Developing a Compelling Case Study Part 1 - The Process

Research continues to confirm the importance of having a robust website with helpful product/service information and specification tools. In fact, one study indicates that technology buyers conduct 75 percent of their research and information gathering online. Moreover, it noted company websites are a critical resource in a buyer’s information gathering journey.

Accordingly, case studies (or case histories) can be important assets in your website. They can also be used to drive readers to your website—when used strategically in social media. They have at least two intrinsic qualities. First, they embody a story—and everyone appreciates a good story. Second, they provide demonstrative proof of a company’s problem-solving expertise in a specific market segment. Last (for the dubious), the stories can be corroborated.

The case study development process can vary, as can content and format. Yet, here are some basic thoughts on a process for developing a compelling case study.

1.    Preparing or Re-igniting Story Resources

As a starting point, it’s a good idea to establish or re-invigorate the resource base for your case studies. Depending on your go-to-market strategy, some of the best sources are your field sales or distributor sales personnel. Salespeople will know how your products or services played a role in solving a customer’s challenge. They will also know which specific products were involved—often important to the story. Additionally, salespeople have relationships with downstream resources that may serve as interviewees: end customers, contractors, engineers, installers, engineers, building operators, etc. The latter relationships become important. The most effective stories contain end-customer quotes to enhance validity. Your salespeople can solicit these quotes or remember the gist of them if expressed in an earlier customer/salesperson meeting. They can also facilitate the end-customer (or other interviewee) approval process.

The goal is to establish an initial pool of stories upon which to draw. The next challenge is to keep the pool replenished. Keep in mind, salespeople are busy and their primary job is to sell. While they see the value of case studies, contributing to their development is not a priority. The initial step should be to develop a simple ongoing (email or intranet) campaign to solicit story ideas from the sales force and then choose which ones to develop. An incentive (Amazon gift cards) can facilitate the time and cooperation needed from a salesperson to help develop the case study—although seeing their name in print often suffices! Two of my clients use incentives. It’s a strategy that seems to work…something to keep in mind.

Another potential resource for stories is Customer Service. It may have played a direct role in a product or service challenge and solution.

Just a comment about story selection…A powerful determinant in story selection is relevance and timing. For instance, two of my clients (Kohler and Daikin) had stories that were relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic response. Accordingly, they were timely, then and now.

Finally, when the story is in final format, close the loop! Send a printed copy of the story with a thank-you note to all those resources that contributed to the development of the story! It’s a good way to express your appreciation and can help you keep the case history pool replenished.

2.    Developing a Process

When I presented my case study process to Kohler Power, we discovered it was virtually identical to its in-house process. Here’s a high-level overview of that process, using a fast-track timeline which assumes the distributor/customer have been prepared for an interview. We have completed the entire development of case studies (i.e., interview, writing, layout and approval) in as little as 10 days, while others have taken up to 30 days and sometimes, more.

Not shown in the process graphic is detail about approvals which can vary widely. It is prudent to secure resource approval for accuracy and because the case will be published. Further, it may be necessary for the Legal Departments of both client and source (and any other involved resources) to approve the case before publication. These are details to work out internally and with each source during the early stages of the process: No one likes surprises.

3.    Developing the Interview Questions

 Part of the process should be to develop a set of interview questions—or discussion guide. The client and agency should develop these together. Each client is different—some want more or fewer details. Regardless, agree on the question set before interviewing a source. The question set can be a living document and amended/updated, as necessary. Incidentally, it’s okay to go off-script from the question set when conducting the interview—it can lead to interesting story details and associated drama.

The five “Ws” (who, what, where, when and why) are a good way to structure the question set and the interview process. Naturally, they should center around the three key elements of the case study: challenge, solution, and result. For technical products, it’s really important to capture product and/or service details and results, especially if your solution saved the customer money. Your reading audience may be engineers, technical buyers, owners, operation management, etc. These audiences, like many others, appreciate facts, figures, and statistics. Further, they add depth to the story.

4.    Preparing the Resource for the Interview

Typically, it’s best if the corporate contact introduces the agency contact to the story source(s) in advance. This can be accomplished with a simple joint email. It can also prevent any subsequent emails from being accidentally ignored, deleted, or auto-filtered into a SPAM folder. Once the introduction is made, the agency contact can communicate with the resource to set up the interview schedule.

Sending the question set to a story source in advance offers some advantages. It can prepare the source for the information he/she will need to gather to provide a response. It may also prompt them to find charts, graphs and images that could be useful. The associated goal is to maximize the value of the interview by facilitating more thoughtful responses. Sending the questions in advance should be viewed as a courtesy—not as an alternative to the interview. Change your process if sending the questionnaire in advance becomes problematic.

 5.    Conducting the Interview

As a corporate or agency representative, it’s important to set the interviewee at ease. Don’t jump right to business! Introduce yourself, establish your goals for the interview and explain the overall process. Be courteous and cognizant of the resource’s time. Most important, invite them to talk about themselves, e.g., how they got into the business, how long they’ve been in the business, and so on. Get to know them as best you can within the confines of the interview schedule. Finally, if taking written notes is a challenge, ask the resource if you can record the conversation. I use a Zoom digital recorder for this purpose.

As you interview the resource, listen for potential quotes, and quickly jot the substance of the quote down. At the end of the interview, go back to the potential quote and ask for clarification and permission to use it as a quote. Sometimes (as has been my case), a direct quote can drive (or change) the entire direction of the story and often serves to make the case more interesting to read.

Also, note whether the source makes a comment about a future use of a solution for other projects or applications. A comment about future use and solution adoption is a true endorsement of the solution and the brand.

6.    Writing the Case

Just a few thoughts here because this isn’t a journalism course: Remember for whom you are writing. As you write, ask yourself, “Why should the reader care?” Make sure what you write is usable and beneficial to the reader. Adding a little “interest” to the story is fine—after all, it’s a story, and it doesn’t have to be dry and boring. Strike the right balance. Also, everything should flow…from challenge/problem…to solution…to result.

Make sure your case study can be “scanned” for key points and make sure the synopsis is concise but thorough, using a couple sentences for each item.

Once the story is at first-draft stage, think about it in terms of SEO. Go back and look for opportunities to intersperse key search terms in appropriate places. Yet, don’t sacrifice the flow, clarity, and interest of the story to insert a word that will seem out of place or make the structure awkward. Your client may already have a key term list you can leverage. If not, that could be another opportunity!

In Part II of this article, we’ll look at case history format and how it lends itself to readability.

Dan Sholl is the founder and owner of Content Squared. Content Squared specializes in the development of B2B content with the goal of making the complex, simple, and compelling. Let us know how we can help you build your business presence at contentsquared.com