A picture can speak a thousand words - So, jazz up your documents with relevant pictures so that customers get the pitch right away. Casey Hibbard in Snazz-Up Case Studies with Industry Photos proposes to use corporate pictures in your documents that represents the featured customer's business.