How to Write an Effective Business Case Study

Business case studies, which highlight successful implementations of products and services at specific customers, can be effective marketing tools. They demonstrate the effectiveness of a company's products and services in real-world examples and include testimonials from real customer contacts. Writing an effective case study requires careful research and a commitment to truthfulness and full disclosure.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Select a relevant, satisfied and recent customer. Evaluate your current customer base to identify customers that fit your target market by size, products and services purchased and common implementation practices. Conduct surveys with key contacts to ensure that they're fully satisfied with your company and are willing to serve as positive references. Only consider customers with whom you've done business within the last year or so, to be sure that the case study will be fully relevant to your current product and service offerings.
2. Gain the required approvals. Follow all internal policies regarding case studies, including getting input and approval from sales, marketing, legal and other departments that may be concerned with the case study's content. Also, get written approval from customer executive or other key decision-makers that the case study can be written and published to the market at large. Make sure to incorporate any limitations imposed by the customer into the case study to avoid potential future liability issues.
3. Outline your case study. At a minimum, a business case study should include an introduction that summarizes the customer solution, a description of how the customer's business problem was solved by your solution, an outline of financial results or improved metrics such as increased customer satisfaction, and a conclusion that ties everything together. The outline should include summaries of any diagrams and spreadsheets that will be included in your case study.
4. Write the case study. Use a voice that is appealing but not too conversational, and that fits the customer's industry. Business case studies are to appear as authoritative but not dry, and should include acronyms and buzzwords only to the extent that they are commonly used by the customer. Include extensive quotations from key customer contacts wherever possible to back up the results of your solution, including the implementation, post-sale follow-up and long-term results.
5. Design the case study. Invest in the services of a professional graphics designer to create an attractive, compelling design. Create a consistent design that can be used for future business case studies, both to maintain consistency and to save in design costs. Make sure that the design matches your overall corporate look and feel.
6. Edit the case study. If your customer has been involved in the case study's development, give key contacts an opportunity to edit the piece. They're best positioned to identify whether the case study will appeal to like-minded prospects. Also have internal personnel from sales, marketing and other departments edit the case study for clarity and common grammatical and compositional errors.
7. Distribute the case study. Determine the best methods to get the case study in the hands of prospective customers for maximum benefit. Print copies are typical, but explore electronic distribution as well. Create PDF versions for easy emailing, and post the case study on a special section of your website.

Tips & Warnings

• Use side bars to highlight specific solution elements whenever it contributes to the overall message.
• Get legal approval of the case study before showing to any outside entity to ensure that no company trade secrets or other proprietary information is being revealed.