Guest Post: The Simplest, Most-Efficient Way to Write a Case Study: The story behind the Making Your Case ebook

Posted by Ambal Balakrishnan September 22nd 09

I was introduced to Jonathan Kranz by Michele Linn a few months back. Both Jonathan and Michele are regular contributors to our ClickInsights Case Study Experts Interview Series. Jonathan Kranz is the principal of Kranz Communications and a 13-year copywriting veteran. His guest post today focuses on his eBook on case studies - Making Your Case: Everything you and your colleagues need to write compelling, lead-generating case studies (which has a fresh new look!). The ebook includes how-to's on case studies and also some handy extras:

Step by step instructions for writing the three essential parts of any successful case study
Advanced tips for making your case study more engaging, more credible — and ultimately, more productive
Access to three videos about key case study topics
Secrets for crafting headlines and subheads that lure readers into your story
Handy worksheets you can use as a template for writing your own case studies

Jonathan Kranz

Blog Kranzcom Twitter jonkranz

"the power of the case study is rooted in its reality—a real story about a real client with whom the reader can empathize."

Jonathan Kranz's Bio

Today, Jonathan Kranz enjoys the confidence of numerous clients and agencies, but unlike most independent copywriters, his career didn't begin with them. Instead, he had stints as a follow-spot operator in a regional theater, a park ranger on an allegedly haunted island in Boston Harbor, and as a summarizer of documents in large-scale litigations (think: Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener). After completing his MFA in Creative Writing in 1995 (and publishing a number of short stories in literary journals such as the Missouri Review and the Green Mountains Review), he leap-frogged agency life and jumped into freelancing with both feet. Since then, he has written a huge stack of content, advertising, direct marketing, and public relations materials for consumer and B2B clients in financial services, banking, insurance, high-tech, healthcare, education, and other industries.

Jonathan Kranz's Guest Post

Case studies have long been a part of any B2B marketer’s playbook. With the ever-increasing role of the Web as THE place where potential buyers conduct research before making purchasing decisions, case studies have become even more popular as key pieces of online content.

And yet, they are ever more problematic. Why? Because if there isn’t a simple way to write them, they won’t get written. The case study will be deferred. It will be delayed. But it won’t get done.

The ebook, Making Your Case: Everything you and your colleagues need to write compelling, lead-generating case studies evolved out of the in-house marketing writing seminars I conduct within corporate marketing departments. In these sessions, the demand is for a simple, step-by-step process anyone – not just professional writers – can fulfill.

With simplicity in mind, Making Your Case has been designed to:

Break the case study into three basic sections: challenge, solution, results
Reveal the key ingredients that make each section credible, memorable and convincing
Link to videos that explain important points in greater detail
Offer worksheets readers can use to build their own cases
Give readers successful formulas for writing engaging headlines and subheads

In addition to the above, the ebook provides advanced tips and example copy based on a hypothetical business.

Making Your Case is free and doesn’t require any registration: you may download it here.

I also highly recommend the following resources: