how to analyse a case study in marketing

Marketing case study 101 (plus tips, examples, and templates)

Summary/Overview

If you’re familiar with content lines like, “See how our fancy new app saved Sarah 10 hours a week doing payroll,” you’ve encountered a marketing case study. That’s because case studies are one of the most powerful marketing tools, showcasing real-world applications and customer success stories that help build trust with potential customers.

More than 42% of marketers use case studies in their marketing strategy. Let’s face it — we love testimonials and reviews. People love hearing customer stories and experiences firsthand. In fact, 88% of consumers view reviews before making a purchase decision. Case studies work similarly by providing prospective customers with real-life stories demonstrating the brand’s success.

Case studies provide a more in-depth view of how your product solves an existing problem — something potential buyers can relate to and learn from.

In this article, we take a closer look at what marketing case studies are, why they’re important, and how you can use them to improve your content marketing efforts. You’ll also learn the key elements of a successful case study and how to turn a good case study into a great case study.

What is a marketing case study?

A case study is a narrative that documents a real-world situation or example. A marketing case study is a detailed examination and analysis of a specific strategy, initiative, or marketing campaign that a business has implemented. It’s intended to serve as an all-inclusive narrative that documents a real-world business situation and its outcome.

Marketing case studies are tools businesses use to showcase the effectiveness of a particular tool, technique, or service by using a real-world example. Companies often use case studies as sales collateral on websites, email marketing, social media , and other marketing materials. They provide readers with a firsthand look into how your product or service has helped someone else and demonstrate the value of your offering while building trust with potential customers.

Some common key components of a marketing case study include:

• Context: A case study begins by describing the business’s situation or problem. This often includes challenges, opportunities, or objectives.
• Strategy: An outline of the tactics or strategy utilized to address the business’s situation. This includes details such as the target audience, messaging, channels used, and other unique aspects of the approach.
• Implementation: Provide information about how the strategy was implemented, including timeline, resources, and budget.
• Results: This is arguably the most crucial part of a marketing case study. Present the results through data, metrics, and key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate the impact of the strategy. The results section should highlight both qualitative and quantitative data.
• Challenges and Solutions: A great case study not only focuses on the successes but addresses any obstacles faced during the campaign. Make sure to address any challenges and how they were overcome or mitigated.
• Customer Feedback: Including testimonials or quotes from satisfied clients is a great way to add credibility and authenticity to a case study. Choose customer feedback that reinforces the positive outcomes of the strategy taken.
• Visuals: Compelling case studies include visuals such as graphs, charts, images, videos, and infographics to make the information presented more engaging and easier to understand.
• Analysis: An optional way to conclude a case study includes discussing key takeaways, insights, and lessons learned from a campaign.

Case studies can help you connect your product to the customer’s needs by providing a real world examples of success and encouraging conversions.

Benefits of marketing case studies

Some of the key benefits of using case studies in your marketing efforts include the following:

• Building trust and credibility. You build trust and credibility with potential clients or customers by demonstrating real world success stories. In-depth looks at how your products or services have helped other businesses or people achieve success can increase customer loyalty and encourage repeat business.
• Learn best practices. Learn from strategies employed in successful case studies and apply similar approaches to future campaigns.
• Enhancing sales and conversions. By highlighting the real world results your products or services have delivered, case studies can be a powerful tool for boosting sales. They can help demonstrate the value of your offering and persuade your target audience to make a purchase.
• Explain how your business generates results. Case studies are a compelling way to share key takeaways with your target audience and showcase your brand.
• Use them as content marketing material. Use case studies as content for marketing purposes on websites, social media, and beyond.

Case studies can help your business stand out and achieve success. By highlighting the real world results you’ve delivered, you can use case studies to boost sales, build customer loyalty, and compellingly showcase your business.

Tips on how to write an effective marketing case study

Are you ready to write a compelling case study? Get started with these tips.

Develop a clear and compelling headline

You have about 10 seconds to communicate your value proposition to keep customer attention. Whether you’re designing a new landing page or making a long-term plan for your brand’s content marketing strategy , the headline is the most crucial part.

A compelling title should capture readers’ attention and make them want to read more. To craft a compelling headline:

• Understand your audience: Before crafting a headline, ensure you know your target audience — what are their pain points, interests, and needs?
• Highlight the most significant result: Focus on the most impactful result achieved in the case study. What was the primary outcome of the strategy implemented?
• Keep it brief: Keep your headline concise and to the point. Try to keep your headline under 12 words.
• Use action words: Incorporate action verbs such as “achieved,” “transformed,” or “boosted” to convey a sense of accomplishment.
• Include data: Numbers make your headline more credible. For example, if the case study achieved a 75% increase in sales, include that in the headline.
• Emphasize benefits: Focus on the positive changes or advantages the implemented strategy brought to the client or business. Use these as selling points in your headline.
• Make it unique and memorable: Avoid generic phrases to make your headline stand out from the competition.
• Use keywords wisely: Incorporate relevant keywords that align with the case study and your target audience’s search interest to improve search engine visibility through search engine optimization (SEO).
• Consider subheadings: If you cannot fit all the necessary information in a headline, consider adding a subheading to provide additional context or details.

Here are some examples of clear and convincing case study headlines:

• “Achieving a 150% ROI: How [XYZ] Strategy Transformed a Startup”
• “How Optimized SEO Tactics Skyrocketed Sales by 80%”
• “Mastering Social Media: How [ABC] Brand Increased Engagement by 50%”
• “The Power of Personalization: How Tailored Content Quadrupled Conversions”

Write relatable content

Almost 90% of Gen Z and millennial shoppers prefer influencers who they consider relatable. Relatability is part of building trust and connection with your target audience.

When writing your case study, make content that resonates with readers and speaks to their pain points. The best marketing doesn’t just increase conversion rates — it also serves your customers’ needs. To write content that really resonates with your target audience, make sure to:

• Understand your audience: To successfully write relatable content, you first need to understand your target audience — their interests, pain points, and challenges. The more you know about your target audience, the better you can tailor your content to their needs.
• Identify pain points: As mentioned above, identify challenges your target audience may face. Make sure to highlight how the product or service in the case study can effectively address these pain points.
• Tell a story: Create a narrative that follows a standard story arc. Start with a relatable struggle that the customer or business faced and describe its associated emotions.
• Use real customer feedback: Incorporate quotes or testimonials from actual customers or clients. Including authentic voices makes the content more relatable to readers because they can see real people expressing their experiences.
• Use relatable language: Write in a tone to which your audience can relate. Only include overly technical terms if your target audience solely consists of experts who would understand them.
• Use social proof: Mention any recognitions, awards, or industry acknowledgments that may have been received by the customer or business in the case study.
• Encourage engagement: Urge readers to share their own challenges or experiences related to the subject matter of the case study. This is a great way to foster a sense of community.

Outline your strategies with corresponding statistics

Whether you’re showing off the results your marketing team achieved with a new strategy or explaining how your product has helped customers, data and research make it easier to back up claims.

Include relevant statistics in your case study to provide evidence of the effectiveness of your strategies, such as:

• Quantitative data: Use numerical data to quantify results.
• Qualitative data: Use qualitative data, such as customer testimonials, to back up numerical results.
• Comparisons: Compare the post-campaign results with the pre-campaign benchmarks to provide context for the data.
• Case study metrics: Include specific metrics relevant to your industry or campaign if applicable. For example, in e-commerce, common metrics could include customer acquisition cost, average order value, or cart abandonment rate.

By incorporating relatable outcomes — such as cost savings from new automation or customer responsiveness from your new social media marketing campaign — you can provide concrete evidence of how your product or service has helped others in similar situations.

Use multiple formats of representation

People love visuals . It doesn’t matter if it’s an infographic for digital marketing or a graph chart in print materials — we love to see our data and results represented in visuals that are easy to understand. Additionally, including multiple representation formats is a great way to increase accessibility and enhance clarity.

When making a case study, consider including various forms of representation, such as:

• Infographics: Use infographics to condense critical information into a visually appealing, easy-to-understand graphic. Infographics are highly sharable and can be used across marketing channels.
• Charts: Use charts (bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, etc.) to illustrate statistical information such as data trends or comparisons. Make sure to include clear labels and titles for each chart.
• Images: Include relevant photos to enhance the storytelling aspect of your case study. Consider including “before and after” pictures if relevant to your case study.
• Videos: Short videos summarizing a case study’s main points are great for sharing across social media or embedding into your case study.
• Tables: Use tables to help organize data and make it easier for readers to digest.
• Data visualizations: Include data visualizations such as flowcharts or heatmaps to illustrate user journeys or specific processes.
• Screenshots: If your case study involves digital products, include screenshots to provide a visual walkthrough of how the product or service works.
• Diagrams: Use diagrams, such as a flowchart, to explain complex processes, decision trees, or workflows to simplify complicated information.
• Timelines: If your case study involves a timeline of specific events, present it using a timeline graphic.

Use a consistent design style and color scheme to maintain cohesion when incorporating multiple formats. Remember that each format you use should serve a specific purpose in engaging the reader and conveying information.

Get your case study in front of your intended audience

What good is a compelling case study and a killer call to action (CTA) if no one sees it? Once you’ve completed your case study, share it across the appropriate channels and networks your target audience frequents and incorporate it into your content strategy to increase visibility and reach. To get your case study noticed:

• Take advantage of your website. Create a dedicated section or landing page on your website for your case study. If your website has a blog section, consider including it here. Optimize the page for search engines (SEO) by including relevant keywords and optimizing the meta description and headers. Make sure to feature your case study on your homepage and relevant product or service pages.
• Launch email marketing campaigns. Send out the case study to your email subscriber list. Be specific and target groups that would most likely be interested in the case study.
• Launch social media campaigns. Share your case study on your social media platforms. Use eye-catching graphics and engaging captions to draw in potential readers. Consider creating teaser videos or graphics to generate interest.
• Utilize paid promotions. Use targeted social media and search engine ads to reach specific demographics or interests. Consider retargeting ads to re-engage visitors who have previously interacted with your website.
• Issue a press release. If your case study results in a significant industry impact, consider issuing a press release to share the exciting news with relevant media outlets or publications.
• Utilize influencer outreach. Collaborate with influencers who can share your case study with their followers to increase credibility and expand your reach.
• Host webinars and presentations. Discuss the case study findings and insights through webinars or presentations. Promote these events through your various marketing channels and make sure to encourage participation.
• Utilize networking events and conferences. Present your case study at industry-related conferences, trade shows, or networking events. Consider distributing printed or digital copies of the case study to attendees.
• Utilize online communities. Share the case study in relevant online forums and discussion groups where your target audience congregates.
• Practice search engine optimization (SEO). Optimize the SEO elements of your case study to improve organic search ranking and visibility.

Remember, the key to successfully promoting your case study is to tailor your approach to your specific target audience and their preferences. Consistently promoting your case study across multiple channels increases your chances of it reaching your intended audience.

Marketing case study examples

Let’s look at some successful marketing case studies for inspiration.

“How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations with HubSpot”

Right away, they lead with compelling metrics — the numbers don’t lie. They use two different formats: a well-made video accompanied by well-written text.

The study also addresses customer pain points, like meeting a higher demand during the pandemic.

“How AppSumo grew organic traffic 843% and revenue from organic traffic 340%”

This case study from Omniscient Digital leads with motivating stats, a glowing review sharing a real user experience, and a video review from the AppSumo Head of Content.

The case study information is broken down into clearly marked sections, explaining the benefits to their target audience (startups) and providing plenty of visuals, charts, and metrics to back it up.

“How One Ecommerce Business Solved the Omnichannel Challenge with Bitly Campaigns”

Download this Bitly case study from their site to see the details of how this company made an impact.

Not only is it well designed, but it also tackles customer challenges right away. The most compelling types of case studies serve their audience by showing how the product or service solves their problems.

Bitly nails it by listing obstacles and jumping right into how the brand can help.

Marketing case study template

Use this basic template to better understand the typical structure of a business case study and use it as a starting place to create your own:

Case Study Title

Date: [Date]

Client or Company Profile:

• Client/Company Name: [Client/Company Name]
• Industry: [Industry]
• Location: [Location]
• Client/Company Background: [Brief client or company background information.]

Introduction:

• Briefly introduce the client or company and any necessary context for the campaign or initiative.
• Problem statement: Describe the specific challenge or problem faced by the client or company before implementing the campaign or initiative.
• Strategy: Explain the strategy that was implemented to address the challenge. Include details such as target audience, objectives, goals, and tactics.
• Implementation: Provide a timeline of the strategy’s implementation, including key milestones and other notable considerations taken during execution.
• Outcomes: Present the qualitative and quantitative results achieved through the implemented strategy. Include relevant metrics, statistics, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Comparative data: Compare the post-campaign results to pre-campaign benchmarks or industry standards.

Analysis and Insights:

• Key insights: Summarize insights and lessons learned from the campaign and discuss the campaign's impact on the client or company’s goals.
• Challenges faced: Address any obstacles encountered during the campaign and how they were mitigated or overcome.

Conclusion:

• Conclusion: Summarize the campaign’s overall impact on the client or company. Highlight the value that was delivered by the implemented strategy and the success it achieved.
• Next Steps: Discuss potential follow-up actions, recommendations, or future strategies.

Testimonials:

• Include quotes or testimonials from the clients or customers who benefitted from the campaign.
• Incorporate relevant visuals to illustrate key points, findings, and results.

The above template is a great way to get started gathering your ideas and findings for a marketing case study. Feel free to add additional sections or customize the template to match your requirements.

Craft a compelling marketing case study for your business

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Lessons from the Field: Analyzing Successful Marketing Case Studies

Discover valuable insights and strategies from real-life marketing case studies in this informative article.

In the ever-evolving world of marketing, success stories serve as valuable lessons. Case studies, in particular, provide real-world examples and insights that can shape marketing strategies, campaigns, and tactics. They offer a window into the strategies employed by successful brands, allowing marketers to extract valuable insights and apply them to their own endeavors. In this article, we will delve into the importance of case studies in marketing, identify key elements of successful case studies, explore how to extract valuable insights from them, and discuss the application of those insights to improve marketing strategies.

Understanding the Importance of Case Studies in Marketing

Case studies play a vital role in the development of marketing strategy. They provide marketers with evidence of what works in real-world scenarios, allowing them to learn from others' successes and avoid their mistakes. Additionally, case studies offer an opportunity to understand the challenges faced by various organizations and how they overcame them.

The role of case studies in marketing strategy development

Case studies serve as a foundation for marketing strategy development. By analyzing successful marketing case studies, marketers can gain a deeper understanding of the tactics and approaches that have proven effective in the past. This knowledge enables them to make informed decisions and craft strategies that are more likely to succeed.

For example, let's consider a case study on a popular clothing brand that successfully launched a new product line. By examining the marketing strategies employed, such as influencer collaborations and targeted social media campaigns, marketers can draw valuable insights. They can learn about the importance of creating a buzz around the launch, leveraging the power of social media influencers, and engaging with their target audience in a meaningful way.

Furthermore, case studies provide marketers with a comprehensive view of the marketing landscape. They showcase different industries, markets, and target audiences, allowing marketers to broaden their perspective. This exposure to diverse case studies helps marketers identify innovative strategies and adapt them to their specific business needs.

How case studies provide real-world examples and insights

Case studies bring marketing theories and concepts to life by showcasing their application in real-world scenarios. They provide concrete examples of marketing strategies, tactics, and campaigns that have achieved measurable success. Whether it's a social media campaign that went viral or a targeted content marketing strategy, case studies offer a wealth of insights into what works and how it can be replicated.

Let's delve into a case study on a startup that successfully disrupted the market with a unique marketing approach. This case study highlights the importance of thinking outside the box and taking calculated risks. By analyzing the strategies employed by the startup, marketers can gain valuable insights into unconventional marketing methods that can create a buzz and differentiate their brand from competitors.

Furthermore, case studies provide an opportunity to learn from failures as well. By examining unsuccessful marketing campaigns, marketers can identify pitfalls to avoid and gain a deeper understanding of what does not work in certain contexts. This knowledge is invaluable in refining marketing strategies and avoiding costly mistakes.

Moreover, case studies offer a glimpse into the ever-evolving digital landscape. With the rapid advancement of technology, marketers need to stay updated on the latest trends and tools. By studying case studies that showcase successful digital marketing campaigns, marketers can gain insights into emerging platforms, innovative techniques, and effective ways to engage with digitally-savvy consumers.

In conclusion, case studies are an essential tool for marketers to enhance their understanding of successful marketing strategies and gain insights into real-world examples. By analyzing case studies, marketers can make informed decisions, craft effective marketing strategies, and stay ahead in the dynamic and competitive marketing landscape.

Identifying Key Elements of Successful Marketing Case Studies

To truly benefit from analyzing case studies, it is essential to identify their key elements. By understanding what makes a case study successful, marketers can find valuable lessons and apply them to their own marketing initiatives.

Case studies are a powerful tool for marketers to gain insights and learn from the successes of others. They provide a real-life example of how a marketing strategy was implemented and the results that were achieved. However, not all case studies are created equal. Some are more effective than others in conveying the key lessons and inspiring marketers to take action.

Defining the objectives and target audience of the case study

Successful case studies clearly define their objectives and target audience. These two factors shape the entire narrative of the case study, ensuring that it aligns with the intended lessons and resonates with the readers who can benefit from it.

When defining the objectives of a case study, marketers should consider what specific insights they want to gain and what actions they hope to inspire. This clarity of purpose will guide the selection of case study subjects and the analysis of their strategies.

Similarly, identifying the target audience is crucial for crafting a case study that speaks directly to the right people. Marketers should consider who will benefit the most from the lessons shared in the case study and tailor the language, examples, and recommendations accordingly.

Selecting the right case study subjects for analysis

The choice of case study subjects is crucial. Marketers should select case studies that closely align with their industry, target market, or specific marketing challenges they face. By analyzing case studies that are relevant and relatable, marketers can extract insights that are directly applicable to their own marketing strategies.

When selecting case study subjects, marketers should consider not only the industry or market segment but also the specific challenges or goals they are facing. For example, if a marketer is struggling with social media engagement, analyzing a case study of a successful social media campaign can provide valuable insights and inspiration.

Furthermore, it is important to consider the credibility and reliability of the case study subjects. Marketers should look for case studies that have been well-documented and have credible sources of information. This ensures that the insights gained from the analysis are based on accurate and trustworthy data.

Analyzing the structure and format of successful case studies

Case studies have a distinct structure and format. Successful case studies often follow a storytelling approach, clearly outlining the problem, the strategy employed, the tactics used, and the results achieved. Analyzing the structure and format of successful case studies can help marketers present their own strategies in a compelling and engaging manner.

When analyzing the structure and format of successful case studies, marketers should pay attention to the flow of the narrative. Is the story easy to follow? Does it build tension and create anticipation? Is the resolution satisfying? These elements contribute to the overall impact of the case study and can make it more memorable and persuasive.

In addition, marketers should consider the use of visuals and supporting data in successful case studies. Visuals such as charts, graphs, and images can help illustrate key points and make the case study more visually appealing. Supporting data, such as statistics and metrics, can add credibility and provide evidence of the effectiveness of the strategies employed.

By analyzing the structure and format of successful case studies, marketers can gain insights into how to present their own strategies in a way that captures the attention of their audience and effectively communicates the key lessons.

Extracting Valuable Insights from Marketing Case Studies

Once marketers have identified successful case studies, the next step is to extract valuable insights that can inform their own marketing initiatives. This involves examining the strategies employed, understanding the impact of market research and data analysis, and learning from innovative and creative marketing campaigns.

Identifying successful marketing strategies and tactics

Case studies provide an opportunity to identify successful marketing strategies and tactics that have proven effective in specific scenarios. By analyzing these strategies, marketers can gain inspiration and adapt them to their own campaigns to achieve similar results.

Understanding the impact of market research and data analysis

Market research and data analysis play a crucial role in successful marketing case studies. These studies often highlight the importance of gathering and analyzing relevant data to inform marketing decisions. By understanding how market research and data analysis contribute to successful marketing, marketers can leverage these tools to enhance their own strategies.

Learning from innovative and creative marketing campaigns

Successful case studies often showcase innovative and creative marketing campaigns that have captured audience attention. By analyzing these campaigns, marketers can learn valuable lessons about creativity, resourcefulness, and out-of-the-box thinking. These insights can then be applied to their own marketing initiatives to create impact and differentiate their brands.

Applying Lessons Learned to Improve Marketing Strategies

Deriving insights from case studies is only valuable if they can be effectively applied to improve marketing strategies. This involves implementing successful case study findings into marketing plans, adapting strategies to fit different industries and target markets, and measuring the effectiveness of marketing strategies based on case study insights.

Implementing successful case study findings into marketing plans

Successful case study findings should not remain mere insights but should be transformed into actionable plans. Marketers should incorporate these findings into their marketing strategies and campaigns, adapting them to suit their own unique circumstances. By implementing successful case study findings, marketers can increase the likelihood of achieving desirable outcomes.

Adapting strategies to fit different industries and target markets

While case studies provide valuable insights, it's crucial to adapt them to fit different industries and target markets. What works for one brand may not necessarily work for another. Marketers should carefully consider the nuances of their own industry and target market and tailor strategies accordingly. By intelligently integrating case study learnings with industry context, marketers can maximize effectiveness.

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing strategies based on case study insights

An effective marketing strategy is one that can be measured and evaluated. Once marketers have applied case study insights to their own strategies, they should establish clear metrics to assess their effectiveness. By measuring the impact of their strategies, marketers can continuously refine and optimize their marketing efforts based on the lessons learned from the case studies they have analyzed.

Storing Templates in the HIVO Platform

In addition to analyzing case studies for insights, marketers can also streamline their marketing processes by utilizing digital asset management platforms like HIVO. One valuable feature of HIVO is the ability to store templates.

Templates provide marketers with a consistent and efficient way to execute marketing campaigns. With HIVO, marketing teams can easily access and use pre-designed templates for various marketing materials, such as landing pages, social media ads, email campaigns, and more.

By storing templates in the HIVO platform, marketers can ensure brand consistency, save time on design iterations, and maintain quality control over the marketing materials. The ability to store templates simplifies the marketing workflow, enhances collaboration among team members, and allows for better scalability in marketing campaigns.

In conclusion, analyzing successful marketing case studies is a valuable practice for marketers seeking to improve their strategies. By understanding the importance of case studies, identifying key elements of successful case studies, extracting valuable insights, and applying those lessons learned, marketers can enhance their marketing outcomes and drive success in their campaigns. Additionally, leveraging digital asset management platforms like HIVO, with features such as template storage, can further streamline marketing processes and improve efficiency.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study (With Examples)

Learn exactly what a marketing case study is, how to write one that stands out, and review some examples of existing, successful studies.

As any big brand like MailChimp, Spotify and IMB will tell you, case studies are a huge part of solidifying your brand as thought leaders.

A case study is a win: you share the success of a customer as a result of your company’s actions. At SimpleTexting we call them our Success Stories , but no matter the name, the structure is the same — how company A worked with B to achieve XYZ. 

In this article we’ll cover everything from the basics to real-life examples.What exactly is a marketing case study, what constitutes a good one, and most importantly, how do you build one?

Let’s get started.

What is a Marketing Case Study?

According to Curata , “a case study in the context of marketing is an analysis of a project, campaign or company that identifies a situation, recommended solutions, implementation actions, and identification of those factors that contributed to failure or success.”

Sure, it’s a bit wordy, but at its core marketing case studies share information with prospective customers or clients about how your product offered a solution.

It doesn’t need to be dry reading. It doesn’t even need to be a report (although it can be). The key with a case study is that it should read like a story—only the beginning, middle, and end are all replicable business takeaways.

Case studies are for businesses of all sizes. They can be just as effective for small and medium-sized businesses as they are for enterprise businesses. Here’s why you should be investing time in building case studies.

Why Write a Marketing Case Study?

Before we dive into the instructions, let’s take a second to explore why a business would invest the time and effort into writing a case study. After all, why share your big marketing secrets with the world, what do you get out of the deal?

Simply put, you get the chance to share your story. Case studies, after all, are just stories showcasing your products and methods. They make for pretty spectacular advertising because, to a reader, it doesn’t feel like they’re being marketed to.

92% of customers prefer that media messages sound like a story. By using case studies you’re appealing to the logical, casual consumer who wants to know the “who, what, where, when, and why” that drives them to buy without any of the extra fuss. Case studies are the perfect medium to package it all.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study

As mentioned, every good case study maintains one singular focus: how one company used another to achieve its goal(s). This means most marketing case studies tend to take on an easily understandable problem-solution structure.

Let’s take a look at what you need to create a successful case study.

Components of a Marketing Case Study

Using the ingredients above, assemble them in this order to create a basic marketing case study:

• Write a title : Don’t worry about spoiling the ending. With case studies you want your title to let readers know right away how a campaign ended.  A case study title should include the name of the company or brand being examined, if their campaign went well or poorly for them and a solid metric that demonstrates exactly how well or how poorly they performed. For example: “ SimpleTexting Cut Down Product Onboarding Process by 30% Through Video Instruction. “
• Introduce the subject: Every marketing case study should open with a brief historical overview of the company. What have they struggled with in the past that led to them developing this campaign? Who is their target audience, what do they sell?  Even if your subject is obscure, you want to build a sense of relatability to your readers: so be sure to structure from general to specific. After all, you want readers outside just your industry to take away value.
• Identify your subject’s problems : Avoid leaving your readers feeling underwhelmed by presenting your subject’s problems early on in your case study. What are they trying to build, fix, or change? These problems are what will ultimately establish the subject’s goal, a one or two-sentence overview of the outcomes they’d like to see.
• Spell out your strategies and tactics : The real meat to your case study occurs here. This portion of your study is where you describe what actions you specifically took to try and reach your goals: What did you expect to happen when you tried “X, Y, and Z”?  Your case study can write this all out in paragraph form if you want it to read with some fluidity, or you can simply bullet out your strategies below each goal. Examples of good strategies for a common marketing pain point, such as building a social media following, include: connecting with influencers, developing original creative content, and developing paid advertising parameters.
• Share your results with visuals : At this point, you’ll want to follow up with the preview you set in your title and share with readers how things went. If you saw success, how much and where? If you didn’t were you able to pinpoint where things went wrong? Spare no detail as you write out what worked and what didn’t, and be sure to provide replicable detail (it may be what inspires your reader to become a customer!). Some common metrics commonly found in case studies include: web analytics and traffic, backlinks generated, keyword rankings, shares or other social interactions. Graphics like charts, bolded quotes, and graphs are good opportunities to visually demonstrate your data.
• Wrap it up with a conclusion : Know the difference between reemphasizing and repeating. When writing a conclusion you shouldn’t sound like an echo, repeating exactly what you said in your introduction. Instead, you want to draw emphasis back to your key points and call your readers to action. Let them know what they can do right now to get connected and see this same success (or avoid its failure).  If you’re writing a case study for marketing purposes, this is where you sell yourself and your product.

Marketing Case Study Examples

You’ve certainly heard enough from us to this point. Now it’s time to see what all of these tips and tricks look like in action. `

A plethora of marketing case study examples are out there, each one with a different objective: educational, sales-driven, industry leadership, and more.

To give you a well-rounded picture, we’ll share some of our favorite marketing case studies with you so you can see it all in action for yourself.

1. Surf Live Saving Foundation

The Surf Life Saving Foundation rolled out an innovative new framework for their brand known as the surf lottery. Despite the size of the initiative they were able to break down their process on a share of voice campaign with a great deal of clarity. Why we like this case study : It provides actionable and replicable examples of how their objectives were received.

2. StyleHaul & Asana

Organizational application Asana also finds itself in a competition-heavy environment. They are one of many SaaS productivity programs available. They needed to give their brand more of a voice to edge out against competitors offering near-identical products. The problem that needed solving in this success story is relatable to businesses all around the world, and ASANA’s use of it is a showcase of why they’re leaders in what they do.

Why we like this case study : It’s storytelling at its finest and perfectly demonstrates the subtle advertising concept.

3. Red Sox and CTP

This is a great example of a marketing agency showcasing its history of work with a high-profile client (the Boston Red Sox). It explores their entire body of work on a dynamic landing page. Why we like this case study : It demonstrates what a multi-media approach to a digital case study should strive to be.

4. SimpleTexting & U.S. Hunger

We couldn’t talk the talk without walking the walk. We have a range of varied case studies on our Success Stories page, but one of our absolute favorites is the results from U.S. Hunger.

U.S. Hunger was looking for a way to reach those who need them most – including those without internet access.

Why we like this case study: Not only does it highlight the incredible work of U.S. Hunger, it also shows how much can be accomplished through SMS. It spins a new light on SMS marketing and shows the wider impact of accessible communication. 

Marketing Case Studies are Key to Brand Trust

As a business looking to grow, you need to prove to prospective customers and clients why they should invest in you. Whether it’s a service or a product, case studies are viable ways of showing that what you do works and discussing how you achieved it.

The most impactful case studies aren’t always the ones with big names attached to them. They’re the best stories, the best solutions, and the ones that the most people can relate to.

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Meghan Tocci

Meghan Tocci is a content strategist at SimpleTexting. When she’s not writing about SaaS, she’s trying to teach her puppy Lou how to code. So far, not so good.

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How to write a case study — examples, templates, and tools

It’s a marketer’s job to communicate the effectiveness of a product or service to potential and current customers to convince them to buy and keep business moving. One of the best methods for doing this is to share success stories that are relatable to prospects and customers based on their pain points, experiences, and overall needs.

That’s where case studies come in. Case studies are an essential part of a content marketing plan. These in-depth stories of customer experiences are some of the most effective at demonstrating the value of a product or service. Yet many marketers don’t use them, whether because of their regimented formats or the process of customer involvement and approval.

A case study is a powerful tool for showcasing your hard work and the success your customer achieved. But writing a great case study can be difficult if you’ve never done it before or if it’s been a while. This guide will show you how to write an effective case study and provide real-world examples and templates that will keep readers engaged and support your business.

In this article, you’ll learn:

What is a case study?

How to write a case study, case study templates, case study examples, case study tools.

A case study is the detailed story of a customer’s experience with a product or service that demonstrates their success and often includes measurable outcomes. Case studies are used in a range of fields and for various reasons, from business to academic research. They’re especially impactful in marketing as brands work to convince and convert consumers with relatable, real-world stories of actual customer experiences.

The best case studies tell the story of a customer’s success, including the steps they took, the results they achieved, and the support they received from a brand along the way. To write a great case study, you need to:

• Celebrate the customer and make them — not a product or service — the star of the story.
• Craft the story with specific audiences or target segments in mind so that the story of one customer will be viewed as relatable and actionable for another customer.
• Write copy that is easy to read and engaging so that readers will gain the insights and messages intended.
• Follow a standardized format that includes all of the essentials a potential customer would find interesting and useful.
• Support all of the claims for success made in the story with data in the forms of hard numbers and customer statements.

Case studies are a type of review but more in depth, aiming to show — rather than just tell — the positive experiences that customers have with a brand. Notably, 89% of consumers read reviews before deciding to buy, and 79% view case study content as part of their purchasing process. When it comes to B2B sales, 52% of buyers rank case studies as an important part of their evaluation process.

Telling a brand story through the experience of a tried-and-true customer matters. The story is relatable to potential new customers as they imagine themselves in the shoes of the company or individual featured in the case study. Showcasing previous customers can help new ones see themselves engaging with your brand in the ways that are most meaningful to them.

Besides sharing the perspective of another customer, case studies stand out from other content marketing forms because they are based on evidence. Whether pulling from client testimonials or data-driven results, case studies tend to have more impact on new business because the story contains information that is both objective (data) and subjective (customer experience) — and the brand doesn’t sound too self-promotional.

Case studies are unique in that there’s a fairly standardized format for telling a customer’s story. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for creativity. It’s all about making sure that teams are clear on the goals for the case study — along with strategies for supporting content and channels — and understanding how the story fits within the framework of the company’s overall marketing goals.

Here are the basic steps to writing a good case study.

1. Identify your goal

Start by defining exactly who your case study will be designed to help. Case studies are about specific instances where a company works with a customer to achieve a goal. Identify which customers are likely to have these goals, as well as other needs the story should cover to appeal to them.

The answer is often found in one of the buyer personas that have been constructed as part of your larger marketing strategy. This can include anything from new leads generated by the marketing team to long-term customers that are being pressed for cross-sell opportunities. In all of these cases, demonstrating value through a relatable customer success story can be part of the solution to conversion.

2. Choose your client or subject

Who you highlight matters. Case studies tie brands together that might otherwise not cross paths. A writer will want to ensure that the highlighted customer aligns with their own company’s brand identity and offerings. Look for a customer with positive name recognition who has had great success with a product or service and is willing to be an advocate.

The client should also match up with the identified target audience. Whichever company or individual is selected should be a reflection of other potential customers who can see themselves in similar circumstances, having the same problems and possible solutions.

Some of the most compelling case studies feature customers who:

• Switch from one product or service to another while naming competitors that missed the mark.
• Experience measurable results that are relatable to others in a specific industry.
• Represent well-known brands and recognizable names that are likely to compel action.
• Advocate for a product or service as a champion and are well-versed in its advantages.

Whoever or whatever customer is selected, marketers must ensure they have the permission of the company involved before getting started. Some brands have strict review and approval procedures for any official marketing or promotional materials that include their name. Acquiring those approvals in advance will prevent any miscommunication or wasted effort if there is an issue with their legal or compliance teams.

3. Conduct research and compile data

Substantiating the claims made in a case study — either by the marketing team or customers themselves — adds validity to the story. To do this, include data and feedback from the client that defines what success looks like. This can be anything from demonstrating return on investment (ROI) to a specific metric the customer was striving to improve. Case studies should prove how an outcome was achieved and show tangible results that indicate to the customer that your solution is the right one.

This step could also include customer interviews. Make sure that the people being interviewed are key stakeholders in the purchase decision or deployment and use of the product or service that is being highlighted. Content writers should work off a set list of questions prepared in advance. It can be helpful to share these with the interviewees beforehand so they have time to consider and craft their responses. One of the best interview tactics to keep in mind is to ask questions where yes and no are not natural answers. This way, your subject will provide more open-ended responses that produce more meaningful content.

4. Choose the right format

There are a number of different ways to format a case study. Depending on what you hope to achieve, one style will be better than another. However, there are some common elements to include, such as:

• An engaging headline
• A subject and customer introduction
• The unique challenge or challenges the customer faced
• The solution the customer used to solve the problem
• The results achieved
• Data and statistics to back up claims of success
• A strong call to action (CTA) to engage with the vendor

It’s also important to note that while case studies are traditionally written as stories, they don’t have to be in a written format. Some companies choose to get more creative with their case studies and produce multimedia content, depending on their audience and objectives. Case study formats can include traditional print stories, interactive web or social content, data-heavy infographics, professionally shot videos, podcasts, and more.

5. Write your case study

We’ll go into more detail later about how exactly to write a case study, including templates and examples. Generally speaking, though, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing your case study.

• Be clear and concise. Readers want to get to the point of the story quickly and easily, and they’ll be looking to see themselves reflected in the story right from the start.
• Provide a big picture. Always make sure to explain who the client is, their goals, and how they achieved success in a short introduction to engage the reader.
• Construct a clear narrative. Stick to the story from the perspective of the customer and what they needed to solve instead of just listing product features or benefits.
• Leverage graphics. Incorporating infographics, charts, and sidebars can be a more engaging and eye-catching way to share key statistics and data in readable ways.
• Offer the right amount of detail. Most case studies are one or two pages with clear sections that a reader can skim to find the information most important to them.
• Include data to support claims. Show real results — both facts and figures and customer quotes — to demonstrate credibility and prove the solution works.

6. Promote your story

Marketers have a number of options for distribution of a freshly minted case study. Many brands choose to publish case studies on their website and post them on social media. This can help support SEO and organic content strategies while also boosting company credibility and trust as visitors see that other businesses have used the product or service.

Marketers are always looking for quality content they can use for lead generation. Consider offering a case study as gated content behind a form on a landing page or as an offer in an email message. One great way to do this is to summarize the content and tease the full story available for download after the user takes an action.

Sales teams can also leverage case studies, so be sure they are aware that the assets exist once they’re published. Especially when it comes to larger B2B sales, companies often ask for examples of similar customer challenges that have been solved.

Now that you’ve learned a bit about case studies and what they should include, you may be wondering how to start creating great customer story content. Here are a couple of templates you can use to structure your case study.

Template 1 — Challenge-solution-result format

• Start with an engaging title. This should be fewer than 70 characters long for SEO best practices. One of the best ways to approach the title is to include the customer’s name and a hint at the challenge they overcame in the end.
• Create an introduction. Lead with an explanation as to who the customer is, the need they had, and the opportunity they found with a specific product or solution. Writers can also suggest the success the customer experienced with the solution they chose.
• Present the challenge. This should be several paragraphs long and explain the problem the customer faced and the issues they were trying to solve. Details should tie into the company’s products and services naturally. This section needs to be the most relatable to the reader so they can picture themselves in a similar situation.
• Share the solution. Explain which product or service offered was the ideal fit for the customer and why. Feel free to delve into their experience setting up, purchasing, and onboarding the solution.
• Explain the results. Demonstrate the impact of the solution they chose by backing up their positive experience with data. Fill in with customer quotes and tangible, measurable results that show the effect of their choice.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that invites readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to nurture them further in the marketing pipeline. What you ask of the reader should tie directly into the goals that were established for the case study in the first place.

Template 2 — Data-driven format

• Start with an engaging title. Be sure to include a statistic or data point in the first 70 characters. Again, it’s best to include the customer’s name as part of the title.
• Create an overview. Share the customer’s background and a short version of the challenge they faced. Present the reason a particular product or service was chosen, and feel free to include quotes from the customer about their selection process.
• Present data point 1. Isolate the first metric that the customer used to define success and explain how the product or solution helped to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 2. Isolate the second metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 3. Isolate the final metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Summarize the results. Reiterate the fact that the customer was able to achieve success thanks to a specific product or service. Include quotes and statements that reflect customer satisfaction and suggest they plan to continue using the solution.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that asks readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to further nurture them in the marketing pipeline. Again, remember that this is where marketers can look to convert their content into action with the customer.

While templates are helpful, seeing a case study in action can also be a great way to learn. Here are some examples of how Adobe customers have experienced success.

Juniper Networks

One example is the Adobe and Juniper Networks case study , which puts the reader in the customer’s shoes. The beginning of the story quickly orients the reader so that they know exactly who the article is about and what they were trying to achieve. Solutions are outlined in a way that shows Adobe Experience Manager is the best choice and a natural fit for the customer. Along the way, quotes from the client are incorporated to help add validity to the statements. The results in the case study are conveyed with clear evidence of scale and volume using tangible data.

The story of Lenovo’s journey with Adobe is one that spans years of planning, implementation, and rollout. The Lenovo case study does a great job of consolidating all of this into a relatable journey that other enterprise organizations can see themselves taking, despite the project size. This case study also features descriptive headers and compelling visual elements that engage the reader and strengthen the content.

Tata Consulting

When it comes to using data to show customer results, this case study does an excellent job of conveying details and numbers in an easy-to-digest manner. Bullet points at the start break up the content while also helping the reader understand exactly what the case study will be about. Tata Consulting used Adobe to deliver elevated, engaging content experiences for a large telecommunications client of its own — an objective that’s relatable for a lot of companies.

Case studies are a vital tool for any marketing team as they enable you to demonstrate the value of your company’s products and services to others. They help marketers do their job and add credibility to a brand trying to promote its solutions by using the experiences and stories of real customers.

When you’re ready to get started with a case study:

• Think about a few goals you’d like to accomplish with your content.
• Make a list of successful clients that would be strong candidates for a case study.
• Reach out to the client to get their approval and conduct an interview.
• Gather the data to present an engaging and effective customer story.

Adobe can help

There are several Adobe products that can help you craft compelling case studies. Adobe Experience Platform helps you collect data and deliver great customer experiences across every channel. Once you’ve created your case studies, Experience Platform will help you deliver the right information to the right customer at the right time for maximum impact.

To learn more, watch the Adobe Experience Platform story .

Keep in mind that the best case studies are backed by data. That’s where Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform and Adobe Analytics come into play. With Real-Time CDP, you can gather the data you need to build a great case study and target specific customers to deliver the content to the right audience at the perfect moment.

Watch the Real-Time CDP overview video to learn more.

Finally, Adobe Analytics turns real-time data into real-time insights. It helps your business collect and synthesize data from multiple platforms to make more informed decisions and create the best case study possible.

Request a demo to learn more about Adobe Analytics.

https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/b2b-ecommerce-10-case-studies-inspire-you

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/business-case

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/what-is-real-time-analytics

What Is a Case Study in Marketing and How to Build One (Examples)

A marketing case study allows you to illustrate and explain how you achieved enormous success in a specific situation.

For instance, last year, Jacob McMillen wrote about how Pronto used Crazy Egg to increase leads by 24 percent .

That’s a big number.

It’s not a full case study , but it demonstrates the goal of a marketing case study. You want to shock your audience, then explain exactly how you achieved your results — preferably with proof.

You might have read lots of case studies over the years without realizing your business could benefit from them. Lots of entrepreneurs are put off by the hard work and long hours required to build a marketing case study.

However, think about how many leads you might convert by proving your track record, establishing trust, and attracting traffic through SEO .

Let’s look at how marketing case studies can impact your business, discuss how to write one, and check out a few examples.

What Is a Case Study in Marketing?

A case study in marketing is a document or web page that includes several basic parts:

• Description of the subject : Explain your customer’s or client’s history and pain points.
• Subject’s goal : Identify your customer’s or client’s goal for the project so readers understand what to expect.
• Hypothesis for strategy : Tell your audience what you expected to happen after you implemented your strategy for the customer or client.
• Implementation of strategy : Take the reader through the step-by-step process you used to help your customer or client.
• Results of strategy : Deliver the results in as much detail as possible, preferably with a quote from the client or customer.
• Concluding findings : Explain what this case study has taught your specifically and how it can help other people.

You don’t have to include every category, but the more detail you add, the more effective your marketing case study becomes.

Most of the time, you’re conducting a case study for your own business. You want to show the world how your product or service has helped a customer in a huge way.

For that reason, it helps to know you’ll perform a case study from the beginning. In other words, try not to reverse-engineer a case study from a great result. Instead, track your arrangement with your customer throughout the process.

The Importance of Creating Case Studies to Convert Leads into Customers

Think of a marketing case study as a lure. It’s a way to dangle amazing results in front of your leads so they’ll decide to convert .

Imagine that you’re a customer who’s trying to decide between two businesses, each of which offers time management software. One company has a marketing case study that illustrates how it helped a customer save four hours per week. The other company has no case study.

Which company would you trust most?

You can use that consumer logic to inform your business decisions. Thinking like a customer can help you achieve new insights into marketing.

Creating a marketing case study gives you an edge that your competitors might have. It can also help your leads make more informed decisions.

Too many businesses copy their competitors or other businesses. Instead, you should spend time being more creative and innovative. Below is a video by Neil Patel that illustrates why you need to quit copying digital marketing strategies.

If you’re bold enough to be different, you can convert more leads. A marketing case study gives you that opportunity because nobody else can duplicate it.

Why is it so important to build trust?

Anybody can throw testimonials on their site by Ron R. and Jennifer K. Anyone can also make them up.

Trust is tenuous in the digital marketing world. If you can’t create it, you likely won’t convert leads into customers.

Think about all the companies that have experienced data hacks. Their stocks plummeted, consumer sentiment turned ugly, and profits dwindled. That’s because consumers lost trust.

Similarly, any company can make bold claims about its products or services. Consumers have become numb to superlative-littered copy and hyped-up videos. They want to see evidence.

If you can prove that your product or service delivers powerful results, you’ll gain your leads’ trust.

Marketing case studies show how you tackled a problem and overcame it on behalf of your customer or client. It’s that simple. The more detail you give, the more authority you create for your company — and the more your leads will trust your expertise.

4 Case Study Examples

Before we tell you how to build a case study, let’s look at a few examples to get you warmed up. Each of these marketing case studies illustrates the power behind the medium.

They’ll also show you how different case studies can look depending on design, detail, results, and goals.

The Shopify case study by HubSpot demonstrates how a narrative can be woven from a company’s journey. When Loren Padelford became head of sales, he immediately identified weak spots in Shopify’s sales cycle, so he decided to adopt HubSpot.

This case study highlights the ways in which Shopify used HubSpot’s email plugin to save time and improve communication flow. There’s a quote from Padelford in the case study, which can add even more impact in terms of building trust among leads.

Here, we have a fairly vague result. The company — specifically Padelford — claims to have achieved great success with HubSpot’s tools, but there aren’t any concrete numbers to back that up.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach, though, as long as your customer or client can offer a raving quote.

Ecommerce marketing case studies can become extremely valuable. In this case, Bit.ly used a more traditional template for a marketing case study. The PDF document includes several sections that take you through the process of how Vissla improved its omnichannel marketing with Bit.ly.

The results were that Vissla was able to visualize and centralize data in one place. They gained greater control over their social media marketing, which resulted in faster and better improvements in the content they shared.

There’s also a quote from Vissla’s media marketing manager, Keegan Fong: “Bitly Campaigns offers us a whole new way to look at our marketing channels. By giving us an easy-to-use dashboard that instantly displays the results of our multichannel promotions, we can see what kinds of content work on what channel, which channels we should be investing in the most, and what we need to do to optimize our content.” [ For Social: @vissla ]

3. Viperchill

There’s a great marketing case study from Viperchill that you’ll want to check out. It’s a quick, fun read that explains how the author created a squeeze page that generated more than 700 leads and results in a conversion rate of 64 percent.

Notice that he used hard numbers. Sometimes, it’s impossible to boil results down to a figure or percentage, but if you can, do so. People comprehend real numbers faster than lengthy text explanations.

4. MarketingSherpa

This MarketingSherpa case study is super detailed and describes the process by which MarketingSherpa helped a natural foods company boost revenue by 18 percent with a site redesign. You see the entire project from start to finish.

You’ll notice that there are lots of visuals. Since this marketing case study focused on design, visuals were imperative. Let your business and its niche guide the way in which you construct your case study.

How to Create a Case Study Marketing Strategy That Converts

Now that you’ve looked through a few case studies, how do you create a marketing case study of your own?

It starts with a case study marketing strategy that’s designed to convert leads. You don’t want to choose just any project. It should be geared toward other businesses or customers who might benefit from your business.

Let’s take it step by step.

1. Choose a success story that is closely related to your potential customer

You might notice that many companies publish numerous marketing case studies. There’s a reason for that.

Each case study targets a different segment of the company’s target audience. Let’s say that you sell shoes, purses, and hats. A case study about shoes won’t interest someone who’s shopping for hats.

You can either choose a project that has already concluded or one that is starting or underway. It’s always best to start at the beginning, but if you’re anxious, you can take the reverse-engineering route.

Decide which segment of your target audience you want to appeal to first. Next, select a case study subject closely related to that segment. You want your marketing case study to resonate with the leads you most want to convert.

2. Identify the key points of the case study and use storytelling

Decide what parts of the case study you want to highlight. These details will likely appear in the marketing case study’s headline as well as throughout the rest of the text.

For instance, if you helped a customer boost revenue by 200 percent, that’s a highly relevant detail. You’ll want to spotlight it in the headline and several times in the content so you keep it fresh in readers’ minds.

You might have several key points. Think about the struggles your customer was facing before you stepped in, how you approached the solution, and why alternatives weren’t working. When you can provide numbers, do so.

Once you’ve identified those key points, start weaving them into a narrative. Make it exciting! Add sensory details, frustration points, and colorful anecdotes.

A marketing case study shouldn’t sound dry. It needs to engage the reader so he or she keeps going until the end.

If possible, intersperse the copy with images. Make them relevant and easy to see on the screen. Let the images help supplement the story you’ve woven.

3. Highlight the great results

As mentioned above, results are paramount. If you can express them in numeric form, so much the better.

Consider creating a custom graphic to serve as the featured image on your post. That way, people can share the image on social. Add the amazing result to the text on the image to entice people to click.

The point here is to capture attention. If people are willing to pay attention to you, then you’ve won the first part of the battle. As long as you maintain that attention, you have a good chance of converting the lead.

4. Explore different types of design

Design can prove fundamental to a marketing case study’s success. If you’re publishing it as a blog post, break it up with H2s, H3s, and H4s to guide the reader through the story. Add images and leading lines to keep the visitor engaged.

Remember that color matters. Consider using colors for text and images that correlate with your customers’ color scheme or with your own site’s palette.

5. Ask for feedback! What does your potential customer want to learn?

Don’t let the conversation stop at the end of your marketing case study. Open up the forum for more insights.

Invite readers to ask you direct questions about your business, products, services, or methods. Not only that, but respond to those comments. Take each one as a gift.

These comments might tell you what type of case study you should create next or allow you to cement a conversion by answering objections or questions.

Marketing case studies can improve your conversion rate , but you have to put in the time and effort. Yes, a polished case study requires work, but if you can secure sales from its publication, why wouldn’t you give it your full attention?

Remember that trust matters when it comes to converting leads into customers . If you don’t have trust, you’ll lose your leads to your competitors.

A great marketing case study demonstrates your track record. It builds a case for leads to use your products or services over someone else’s.

What are you waiting for? Start creating your first marketing case study now.

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5 keys to crafting a killer marketing case study

Count me among the content creators who entered this line of work out of a strong affinity for storytelling. While it’s not exactly the same thing as plotting out a swashbuckling adventure on the high seas or editing dialogue for a heady psychological thriller, writing a marketing case study still entails plenty of drama and suspense. Even better, it can be a highly effective component of your overall marketing plan.

What is a marketing case study and why is it important?

Simply put, a marketing case study is a story that helps your prospective clients understand, from the beginning to the end and in a tangible way, how you helped a current or previous client accomplish their goals. It’s a crucial tool for helping sales reps demonstrate to their leads how your company can produce real results.

As part of your larger content marketing strategy, it helps middle-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel leads to connect your products and services with real-world outcomes. If you’re able to highlight some of your better-known customers in the process, a marketing case study can also bolster your brand.

What separates a good case study from a great case study?

A good case study gets its point across, but a great case study does so with style.

Keep in mind, that doesn’t mean it always has to be flashy or highly visual, though aesthetically pleasing design can be a big bonus.

Here, by style, we mean that the case study:

• Features specific details and inspiring outcomes that enhance a strong narrative.
• Communicates in a way that is relevant to its intended audience.
• Presents the potential customer with a clear opportunity for further engagement.

As part of a holistic marketing strategy, a great case study is also an instrumental asset for ongoing, targeted campaigns.

How do you create a compelling case study?

The principal ingredients for a compelling case study aren’t that different from other forms of content marketing.

Great case studies require you to:

• Conduct thoughtful research.
• Sculpt raw intel into a captivating story.
• Frame the content in a way that’s certain to generate interest.

For further detail, we can break this process down into the five key steps necessary for producing a first-rate marketing case study.

1. Know the product or service and its place in the market

Here’s a typical scenario. You get an email from the Vice President of Sales. She’s overjoyed about a recent customer success story, and she wants to know if you can create a case study based on it.

What’s the first thing you do?

Our recommendation is to make sure you have a firm grasp of everything about the product or service that the case study will highlight. Well, technically, the first thing you should probably do is respond to that email. And when you do, don’t forget to ask for clarification if it isn’t clear what product will be central to your marketing case study.

To brush up on the product, service or offering, take a closer look at materials like:

• Existing sales sheets and landing pages.
• Related social media posts or email campaigns.
• Internal product documents.

Keep in mind how this case study will play into ongoing marketing campaigns and efforts. Also, take a moment to examine how the type of customer you’re about to profile will map up with strategies for targeting specific personas.

2. Line up an interview with the client’s resident brand champion

A strong case study often involves the enthusiastic participation of individuals from the client company who are responsible for managing the vendor partnership. If you can schedule some time to talk to this person, you’ll benefit for two reasons:

• You’ll hear the story from their angle, which can add color, texture and truly valuable proof points.
• You’ll benefit from their infectious gratitude for the product. Too often, content creators have to rely on a set of well-crafted pitches instead of seeing the real-world impact of their products.

That said, sometimes this step is easier said than done. Why?

First of all, your clients may be busy. See if you can reach them at off-peak times or when they have some more flexibility in their schedule

Secondly, nondisclosure agreements are the norm in some industries. Customer contacts can be wary about answering questions, even if they know the company’s name and logo won’t be used. Try to reassure these clients from the beginning by showing them examples of other case studies you’ve done.

No matter what difficulties you encounter, there are always strategies you can follow to ask for reviews, testimonials and other support for your marketing case study. Some of our tried-and-true techniques include:

• Automating as much of the process as possible: Work with the sales or products teams to build feedback into the customer acquisition and retention processes.
• Focus on top customers: Emphasize high-profile clients that will bring greater brand awareness to your company or highly engaged partners who are eager to sing your praises.
• Emphasize the cross-promotional aspect of marketing case studies: Some companies need a reminder that this could be further exposure for their brand and additional content they could share in their own campaigns.

3. Gather details and comb through the data

Interviewing client contacts for a marketing case study is an art unto itself. Even the most excited and energetic sources will need some prompting and guidance in order to give you the material you need.

As such, we find that it’s helpful to start the conversation with a basic structure for your case study content in mind. A rough outline should look something like this:

• Background information about the client.
• A problem that the client experienced. Keep in mind, some people will need reassurance that the case study won’t paint the organization in a negative light.
• An exploration of how your product or service helped address the problem.
• Results from the implementation of this new solution.
• A description of how the client will proceed forward with this new experience under their belts.

Remember to listen carefully and remain flexible, but focused, during the interview. Put your reporter’s hat on to ask leading questions based on new information. At the same time, if your subject is particularly chatty, you may occasionally need to pull the interview back to its intended purpose.

While you’re taking notes, be sure to highlight any particularly noteworthy or emotional lines as they come up. This can be a real timesaver when you’re looking for pull quotes later.

In addition to the interview, ask for project documentation that can help you understand the scope of the client’s problem and the impact of the support provided by your company. Oftentimes, clients will have metrics that they’re eager to share. After all, they’ve probably already reported these results to internal stakeholders. Even if that’s not the case, ask for any relevant recent reports or raw data you could explore for some brag-worthy numbers.

4. Find the story

Not everybody is an expert storyteller. Some people are prone to add in irrelevant details, deliver information out of order or even to leave out important context. There’s a good chance that you’ll have to rearrange some of the information you learned during your client call. You may also have to conduct additional research or excise some out-of-place meanderings.

Internal subject matter experts can also help you refine the narrative arc for your marketing case study. They’ll clue you into the strategies they use for selling this service and supporting its implementation. Plus, they’ll be able to share their insights about questions that prospective clients might ask.

Make sure that the client is at the center of the story, but don’t be shy about highlighting the contributions of your own organization.

5. Highlight proof points

The story comes first, but proof points can transform your marketing case study from a possible puff piece into an exhilarating example for your target audience.

Whatever claims you make in the text, you should be able to back them up with evidence. At the same time, the proof points you do use should align with the bigger picture.

Obviously, facts, figures and statistics make for some of the most compelling kinds of evidence. However, sometimes the data isn’t in yet. In other scenarios, the qualitative advantages that have been gained are more important than percentages or points on a line graph.

In these situations, quotations and brief customer testimonials can provide additional support for the claims you’ve made.

But how do you handle quotes? Here are a few guidelines to follow:

• Where possible, use a direct quote that is original, interesting and engaging. Think about claims that would only be credible if they came straight from the speaker.
• You may have leeway to finesse the speaker’s language. Resist the temptation to wordsmith their speech except in cases that are truly confusing. Informal expressions can add a touch of authenticity.
• Some situations may require you to write the quote and then have it approved by the person to whom it will be attributed. Try to capture the nuances of their perspective as best you can, and never run the quote without getting a final confirmation.

What are some great case study examples to model after?

B2B and B2C marketing case studies come in all shapes and sizes. Here are a few recent examples that embody all of the strategies we’ve outlined above. If you’re looking for a compelling case study to model your own content after, check out these models.

‘How PayPal empowers people and businesses in a global marketplace’

This PayPal case study profiles how the company uses services from Google Cloud to support more than 300 million customers who use 100 different currencies.

Source: Google Cloud

It’s structured as a landing page that’s well designed and easy to navigate based on the storyline. It also highlights some impressive and relevant proof points right off the bat.

The text and graphical elements are also augmented by a video in which the customer’s voice takes center stage.

At the heart of this story is the notion that finding a reliable digital partner can help your company scale. As such, PayPal is a great aspirational client example, and its story speaks to the hopes that many prospective customers will have about their own business.

We also appreciate how easy Google makes it for potential clients to find additional examples and to take the next step by reaching out to a sales rep.

‘Disney+ Brand Launch’

It’s hard to think of a recent product launch that received more hype than the highly influential debut of streaming service Disney+. Behind the hype were companies like Midnight Oil, a California-based creative agency.

In this marketing case study for Disney+ , the firm pairs succinct text with high-quality pictures that display Midnight Oil branding collateral in action.

Source: Midnight Oil

In this instance, the company was able to leverage the sky-high visibility of its brand partner to help tell the story. Everybody already knows that the launch of Disney+ was a rousing success, so the creative agency gets to focus a little more on highlighting its own contributions.

And showing is always better than telling. Still, the company makes sure that you don’t forget the 10 million subscribers the client achieved on its first day.

If you want to grow revenue by expanding your potential subscriber base using targeted branding efforts, Midnight Oil makes a compelling case that the agency can help.

‘Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Messages Their Way To Success’

Who says that digital marketing case studies can’t shred?

For our last case study example, we’re going to shine the spotlight on HubSpot’s righteous work with a venerable Cleveland institution.

This in-depth landing page frontloads a quick summary of the premise and some eye-catching stats.

Source: Hubspot

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame used HubSpot’s integration with Facebook Messenger to develop a strategy that allowed the museum to connect better with its fans.

A slickly produced video with lots of custom footage sheds light on how the Rock Hall’s content leader found a way to bring out the best from both automation and one-to-one connections.

This case study succeeds because it has an exciting hook, an interesting story and some real results.

How do you distribute case studies? Where do they work best?

How to distribute your case study depends on the audience you’re trying to reach, the story you need to share and the role that this case study plays in your overall marketing strategy.

Take a lesson from the marketing case study examples above. You need to be where your fans are. If your potential customer is on social media, make sure your content is shareable, and consider using a Facebook ad to promote your brand.

But let’s back up one more step.

As our examples illustrate, your marketing case study doesn’t just have to exist as one kind of asset. A custom landing page is a great place to start, but you can spin out content for video and other channels, too. Case studies can be delivered to prospects individually, distributed over social media or shared as part of an email drip campaign. Optimizing your case study landing page for search will help organic traffic find your content, too.

Where marketing efforts meet solid storytelling

It should be clear by now that marketing case studies are more than just a mishmash of numbers, quotes and splashy illustrations. They can take many different forms, but regardless of the media in which they’re found, they’re about creating a story around customer relationships. At the end of the day, aren’t stories what we live for?

By Michael O'Neill

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28 Case Study Examples Every Marketer Should See

Published: March 08, 2023

Putting together a compelling case study is one of the most powerful strategies for showcasing your product and attracting future customers. But it's not easy to create case studies that your audience can’t wait to read.

In this post, we’ll go over the definition of a case study and the best examples to inspire you.

What is a case study?

A case study is a detailed story of something your company did. It includes a beginning — often discussing a conflict, an explanation of what happened next, and a resolution that explains how the company solved or improved on something.

A case study proves how your product has helped other companies by demonstrating real-life results. Not only that, but marketing case studies with solutions typically contain quotes from the customer. This means that they’re not just ads where you praise your own product. Rather, other companies are praising your company — and there’s no stronger marketing material than a verbal recommendation or testimonial. A great case study is also filled with research and stats to back up points made about a project's results.

There are myriad ways to use case studies in your marketing strategy . From featuring them on your website to including them in a sales presentation, a case study is a strong, persuasive tool that shows customers why they should work with you — straight from another customer. Writing one from scratch is hard, though, which is why we’ve created a collection of case study templates for you to get started.

Fill out the form below to access the free case study templates.

Free Case Study Templates

Showcase your company's success using these three free case study templates.

• Data-Driven Case Study Template
• Product-Specific Case Study Template
• General Case Study Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

There’s no better way to generate more leads than by writing case studies . But without case study examples to draw inspiration from, it can be difficult to write impactful studies that convince visitors to submit a form.

Marketing Case Study Examples

To help you create an attractive and high-converting case study, we've put together a list of some of our favorites. This list includes famous case studies in marketing, technology, and business.

These studies can show you how to frame your company offers in a way that is both meaningful and useful to your audience. So, take a look, and let these examples inspire your next brilliant case study design.

These marketing case studies with solutions show the value proposition of each product. They also show how each company benefited in both the short and long term using quantitative data. In other words, you don’t get just nice statements, like "This company helped us a lot." You see actual change within the firm through numbers and figures.

You can put your learnings into action with HubSpot's Free Case Study Templates . Available as custom designs and text-based documents, you can upload these templates to your CMS or send them to prospects as you see fit.

1. " How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations with the Help of HubSpot ," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. That reflects a major HubSpot cornerstone, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why the CEO of Handled founded the company and why he thought Handled could benefit from adopting a CRM. The case study also opens up with one key data point about Handled’s success using HubSpot, namely that it grew to 121 locations.

Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the other text on the page. So while your case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.

Key Learnings from the HubSpot Case Study Example

• Give the case study a personal touch by focusing on the CEO rather than the company itself.
• Use multimedia to engage website visitors as they read the case study.

2. " The Whole Package ," by IDEO

Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, they’re greeted with a big, bold photo and the title of the case study — which just so happens to summarize how IDEO helped its client. It summarizes the case study in three snippets: The challenge, the impact, and the outcome.

Immediately, IDEO communicates its impact — the company partnered with H&M to remove plastic from its packaging — but it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, the challenge, impact, and progress are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and intriguing visuals.

Key Learnings from the IDEO Case Study Example

• Split up the takeaways of your case studies into bite-sized sections.
• Always use visuals and images to enrich the case study experience, especially if it’s a comprehensive case study.

3. " Rozum Robotics intensifies its PR game with Awario ," by Awario

In this case study, Awario greets the user with a summary straight away — so if you’re feeling up to reading the entire case study, you can scan the snapshot and understand how the company serves its customers. The case study then includes jump links to several sections, such as "Company Profile," "Rozum Robotics' Pains," "Challenge," "Solution," and "Results and Improvements."

The sparse copy and prominent headings show that you don’t need a lot of elaborate information to show the value of your products and services. Like the other case study examples on this list, it includes visuals and quotes to demonstrate the effectiveness of the company’s efforts. The case study ends with a bulleted list that shows the results.

Key Learnings from the Awario Robotics Case Study Example

• Create a table of contents to make your case study easier to navigate.
• Include a bulleted list of the results you achieved for your client.

4. " Chevrolet DTU ," by Carol H. Williams

If you’ve worked with a company that’s well-known, use only the name in the title — like Carol H. Williams, one of the nation’s top advertising agencies, does here. The "DTU," stands for "Discover the Unexpected." It generates interest because you want to find out what the initials mean.

They keep your interest in this case study by using a mixture of headings, images, and videos to describe the challenges, objectives, and solutions of the project. The case study closes with a summary of the key achievements that Chevrolet’s DTU Journalism Fellows reached during the project.

Key Learnings from the Carol H. Williams Case Study Example

• If you’ve worked with a big brand before, consider only using the name in the title — just enough to pique interest.
• Use a mixture of headings and subheadings to guide users through the case study.

5. " How Fractl Earned Links from 931 Unique Domains for Porch.com in a Single Year ," by Fractl

Fractl uses both text and graphic design in their Porch.com case study to immerse the viewer in a more interesting user experience. For instance, as you scroll, you'll see the results are illustrated in an infographic-design form as well as the text itself.

Further down the page, they use icons like a heart and a circle to illustrate their pitch angles, and graphs to showcase their results. Rather than writing which publications have mentioned Porch.com during Fractl’s campaign, they incorporated the media outlets’ icons for further visual diversity.

Key Learnings from the Fractl Case Study Example

• Let pictures speak for you by incorporating graphs, logos, and icons all throughout the case study.
• Start the case study by right away stating the key results, like Fractl does, instead of putting the results all the way at the bottom.

6. " The Met ," by Fantasy

What's the best way to showcase the responsiveness and user interface of a website? Probably by diving right into it with a series of simple showcases— which is exactly what Fantasy does on their case study page for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They keep the page simple and clean, inviting you to review their redesign of the Met’s website feature-by-feature.

Each section is simple, showing a single piece of the new website's interface so that users aren’t overwhelmed with information and can focus on what matters most.

If you're more interested in text, you can read the objective for each feature. Fantasy understands that, as a potential customer, this is all you need to know. Scrolling further, you're greeted with a simple "Contact Us" CTA.

Key Learnings from the Fantasy Case Study Example

• You don’t have to write a ton of text to create a great case study. Focus on the solution you delivered itself.
• Include a CTA at the bottom inviting visitors to contact you.

7. " Rovio: How Rovio Grew Into a Gaming Superpower ," by App Annie

If your client had a lot of positive things to say about you, take a note from App Annie’s Rovio case study and open up with a quote from your client. The case study also closes with a quote, so that the case study doesn’t seem like a promotion written by your marketing team but a story that’s taken straight from your client’s mouth. It includes a photo of a Rovio employee, too.

Another thing this example does well? It immediately includes a link to the product that Rovio used (namely, App Annie Intelligence) at the top of the case study. The case study closes with a call-to-action button prompting users to book a demo.

Key Learnings from the App Annie Case Study Example

• Feature quotes from your client at the beginning and end of the case study.
• Include a mention of the product right at the beginning and prompt users to learn more about the product.

8. " Embracing first-party data: 3 success stories from HubSpot ," by Think with Google

Google takes a different approach to text-focused case studies by choosing three different companies to highlight.

The case study is clean and easily scannable. It has sections for each company, with quotes and headers that clarify the way these three distinct stories connect. The simple format also uses colors and text that align with the Google brand.

Another differentiator is the focus on data. This case study is less than a thousand words, but it's packed with useful data points. Data-driven insights quickly and clearly show how the value of leveraging first-party data while prioritizing consumer privacy.

Key Learnings from the Think with Google Case Study Example

• A case study doesn’t need to be long or complex to be powerful.
• Clear data points are a quick and effective way to prove value.

9. " In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study ," by Switch

Switch is an international marketing agency based in Malta that knocks it out of the park with this case study. Its biggest challenge is effectively communicating what it did for its client without ever revealing the client’s name. It also effectively keeps non-marketers in the loop by including a glossary of terms on page 4.

The PDF case study reads like a compelling research article, including titles like "In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study," "Scenario," and "Approach," so that readers get a high-level overview of what the client needed and why they approached Switch. It also includes a different page for each strategy. For instance, if you’d only be interested in hiring Switch for optimizing your Facebook ads, you can skip to page 10 to see how they did it.

The PDF is fourteen pages long but features big fonts and plenty of white space, so viewers can easily skim it in only a few minutes.

Key Learnings from the Switch Case Study Example

• If you want to go into specialized information, include a glossary of terms so that non-specialists can easily understand.
• Close with a CTA page in your case study PDF and include contact information for prospective clients.

10. " Gila River ," by OH Partners

Let pictures speak for you, like OH Partners did in this case study. While you’ll quickly come across a heading and some text when you land on this case study page, you’ll get the bulk of the case study through examples of actual work OH Partners did for its client. You will see OH Partners’ work in a billboard, magazine, and video. This communicates to website visitors that if they work with OH Partners, their business will be visible everywhere.

And like the other case studies here, it closes with a summary of what the firm achieved for its client in an eye-catching way.

Key Learnings from the OH Partners Case Study Example

• Let the visuals speak by including examples of the actual work you did for your client — which is especially useful for branding and marketing agencies.
• Always close out with your achievements and how they impacted your client.

11. " Facing a Hater ," by Digitas

Digitas' case study page for Sprite’s #ILOVEYOUHATER campaign keeps it brief while communicating the key facts of Digitas’ work for the popular soda brand. The page opens with an impactful image of a hundred people facing a single man. It turns out, that man is the biggest "bully" in Argentina, and the people facing him are those whom he’s bullied before.

Scrolling down, it's obvious that Digitas kept Sprite at the forefront of their strategy, but more than that, they used real people as their focal point. They leveraged the Twitter API to pull data from Tweets that people had actually tweeted to find the identity of the biggest "hater" in the country. That turned out to be @AguanteElCofler, a Twitter user who has since been suspended.

Key Learnings from the Digitas Case Study Example

• If a video was part of your work for your client, be sure to include the most impactful screenshot as the heading.
• Don’t be afraid to provide details on how you helped your client achieve their goals, including the tools you leveraged.

12. " Better Experiences for All ," by HermanMiller

HermanMiller sells sleek, utilitarian furniture with no frills and extreme functionality, and that ethos extends to its case study page for a hospital in Dubai.

What first attracted me to this case study was the beautiful video at the top and the clean user experience. User experience matters a lot in a case study. It determines whether users will keep reading or leave. Another notable aspect of this case study is that the video includes closed-captioning for greater accessibility, and users have the option of expanding the CC and searching through the text.

HermanMiller’s case study also offers an impressive amount of information packed in just a few short paragraphs for those wanting to understand the nuances of their strategy. It closes out with a quote from their client and, most importantly, the list of furniture products that the hospital purchased from the brand.

Key Learnings from the HermanMiller Case Study Example

• Close out with a list of products that users can buy after reading the case study.
• Include accessibility features such as closed captioning and night mode to make your case study more user-friendly.

13. " Capital One on AWS ," by Amazon

Do you work continuously with your clients? Consider structuring your case study page like Amazon did in this stellar case study example. Instead of just featuring one article about Capital One and how it benefited from using AWS, Amazon features a series of articles that you can then access if you’re interested in reading more. It goes all the way back to 2016, all with different stories that feature Capital One’s achievements using AWS.

This may look unattainable for a small firm, but you don’t have to go to extreme measures and do it for every single one of your clients. You could choose the one you most wish to focus on and establish a contact both on your side and your client’s for coming up with the content. Check in every year and write a new piece. These don’t have to be long, either — five hundred to eight hundred words will do.

Key Learnings from the Amazon AWS Case Study Example

• Write a new article each year featuring one of your clients, then include links to those articles in one big case study page.
• Consider including external articles as well that emphasize your client’s success in their industry.

14. " HackReactor teaches the world to code #withAsana ," by Asana

While Asana's case study design looks text-heavy, there's a good reason. It reads like a creative story, told entirely from the customer's perspective.

For instance, Asana knows you won't trust its word alone on why this product is useful. So, they let Tony Phillips, HackReactor CEO, tell you instead: "We take in a lot of information. Our brains are awful at storage but very good at thinking; you really start to want some third party to store your information so you can do something with it."

Asana features frequent quotes from Phillips to break up the wall of text and humanize the case study. It reads like an in-depth interview and captivates the reader through creative storytelling. Even more, Asana includes in-depth detail about how HackReactor uses Asana. This includes how they build templates and workflows:

"There's a huge differentiator between Asana and other tools, and that’s the very easy API access. Even if Asana isn’t the perfect fit for a workflow, someone like me— a relatively mediocre software engineer—can add functionality via the API to build a custom solution that helps a team get more done."

Key Learnings from the Asana Example

• Include quotes from your client throughout the case study.
• Provide extensive detail on how your client worked with you or used your product.

15. " Rips Sewed, Brand Love Reaped ," by Amp Agency

Amp Agency's Patagonia marketing strategy aimed to appeal to a new audience through guerrilla marketing efforts and a coast-to-coast road trip. Their case study page effectively conveys a voyager theme, complete with real photos of Patagonia customers from across the U.S., and a map of the expedition. I liked Amp Agency's storytelling approach best. It captures viewers' attention from start to finish simply because it's an intriguing and unique approach to marketing.

Key Learnings from the Amp Agency Example

• Open up with a summary that communicates who your client is and why they reached out to you.
• Like in the other case study examples, you’ll want to close out with a quantitative list of your achievements.

16. " NetApp ," by Evisort

Evisort opens up its NetApp case study with an at-a-glance overview of the client. It’s imperative to always focus on the client in your case study — not on your amazing product and equally amazing team. By opening up with a snapshot of the client’s company, Evisort places the focus on the client.

This case study example checks all the boxes for a great case study that’s informative, thorough, and compelling. It includes quotes from the client and details about the challenges NetApp faced during the COVID pandemic. It closes out with a quote from the client and with a link to download the case study in PDF format, which is incredibly important if you want your case study to be accessible in a wider variety of formats.

Key Learnings from the Evisort Example

• Place the focus immediately on your client by including a snapshot of their company.
• Mention challenging eras, such as a pandemic or recession, to show how your company can help your client succeed even during difficult times.

17. " Copernicus Land Monitoring – CLC+ Core ," by Cloudflight

Including highly specialized information in your case study is an effective way to show prospects that you’re not just trying to get their business. You’re deep within their industry, too, and willing to learn everything you need to learn to create a solution that works specifically for them.

Cloudflight does a splendid job at that in its Copernicus Land Monitoring case study. While the information may be difficult to read at first glance, it will capture the interest of prospects who are in the environmental industry. It thus shows Cloudflight’s value as a partner much more effectively than a general case study would.

The page is comprehensive and ends with a compelling call-to-action — "Looking for a solution that automates, and enhances your Big Data system? Are you struggling with large datasets and accessibility? We would be happy to advise and support you!" The clean, whitespace-heavy page is an effective example of using a case study to capture future leads.

Key Learnings from the Cloudflight Case Study Example

• Don’t be afraid to get technical in your explanation of what you did for your client.
• Include a snapshot of the sales representative prospects should contact, especially if you have different sales reps for different industries, like Cloudflight does.

18. " Valvoline Increases Coupon Send Rate by 76% with Textel’s MMS Picture Texting ," by Textel

If you’re targeting large enterprises with a long purchasing cycle, you’ll want to include a wealth of information in an easily transferable format. That’s what Textel does here in its PDF case study for Valvoline. It greets the user with an eye-catching headline that shows the value of using Textel. Valvoline saw a significant return on investment from using the platform.

Another smart decision in this case study is highlighting the client’s quote by putting it in green font and doing the same thing for the client’s results because it helps the reader quickly connect the two pieces of information. If you’re in a hurry, you can also take a look at the "At a Glance" column to get the key facts of the case study, starting with information about Valvoline.

Key Learnings from the Textel Case Study Example

• Include your client’s ROI right in the title of the case study.
• Add an "At a Glance" column to your case study PDF to make it easy to get insights without needing to read all the text.

19. " Hunt Club and Happeo — a tech-enabled love story ," by Happeo

In this blog-post-like case study, Happeo opens with a quote from the client, then dives into a compelling heading: "Technology at the forefront of Hunt Club's strategy." Say you’re investigating Happeo as a solution and consider your firm to be technology-driven. This approach would spark your curiosity about why the client chose to work with Happeo. It also effectively communicates the software’s value proposition without sounding like it’s coming from an in-house marketing team.

Every paragraph is a quote written from the customer’s perspective. Later down the page, the case study also dives into "the features that changed the game for Hunt Club," giving Happeo a chance to highlight some of the platform’s most salient features.

Key Learnings from the Happeo Case Study Example

• Consider writing the entirety of the case study from the perspective of the customer.
• Include a list of the features that convinced your client to go with you.

20. " Red Sox Season Campaign ," by CTP Boston

What's great about CTP's case study page for their Red Sox Season Campaign is their combination of video, images, and text. A video automatically begins playing when you visit the page, and as you scroll, you'll see more embedded videos of Red Sox players, a compilation of print ads, and social media images you can click to enlarge.

At the bottom, it says "Find out how we can do something similar for your brand." The page is clean, cohesive, and aesthetically pleasing. It invites viewers to appreciate the well-roundedness of CTP's campaign for Boston's beloved baseball team.

Key Learnings from the CTP Case Study Example

• Include a video in the heading of the case study.
• Close with a call-to-action that makes leads want to turn into prospects.

21. " Acoustic ," by Genuine

Sometimes, simple is key. Genuine's case study for Acoustic is straightforward and minimal, with just a few short paragraphs, including "Reimagining the B2B website experience," "Speaking to marketers 1:1," and "Inventing Together." After the core of the case study, we then see a quote from Acoustic’s CMO and the results Genuine achieved for the company.

The simplicity of the page allows the reader to focus on both the visual aspects and the copy. The page displays Genuine's brand personality while offering the viewer all the necessary information they need.

• You don’t need to write a lot to create a great case study. Keep it simple.
• Always include quantifiable data to illustrate the results you achieved for your client.

22. " Using Apptio Targetprocess Automated Rules in Wargaming ," by Apptio

Apptio’s case study for Wargaming summarizes three key pieces of information right at the beginning: The goals, the obstacles, and the results.

Readers then have the opportunity to continue reading — or they can walk away right then with the information they need. This case study also excels in keeping the human interest factor by formatting the information like an interview.

The piece is well-organized and uses compelling headers to keep the reader engaged. Despite its length, Apptio's case study is appealing enough to keep the viewer's attention. Every Apptio case study ends with a "recommendation for other companies" section, where the client can give advice for other companies that are looking for a similar solution but aren’t sure how to get started.

Key Learnings from the Apptio Case Study Example

• Put your client in an advisory role by giving them the opportunity to give recommendations to other companies that are reading the case study.
• Include the takeaways from the case study right at the beginning so prospects quickly get what they need.

23. " Airbnb + Zendesk: building a powerful solution together ," by Zendesk

Zendesk's Airbnb case study reads like a blog post, and focuses equally on Zendesk and Airbnb, highlighting a true partnership between the companies. To captivate readers, it begins like this: "Halfway around the globe is a place to stay with your name on it. At least for a weekend."

The piece focuses on telling a good story and provides photographs of beautiful Airbnb locations. In a case study meant to highlight Zendesk's helpfulness, nothing could be more authentic than their decision to focus on Airbnb's service in such great detail.

Key Learnings from the Zendesk Case Study Example

• Include images of your client’s offerings — not necessarily of the service or product you provided. Notice how Zendesk doesn’t include screenshots of its product.
• Include a call-to-action right at the beginning of the case study. Zendesk gives you two options: to find a solution or start a trial.

24. " Biobot Customer Success Story: Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida ," by Biobot

Like some of the other top examples in this list, Biobot opens its case study with a quote from its client, which captures the value proposition of working with Biobot. It mentions the COVID pandemic and goes into detail about the challenges the client faced during this time.

This case study is structured more like a news article than a traditional case study. This format can work in more formal industries where decision-makers need to see in-depth information about the case. Be sure to test different methods and measure engagement .

Key Learnings from the Biobot Case Study Example

• Mention environmental, public health, or economic emergencies and how you helped your client get past such difficult times.
• Feel free to write the case study like a normal blog post, but be sure to test different methods to find the one that best works for you.

25. " Discovering Cost Savings With Efficient Decision Making ," by Gartner

You don't always need a ton of text or a video to convey your message — sometimes, you just need a few paragraphs and bullet points. Gartner does a fantastic job of quickly providing the fundamental statistics a potential customer would need to know, without boggling down their readers with dense paragraphs. The case study closes with a shaded box that summarizes the impact that Gartner had on its client. It includes a quote and a call-to-action to "Learn More."

Key Learnings from the Gartner Case Study Example

• Feel free to keep the case study short.
• Include a call-to-action at the bottom that takes the reader to a page that most relates to them.

26. " Bringing an Operator to the Game ," by Redapt

This case study example by Redapt is another great demonstration of the power of summarizing your case study’s takeaways right at the start of the study. Redapt includes three easy-to-scan columns: "The problem," "the solution," and "the outcome." But its most notable feature is a section titled "Moment of clarity," which shows why this particular project was difficult or challenging.

The section is shaded in green, making it impossible to miss. Redapt does the same thing for each case study. In the same way, you should highlight the "turning point" for both you and your client when you were working toward a solution.

Key Learnings from the Redapt Case Study Example

• Highlight the turning point for both you and your client during the solution-seeking process.
• Use the same structure (including the same headings) for your case studies to make them easy to scan and read.

27. " Virtual Call Center Sees 300% Boost In Contact Rate ," by Convoso

Convoso’s PDF case study for Digital Market Media immediately mentions the results that the client achieved and takes advantage of white space. On the second page, the case study presents more influential results. It’s colorful and engaging and closes with a spread that prompts readers to request a demo.

Key Learnings from the Convoso Case Study Example

• List the results of your work right at the beginning of the case study.
• Use color to differentiate your case study from others. Convoso’s example is one of the most colorful ones on this list.

28. " Ensuring quality of service during a pandemic ," by Ericsson

Ericsson’s case study page for Orange Spain is an excellent example of using diverse written and visual media — such as videos, graphs, and quotes — to showcase the success a client experienced. Throughout the case study, Ericsson provides links to product and service pages users might find relevant as they’re reading the study.

For instance, under the heading "Preloaded with the power of automation," Ericsson mentions its Ericsson Operations Engine product, then links to that product page. It closes the case study with a link to another product page.

Key Learnings from the Ericsson Case Study Example

• Link to product pages throughout the case study so that readers can learn more about the solution you offer.
• Use multimedia to engage users as they read the case study.

Start creating your case study.

Now that you've got a great list of examples of case studies, think about a topic you'd like to write about that highlights your company or work you did with a customer.

A customer’s success story is the most persuasive marketing material you could ever create. With a strong portfolio of case studies, you can ensure prospects know why they should give you their business.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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How to Write a Marketing Case Study: A Guide for Creating the Ultimate B2B Social Proof

by Greg Mischio | Case Studies

For a manufacturing company, case studies can be one of the most effective ways to generate leads, showcase your strengths, and vividly demonstrate how you solve clients’ challenges. But there’s a problem: Case studies aren’t necessarily easy to create.  Here’s a complete guide on how to write a marketing case study and create the ultimate form of B2B social proof.

They’re usually an afterthought that’s offloaded to someone not necessarily prepared to do them well. On top of that, case studies often get made without a strategy behind them and are used with no real goal in mind. 

And that’s a shame, considering how valuable they can be:

• Demand Gen Report   found that 78% of companies surveyed said they used case studies to research B2B purchasing decisions, which was more than any other type of content.
• DocSend looked at 34 million content interactions. Compared with other sales content, case studies showed an 83% completion rate, an average that left all other content in the dust.
• eMarketer reports that a survey conducted by RSW/US, a business development firm, showed that almost 63% of agency executives cited case studies as their top way to generate leads.

To tap that potential, here’s a list of steps anyone can use to start creating exceptional case studies.

1. Strategy: Strategize before you editorialize

Before you do anything, make sure you have a solid strategy for your case study by answering these key questions:

Question: What’s your goal with the case study? 

Answer: ask your sales team (first)..

• Is it to help sell a particular service? 
• Do you want to emphasize a specific offering? 
• Are you trying to grow business in a certain sector?
• Are you trying to get more clients to try a new product?

One place you can start to get answers is with your sales team. They may be the ones who’ll be using case studies the most.  

This is typically the case with most manufacturing companies. The sales team is on the front line, dealing firsthand with the issues. This is where the story starts.

Question: What type of prospect are you targeting?  

Answer: find an industry and position match..

The story you tell in your case study should be shaped by who you’re going to be telling it to. If you’re trying to reach a certain industry or a certain job role, then you want to find an industry and position match. 

According to Joel Klettke of Case Study Buddy , “If you tell the wrong story to the wrong people, your case study will fall flat.”

Question: How will you use the case study?

Answer: don’t just relegate them to the “case studies” page..

Have a plan for how you’re going to target the audience you’ve identified and ultimately use the case study.

Here’s one way you should not use case studies: Relegate them to a seldom-visited section of your website called … “case studies.” Instead, use them throughout your website.

Also, note that how you use the case study should determine its format, and you don’t have to pick just one. Case studies and the various components that comprise them can be repurposed in dozens of ways. (More on that below.)

Question: Who owns the relationship with the client?

Answer: work through your team to get to their team..

Who should you contact at the company? What should you know about this person? Who should set up the initial contact? 

Check with the sales team or project manager – whatever is appropriate for your situation – so that you:

• Don’t step on anyone’s toes. 
• Don’t waste time with unnecessary steps.
• Start the case study off right by getting helpful intel.

2. Selection: Choosing your top case study prospects

Once you have the big picture strategy aligned, now it’s time to narrow your client list even further, based on the following criteria: 

The client must be into you

You want to be certain that your client is ready, willing, and able to say positive things about you. Some milestones that could spur a case study include:

• You’ve just received a short email of thanks from a client.  
• You’ve just achieved some recent positive results for them.
• Your product helped them boost their own sales or reach a goal.

The work must be recent

You’re building the case study around your client’s experiences with you. Are those experiences recent enough? People forget details over time. Key staff leave. Industry trends and concerns shift. Make sure the case study and the people you’re interviewing are still relevant. 

The client and the work must be relevant to your goal

Don’t settle for case study candidates just because they’re easy to get. Your decisions matter because they’ll attract like-minded prospects. 

3. Pitch: Making the case to clients 

Keep it simple … and all about them.

When you’re at the point of actually calling or emailing the client to make a case study request, here are five things to keep in mind:

• Answer the “What’s in it for me?”
• Briefly explain why you want to do this now. 
• Keep it short.
• Give a deadline. 
• Thank them for their participation in advance.

Here’s a sample email with all the elements:

PRO TIP: Package it all up for the deciding party

After your initial pitch, it’s not uncommon for your primary contact to have to convince someone else in the company to agree to the case study. Make it convenient (and compelling) by putting all of the above points in an easy-to-read PDF that:

• Reassures them it won’t take a lot of time and that they have the final say for approving material.
• Explains the interview process.
• Makes it as easy as possible for them to schedule a time through something like a Calendly link. 

Then give your client a vivid sense of what the outcome will be by showing them beautifully-designed case study samples. If you don’t have any to show, go out and find some good ones on the internet. Then simply say something like, “This is what we’re thinking.” 

What if a client says “No?”

You may find that a client isn’t interested in doing a case study with you. When they give you a no, you should keep in mind that their refusal is usually one of three things:

Objection: Uncertainty. They have an uneasy feeling about what’s going to be shared and how it’s going to be used.

Counter: Give them control. Emphasize that nothing will be published until they give their full and final approval.

Objection: Inconvenience. They’re busy and it sounds like it’s going to take a lot of time on their part.

Counter: Explain how quick it will be. Remedy the perceived inconvenience by explaining the details of the process, especially that the bulk of their efforts will be an interview that will take under an hour.

Objection: Selfishness. They see the case study as nothing but a favor to you – with no payoff for them. 

Counter: Show them the money (benefit). Tell them the cool ways you’re going to share the case study and how it will put a positive spotlight on them .

You can also take two approaches to compromise:

• Create an anonymous case study
• Gate your case study

Alternative approaches: Anonymous and gated case studies

Don’t throw your hands up if the client insists they’ll need to be anonymous. There are creative ways to still make the case study effective:

• Include direct quotes but use gender-neutral pseudonyms when you attribute them.
• Agree to gating the case study and only sharing it with specific parties and with their pre-approval.
• Agree to using the case study for internal purposes only. For example, case studies can actually be great training and onboarding tools.

Anonymous case study

Gated case study

You don’t see these all that frequently, but here’s an example of how the web design company ProtoFuse gates case studies for their client. 

4. Create: How to write the case study

Talk to the client … and write (and record) what they say.

You cannot do a good case study if you don’t talk to the client. No one wants to hear you blather about yourself … that’s the whole point of this exercise. 

Remember, case studies are really customer success stories, so personal perspectives are important. In fact, you’ll find that the customer expresses things about you in ways you hadn’t considered.  

It also gives authenticity to your message. Check out this quote from a client about us. It’s real dialogue, not a polished piece of prose. That’s why it works.

No matter what format (written word, audio, video) you choose to create that case study, it’s essential you capture those golden nuggets!

Best practices for the interview 

Your client’s most valuable asset is their time. That’s why you’ll want to make the most of the interview. Follow these guidelines to help make your interview successful:

Follow a process. Have an interview process and follow it step-by-step. That’s way more important than striving for a “perfect” interview.

Provide questions before the interview (and after). Give them time to prepare. Some sample questions can include:

• What was your life like before working with us? 
• What was the experience of working with us like? 
• What have your results been?

Don’t interview more than two people at a time.  One is ideal – two is the max.

Use a conference system, and record the interviews.   Zoom is our preference. If you’re lucky, you can use the video, but the audio can be converted into a video with still photos.

Focus on their experience, not opinions. Ask about the client’s experience of you, not their opinion of you. Ask them to tell their story – the opinion will reveal itself. 

Look for proof of impact. Seek information on the impact rather than gathering platitudes. “We tripled our output” is way better than “They were great to work with.”

Avoid the Yes/No. Rather than yes/no questions, make sure you ask carefully-crafted open-ended questions that will engender compelling insights.

Ask for graphics, videos, etc.   Anything that can help tell the story. 

Use tried-and-true copywriting tactics to create a compelling case study

Yes, use proven methods but get strategically creative. Don’t mindlessly lock yourself into set formulas. For example, the challenge-solution-results structure can work great for a case study. But you don’t have to stick to those actual words. Strengthen the effectiveness of that structure by creating inviting subheadings for each section.

A great headline is crucial. No matter the format of the case study, your headline is critical. It needs to be specific and powerful enough to motivate people to read it.

Here are four simple but effective headline formats from Joel Klettke at Case Study Buddy: 

• How (service/company) helped (client) (result)
• (Result) for (client)
• (Client) gets (result) with (service)
• How (client) (eliminated pain) with (service)

Integrate metrics into the headline. There’s no time to waste in a case study. So don’t hold out for a dramatic finish. Give the compelling reason to read it right away – along with the impressive data. And that cover page? It should stand strong alone if it had to.

Example: Thysse used the “3X” number to showcase increased productivity from a client.

Make use of charts and graphics to tell the story. Use the type of graphics you’d see in a PowerPoint presentation to a CEO. This is a format they’re comfortable with yet conveys the metrics they need to make a decision.

Example: These two charts show increases in organic rankings and keywords, and then the headline in the footer underscores the bottom-line value.

Put company details on the side. Don’t clog up the flow of a powerful story. Put details like the company’s location, size, founding date, and service lines on the side in a little fact box.

And if you can’t get metrics? All is not lost. Again, focus on the client’s experience. By doing that, you’re also likely to get some great testimonials. In fact, powerful social proof presented in an effective visual can be just as compelling as an impressive metric. 

In lieu of metrics, you can also place heavy emphasis on the goal that was achieved with the client. People don’t always remember the metrics of how you accomplished a goal – it’s the simple fact that you crossed the finish line first that counts.

Qualitative example: This is all about a specific initiative for HarperCollins UK.

Let the client’s voice come through. When it comes to the written content of your case study, let the client tell the story as much as possible through their own compelling quotes.

Example: Use a real person with their actual words. Seeing the photo adds so much authenticity.

You can also showcase your own people. Yes, this is all about your client telling the story. But it’s a partnership, right? You can interject how you felt in helping them achieve success, and showcase yourself in the process.

Craft a story-specific call to action. Make sure to add a CTA at the end that actually relates to the story just told – rather than a generic “contact us” request. 

Use proven methods that work for large bodies of content. These are standards that we use for any piece of lengthy digital content. They apply to case studies as well.

Rein in the rambling DocSend research has found that completion rates were the highest when case studies were no more than two to five pages.

Short paragraphs Paragraphs should only be 1 – 3 lines in length. A guideline, not a rule, but try and follow it. You are writing for skimmers. Ideally, get the page width of your website (although this will vary with demand responsiveness) and pull in margins. Keep it short!

Use subheads (H2, H3, H4) Use paragraph subheads to break up the writing. Every 200-300 words, or where appropriate.  Don’t be afraid to use keywords, but don’t push the issue. Make these subheads lively.

Use visuals for every page scroll Plan for an image every page scroll. That can be a pullquote, a photograph, or a table. Screen shots are great if they include data. 

Use bullets, numbered lists Use bullets and numbered lists as often as possible. 

Use parallel form on bullet headers Your bullet points should be consistent with each other.  If one bullet point starts with a verb, they should all start with a verb.  Example:

• Find a smarter way to use bullet points
• Use them in small doses
• Edit them for parallel form

If you’re going to use bullets, keep them to 1-2 sentences.

Make the writing lively If you’re bored with it, your reader will be bored.

Let the article sit When you’re done with the initial draft, let it sit overnight. Then look at it the next day and make needed changes. Guaranteed to improve your writing.

Cut your word count by 10% Guaranteed to make your writing tighter.

Don’t forget about the power of video and audio There’s just something about that play button. When tweets have video, they’re six times more likely to get retweeted. Case study videos tap into people’s hunger – and readiness – for video viewing. 

Video allows you to capture body language and tone of voice. It gives you the power to add emotional appeals with music and show the product or result in action.

GEW UV Curing has created some amazing Customer Spotlights on their YouTube channel.   The format is more of a story, but they definitely convey the success of using the products.

You can also record interviews, and then embed the audio files into the post. We’ve uploaded short interviews either as a stand-alone file or use SoundCloud to embed them.

4. Distribution: Getting the word out

After all that time and effort, you want to maximize the case study’s exposure. How? By leveraging the power of repurposing . Case studies can be used throughout the sales funnel.

Many of these came from our buddy Joel Klettke again!

Top of funnel

Use the case study itself as a lead magnet: How we solved this problem for this kind of company. 

• Take the interview transcript, clean it up and edit, get it approved by the client, and presto, you have a great Q&A blog post.
• Use it in your email subject-line. 
• Print it out for trade show handouts.
• Post it to social media feeds. 
• Grab attention with Facebook ads using a great How to … headline.
• Include a downloadable case study with your CTA.
• Use testimonial quotes on your landing pages or website pages.
• Use in email outreach and put quotes or stats in subject lines.
• Make a SlideShare presentation out of it.

SlideShare presentation.

Pullquote for webpage.

Tweet with tagged client.

Email signature line.

Middle of funnel

• Send along with your RFPs.
• Share in pitch meetings.
• Equip your sales team with them.
• Add to newsletters.
• Drip the story with an email series.

Handout that can be included with capabilities brochure and at pitch meetings.

Bottom of funnel

• Place case study stats or quotes next to friction points like pricing areas or landing pages (see below).
• For upselling options, have a case study available that demonstrates how a client benefitted from your premium package.

Used on sidebar of landing page.

PRO TIP: Create top-of-funnel “case studies” for other people

One technique we’ve found to be very effective is to write top-of-funnel content about a particular problem and then showcase a partner’s solution and make them the expert source. It can function as a “pay it forward” piece of content, and they’ll likely use it on their website, giving you a nice backlink.

Get started today, but keep your editorial calendar open!

You have the tools and tactics to get started on a case study, but you need one more thing: tenacity. 

It’s not always easy to get case studies from clients. They’re busy, and even after you’ve written one, it can take weeks or even months for them to approve it on their side. Don’t schedule them on your editorial calendar until you have it approved on their end. 

But stick with it. The long-term benefits can be huge. Start creating case studies on a regular basis. It’s the most overlooked, yet most valuable piece of content you can produce!

Greg Mischio

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How to Analyse a Case Study

Last Updated: March 22, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Sarah Evans . Sarah Evans is a Public Relations & Social Media Expert based in Las Vegas, Nevada. With over 14 years of industry experience, Sarah is the Founder & CEO of Sevans PR, a Public Relations Strategy agency. Sarah’s team offers strategic communications services to help clients across industries including tech, finance, medical, real estate, law, and startups. The agency is renowned for its development of the "reputation+" methodology, a data-driven and AI-powered approach designed to elevate brand credibility, trust, awareness, and authority in a competitive marketplace. Sarah’s thought leadership has led to regular appearances on The Doctors TV show, CBS Las Vegas Now, and as an Adobe influencer. She is a respected contributor at Entrepreneur magazine, Hackernoon, Grit Daily, and KLAS Las Vegas. Sarah has been featured in PR Daily and PR Newswire and is a member of the Forbes Agency Council. She received her B.A. in Communications and Public Relations from Millikin University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 410,580 times.

Case studies are used in many professional education programs, primarily in business school, to present real-world situations to students and to assess their ability to parse out the important aspects of a given dilemma. In general, a case study should include, in order: background on the business environment, description of the given business, identification of a key problem or issue, steps taken to address the issue, your assessment of that response, and suggestions for better business strategy. The steps below will guide you through the process of analyzing a business case study in this way.

• Describe the nature of the organization under consideration and its competitors. Provide general information about the market and customer base. Indicate any significant changes in the business environment or any new endeavors upon which the business is embarking.

• Analyze its management structure, employee base, and financial history. Describe annual revenues and profit. Provide figures on employment. Include details about private ownership, public ownership, and investment holdings. Provide a brief overview of the business's leaders and command chain.

• In all likelihood, there will be several different factors at play. Decide which is the main concern of the case study by examining what most of the data talks about, the main problems facing the business, and the conclusions at the end of the study. Examples might include expansion into a new market, response to a competitor's marketing campaign, or a changing customer base. [4] X Research source

• Draw on the information you gathered and trace a chronological progression of steps taken (or not taken). Cite data included in the case study, such as increased marketing spending, purchasing of new property, changed revenue streams, etc.

• Indicate whether or not each aspect of the response met its goal and whether the response overall was well-crafted. Use numerical benchmarks, like a desired customer share, to show whether goals were met; analyze broader issues, like employee management policies, to talk about the response as a whole. [5] X Research source

• Suggest alternative or improved measures that could have been taken by the business, using specific examples and backing up your suggestions with data and calculations.

Community Q&A

• Always read a case study several times. At first, you should read just for the basic details. On each subsequent reading, look for details about a specific topic: competitors, business strategy, management structure, financial loss. Highlight phrases and sections relating to these topics and take notes. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• In the preliminary stages of analyzing a case study, no detail is insignificant. The biggest numbers can often be misleading, and the point of an analysis is often to dig deeper and find otherwise unnoticed variables that drive a situation. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you are analyzing a case study for a consulting company interview, be sure to direct your comments towards the matters handled by the company. For example, if the company deals with marketing strategy, focus on the business's successes and failures in marketing; if you are interviewing for a financial consulting job, analyze how well the business keeps their books and their investment strategy. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Do not use impassioned or emphatic language in your analysis. Business case studies are a tool for gauging your business acumen, not your personal beliefs. When assigning blame or identifying flaws in strategy, use a detached, disinterested tone. Thanks Helpful 15 Not Helpful 4

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Thanks for reading our article! If you’d like to learn more about business writing, check out our in-depth interview with Sarah Evans .

• ↑ https://plato.acadiau.ca/courses/Busi/IntroBus/CASEMETHOD.html
• ↑ https://www.gvsu.edu/cms4/asset/CC3BFEEB-C364-E1A1-A5390F221AC0FD2D/business_case_analysis_gg_final.pdf
• ↑ https://bizfluent.com/12741914/how-to-analyze-a-business-case-study
• ↑ http://www.business-fundas.com/2009/how-to-analyze-business-case-studies/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.uagc.edu/writing-case-study-analysis
• http://college.cengage.com/business/resources/casestudies/students/analyzing.htm

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Methodology

• What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

Published on May 8, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on November 20, 2023.

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem .

Table of contents

When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyze the case, other interesting articles.

A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.

Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.

You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.

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Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:

• Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
• Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
• Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
• Open up new directions for future research

TipIf your research is more practical in nature and aims to simultaneously investigate an issue as you solve it, consider conducting action research instead.

Unlike quantitative or experimental research , a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.

Example of an outlying case studyIn the 1960s the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania was discovered to have extremely low rates of heart disease compared to the US average. It became an important case study for understanding previously neglected causes of heart disease.

However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience or phenomenon.

Example of a representative case studyIn the 1920s, two sociologists used Muncie, Indiana as a case study of a typical American city that supposedly exemplified the changing culture of the US at the time.

While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:

• Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
• Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
• Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions

To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.

There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews , observations , and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data.

Example of a mixed methods case studyFor a case study of a wind farm development in a rural area, you could collect quantitative data on employment rates and business revenue, collect qualitative data on local people’s perceptions and experiences, and analyze local and national media coverage of the development.

The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.

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In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.

How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis , with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results and discussion .

Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyze its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).

In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Degrees of freedom
• Null hypothesis
• Discourse analysis
• Control groups
• Mixed methods research
• Non-probability sampling
• Quantitative research
• Ecological validity

Research bias

• Rosenthal effect
• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Selection bias
• Negativity bias
• Status quo bias

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Wondering how to analyse marketing case studies?

You are at a B-school where the case study method is the pedagogy they swear by. You have case analysis and case presentations in almost every other class. The faculty requires you to be thorough with your case preparation. You have got to don the hat of a CEO and deliver a solid and logical presentation on the case, explaining your decision.

The greatest challenge in analyzing any Marketing case study is to be completely aware of the case facts and then to build a solution in coherence to that. Our recommendation needs to have cleared certain criteria and needs to be logical. The question is, how would you know whether you are approaching the case study correctly or not?

This guide on  How to Analyse Marketing Case Studies  tells you exactly the way in which your faculty expects you to tackle a case. What I suggest in the book is an elaborate explanation of how you can present your case study analysis most effectively,  in just 5 slides . Download your free copy if you wish to make an impact with your case analysis.

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How to perform a Marketing Case Study Analysis

A marketing case study analysis involves a detailed review of past marketing strategies and the outcomes they produced, with the intent of learning from previous successes and failures. This can be extremely helpful to those who are in charge of marketing for their company or organization, as it offers an opportunity to see what has worked and what hasn’t to learn which strategies are likely to be more effective in the future. Of course, knowing how to perform a marketing case study analysis is crucial if you want to get the most out of your efforts. Here’s how.

Table of Contents

Define the Problem

The first step in any marketing case study analysis is to define the problem. This can be done by identifying the main issue or challenge faced by the company. Once the problem is identified, you can then begin to gather data and information that will help you understand the situation and find a solution. What are your key insights about the problem? How does this affect your organization? What are some possible solutions? To come up with potential solutions, it’s important to understand what customers want from your product. Consider why they would buy your product over another one. If there are other products on the market, why do people buy yours? What qualities set your business apart from others? These questions can help lead to better ideas for how to make an impactful change for the future of your business.

Consult all Resources

To get the most accurate information, you should consult all resources available. This includes talking to employees, customers, and outside experts. You should also look at financial reports and company data. By getting as much information as possible, you can make an informed decision about what marketing strategies to use. To conclude your analysis, it is important to consider both the short-term and long-term effects of marketing campaigns. One way to do this is by using a cost-benefit analysis. With this technique, you compare the costs of one or more marketing campaigns with their expected benefits over time. Another way to measure success is by looking at how many salespeople were needed for each campaign compared with how many sales were made per person.

Gather Data

To analyze a marketing case study, you will need to gather data about the company, the product, and the target market. This can be done through research on the internet, in library databases, and by talking to people who are familiar with the company and the product. You’ll want to look at old case studies from this company as well as other companies that have a similar demographic and mission statement. Find out what they did right or wrong and why.

Ask yourself these questions: What is the goal of this company? What kind of demographic do they cater to? What is their competition? Who do they work with? What are their weaknesses? Do they lack innovation? How does their target audience feel about them? These questions may help shape your opinions on what might work for this company and which aspects may not. Social media is used most of the time to gather such information.

Find Patterns in Data

The first step is to find patterns in the data. To do this, you’ll need to gather data from multiple sources, including surveys, customer interviews, sales data, and more. Once you have this data, look for patterns that emerge. For example, do certain customers tend to buy certain products? Do certain marketing campaigns result in more sales? By finding patterns in the data, you can start to develop hypotheses about what might be causing them. For example, if you notice that every time your company holds a sale it gets more traffic on its website, then it might make sense to plan your marketing campaigns around promotions or events that increase traffic.

Create a Forecast for Improvement

To create a forecast for improvement, you will need to first gather data on your current marketing efforts. This can be done through surveys, customer interviews, focus groups, or other methods. Once you have this data, you will need to analyze it to identify areas of opportunity. From there, you can create goals and objectives for your marketing case study analysis. Finally, you will need to put together a plan of action and track your progress over time. Ideally, the measurements used should tie back to the goals and objectives you set out at the beginning of your marketing case study analysis.

Discuss Results with the Team

After you have completed your marketing case study analysis, it is important to discuss the results with your team. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that no one feels left out of the decision-making process. Plus, discussing the results as a team will help you catch any errors that you may have missed.

1. First, take some time to read through your marketing case study analysis and make sure that you understand all of the data. This is especially important if you are working with a team.

2. Next, sit down with your team and discuss the results of the analysis. Make sure that everyone understands what the data means and how it will impact the company’s marketing strategy.

Publish Results

After you have gathered all of your data, it is time to analyze it and see what conclusions you can draw. To do this, you will want to create a marketing mix model. This will help you understand how each element of your marketing mix contributes to your overall success. Once you have created your model, you can begin to analyze your data. You may notice that one or more elements of your marketing mix are not contributing as much as others.

You might also notice that the tactics are working well together in some cases but not in others. For example, if you find that social media is not yielding any leads while other areas of your marketing mix are working well, then maybe social media should be removed from your strategy. If you find that Facebook posts work better than Tweets, then perhaps you would want to focus on Facebook posts over Tweets.

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What Is A Marketing Case Study? See Examples And Write Yours

• by Ranu Kumari

There are several instances in life when a person can learn from observing the world around him, which also applies to organizations. When a firm wants to understand a product’s or strategy’s success or failure, they turn to case studies. There are several types of case studies out there. Some of them are – a marketing case study, a finance case study, or a case study in innovation.

What Is a Case Study?

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject. This could be a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are prevalent in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

Also, they are helpful in a variety of fields. These include psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work. However, we will look at the different elements of a marketing case study in this article.

Case studies are based on evidence; they begin with a question or problem that requires an answer through research. The researcher then collects information using interviews or observations.

The researcher might even conduct an experiment to test an idea related to the case study. After this data is collected and analyzed, the researcher writes up their findings in an article called a case report or case study report.

Also, a case study focuses on a detailed description of an individual or group experience from beginning to end. A case study does not provide generalizations about the larger population but rather focuses on how an individual or group responded to an event.

Case studies may also involve multiple individuals or groups with similar experiences. Case studies are used for:

• Testing Hypotheses
• Exploring an Issue
• Developing new ideas, theories, Models, or, Concepts
• Helping you understand specific individuals or groups in detail

What Is a Marketing Case Study

The marketing case study is a persuasive document that uses real-world examples to demonstrate the value of your product or service. It’s a powerful tool for marketing, sales, and customer support teams as it enables them to share the results of their work and how it helped solve a customer’s problem.

A marketing case study is basically a good story. Like all good stories, it needs to have the following elements:

• A Hero – This is the main character who is the good guy.
• The Problem – A situation that puts our hero in a difficult situation.
• The Solution – The product or service that saves the day. Also, it makes the hero happy.

Approaching a case study like a story is something that will be exciting for marketers. This is because marketers are fond of creating memorable stories for their brands.

However, it is essential to remember that the readers of the case study must be able to connect with it. This also means that they should be able to visualize themselves in the main character’s shoes.

Why Should Companies Write a Case Study?

Writing a marketing case study is hard work. It is not as simple as writing a blog post. This is because a case study has a large number of data points. All of them have to be accurate. Also, when a firm intends to mention a client by name, they need the necessary approvals. This can be a time-consuming process.

However, there are many compelling reasons to create a marketing case study. Here, we look at those reasons in some detail.

Demonstrate the power of your product.

Case studies can be effective marketing tools because they show your audience what your product or service can do for them and are much harder to ignore than an ad or blog post.

Build customer loyalty.

Keeping in touch with happy customers will allow them to voice their opinion about your business. However, it will also allow them to reaffirm why they chose your business in the first place.

Enhance Sales.

When a salesperson has case studies to share, it’s an opportunity for them to talk about the benefits their product or service can have for the customer. Also, they can speak about the resounding reception of the product . This, in turn, leads to an increased volume of sales.

Multi-Format and multi-purpose content.

Testimonial quotes and data snippets from your customers make great calls to action on various pages of your website. These could be your homepage, product and service pages, landing pages, etc. You can also repurpose these into PDFs, ebooks, videos, and infographics.

An opportunity to tell your story.

Case studies allow you to share your story, showing readers that your products and methods are effective. This makes for a fantastic form of advertising because it’s not pushy or over-the-top.

Earn Trust.

Case studies help convert positive customer opinions into tangible data that prove your value. In fact, a vast majority of marketers trust this type of content.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study

This section will look at how to write a high-impact and persuasive marketing case study.

Clear Headline.

The headline should share the most critical information about the case study. It should be able to capture its essence in a single sentence.

Write about someone your customer can relate to.

One should know their target audience before working on a marketing case study. They must know the industry the readers are a part of.

Ultimately, the audience must understand that the author is knowledgeable about the industry. Also, they must understand that he knows the customer’s pain points and can provide a solution for them.

Provide a summary.

A marketing case study should start with a crisp summary. The history of the firm, the industry it is a part of, and its leading products or services must also be covered in the summary. Also, the summary should introduce the client.

Narrate the complete story.

You must have got the gist by now. A marketing case study is a fantastic opportunity to tell your story. Furthermore, it is essential to tell it well. As always, one can rely on the STAR framework to make a good business story.

S – Situation: What was the situation that your brand was facing? How did it affect the customer? And, how did it affect you?

T- Task: What did you have to do to fix the situation?

A- Analysis: What approach did you use to analyze the problem? Also, what are the steps to solve it?

R – Result: What were the results of your efforts? To what extent did you solve the problem?

One can also report aspects such as improvement in customer satisfaction. Also, regular follow-ups with a select group of customers can get their feedback on after-sales service. It helps to focus on the long-term and emotional benefits as well.

The case study should be easy to read.

A marketing case study cannot be in the form of continuous text. Otherwise, people will doze off while reading it.

Rather, it should contain a small paragraph, and one must make sure that the case study includes headers, tables, images, and text. This will help improve SEO. It will also make the case study easy to read.

One can include short videos, infographics, and other multimedia to make the case study even more compelling.

Use actual facts and figures.

When writing case studies, it is always better to use actual data . This lends credibility to a person’s work instead of vague terms like ‘increased sales’ or ‘tripled footfall.’

One must mention whether the footfall has grown from 100 to 300 or from 2000 to 6000. Also, one must use charts and graphs to convey the meaning and scale of the data. Finally, any number is meaningless without context. Always remember to present the data points with some reference to the context.

Outline clear strategies

When an organization sets a challenging goal and achieves the target, it calls for a celebration and a marketing case study.

One should always substantiate strategies when discussing the reasons behind the firm’s success. For instance, targeting only the middle of the funnel, customers saw conversions increase from 50 to 75 per month.

Experiment with different formats

Case studies need to be put into text formats all the time. One can play around with different formats to see what works best. It could be a video interview where the customer talks about his challenges.

However, the end objective of the case study remains the same irrespective of the format.

The problems of the customer and how your product solved them for him.

Case studies can also be in the form of brochures, webinars, or podcasts. Another advantage of different formats is that the content will appeal to a wider audience.

Case studies must be easy to find

The case studies must be presented in a prominent section on your website. Further, they have to be optimized for search. Also, all case studies must be promoted on social media and by email.

Marketing Case Study Examples

In this section, we will look at some case studies examples. These case studies demonstrate how to present a sticky situation and its solution in a wonderful manner.

Porch case study

This case study details a year of content marketing that resulted in 931 unique domain links, 23,000 monthly organic visits, and more. The content marketing agency Fractal worked with Porch to achieve these results.

This is a great way to demonstrate your ability to deliver the desired results without disclosing confidential information. Also, these case studies give confidence to other companies in the same industry. You can read the case study here.

IDEO case study

This case study shows that IDEO aims to transform the airport experience by putting passengers first. They have presented the facts exceptionally well. The case study explains how the firm helped Pearson International Airport respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The entire case study is divided into three parts: the challenge, the impact, and the outcome.

Another good thing is that there are visuals and images to break the flow of text. You can find the case study here.

Chevrolet DTU case study

This case is an excellent example of how a well-known brand fuels the reader’s curiosity. Here, the initials DTU are used. Everybody was interested to know what the abbreviation stands for. Well, DTU is ‘Discover The Unexpected.’

A mix of images, videos, and bullet points sustains the reader’s interest. One of the best things about this case study is that only the name of the brand is used to catch the audience’s attention. You can read this case study here.

Omnichannel Challenge – Bitly Case Study

Bitly uses a PDF format for all its text-heavy case studies. The case study in question is one of an e-commerce company, Vissal. The entire case study consists of different sections, such as ‘The Goal’, and ‘Top Omnichannel Obstacles.’

Also, it includes images in ‘The Set Up’ and ‘The Launch.’ The PDF is available for download and opens up in a separate window.

The colors and text used follow Bitly’s brand guidelines. It shows that a PDF is an excellent format for a case study. However, it is essential to keep the case study short. This case study is available here .

Some disadvantages of case studies

People write case studies so that learning from one situation can be applied to other similar situations. However, that does not always happen. This is because each situation has its unique nature.

Also, case studies can become theoretical in nature. This is even though they are based on real situations.

Marketing Case Study Examples: Best 15 to Learn From

Do you want to showcase your products and services to prospects? A pleasant and appealing website and engaging videos are a good start, but is it enough? To find out, consider examining some marketing case study examples and determining if there are additional strategies you could use to showcase your offerings to potential customers better.

A great website, social media presence, and targeted messaging are all essential to growing your business. But gradually building authority in your niche by boosting your credibility is an altogether different affair. You need to spice things up to make a super impression on your future customers.

And that you can do with a convincing case study!

But simply finding a basic template online and duplicating it for your case study can never be enough. This article will give you the top 20 marketing case study examples that masterfully communicate with your audience, driving your message home.

What is a Marketing Case Study?

A marketing case study contains various information, quotes, statistics, etc. It is like telling a story of how your agency helped a brand solve a problem or excel in the market. In fact, a good case study must be filled up to the brim with quality research. Every result or quote must have a fact or statistics backing it up.

Furthermore, a marketing case study must not be unnecessarily elaborate. In other words, every sentence you put in it must be relevant to the target audience. If it is on point and precise, it is sure to rope in new customers for you.

Marketing case studies can be displayed on your company’s website. It works as proof of what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and so on. Some companies also choose to make their marketing case studies a part of their sales presentation while pitching to new customers.

Either way, you choose to use it, a case study is an essential customer acquisition tool you must operate properly.

Why Are They Important?

• It provides formidable social proof to your company.
• It gives your target customer the complete picture of what to expect from your brand.
• A case study is a perfect tool for your company to build trust, as statistics and quotes from previous customers support it.
• There’s a range of different ways you can prepare a case study, from text-heavy and video-based to infographics.

At a time when 9 out of 10 consumers look for customer testimonials or other kinds of social proof before making a purchase, case studies are immensely vital.

Want to know how to create a great one? Here are some examples of a marketing case study done right!

Top 15 Examples of Marketing Case Study

1. the whole package by ideo.

IDEO is a design company that partnered up with H&M to help the latter remove plastic from their packaging. Their case study , ‘The Whole Package,’ is quite simple and direct. But when it comes to driving the point home, you can say it ticks all the boxes.

Furthermore, this IDEO case study has been neatly categorized into sections. Coupled with the masterful use of visuals with crisp and convincing copy, this marketing case study is an excellent example of a comprehensive one.

2. Chevrolet DTU by Carol H Williams

When your client is a world-renowned name, why hide it? That’s what this case study teaches us. In fact, what better social proof than showing the world look “the brand that billions of consumers trust chose us, why can’t you?”

Engaging subheadings throughout this Carol H Williams case study further make it a convenient read.

Remember, no matter how convincing your statistics or facts are, try not to intimidate the reader. Feel free to have many sections; prefer crisp pointers over fluffy paragraphs.

3. In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study by Switch

When it comes to performance marketing, many abbreviations and jargon are involved. Some readers might find it a major turn-off. This marketing case study by Switch masterfully shows how you can avoid sounding scary in this way.

This one dedicates a page to each of the results they got for their client. For instance, the Facebook Ads results have their own page, and it has been so simplified that even a non-marketer would understand. That’s what makes this case study stand out.

4. Gila Rivers by OH Partners

A picture speaks a thousand words. And this case study shows just how you can use pictures to prepare the perfect case study. Using pictures, OH Partners have communicated what they’ve done for their clients and what their future customers can expect regarding results.

The marketing case study is visually appealing, thanks to elegant pictures that make it easy on the eyes. Even if you have no prior knowledge of marketing or OH Partners, the case study’s style is backed up by convincing statistics, which helps to make it one of the top examples in the field.

5. Capital One on AWS by Amazon

This case study is for companies working for clients for a long time. This Amazon case study features several articles detailing how Capital One benefitted from AWS over the years.

Starting from 2016, these articles elaborate on every aspect of Capital One being on AWS. So, is there a client you have been serving for years? Have they benefitted from your services or product in various ways? If yes, this is an approach you can take.

6. Acoustic by Genuine

Simplicity, as they say, is often all you need to make a lasting impression. And this case study by Genuine is truly a masterpiece in simplicity. First, it goes directly to the point and uses minimal text to drive the message home.

With neatly divided sections, this marketing case study is as simple in the text as in the visuals. Neither the colors nor the visuals are shouting at the reader from the screen. What it teaches us? Well, you don’t need to write a lot or use loud visuals to communicate effectively with the target audience.

7. Customer Success Case Study by Convoso

This one might not be as simple in name or feel as the previous one, but it is as effective. How? Because as soon as you lay your eyes on this Convoso case study , you notice the 300% boost. And if you’re a potential customer looking for a similar, you can hardly ignore it.

Another striking characteristic of this one is its vivid use of colors. Even though this 11-page PDF might seem a bit lengthy to some, the easy-on-the-eye color palette makes it quite readable. So, don’t ignore the visual aspect is what this marketing case study example teaches us.

8. The Hunt Club Case Study by Happeo

This is a case study written entirely from the perspective of the customers. Yes! Every paragraph in this Happeo case study contains quotes from Hunt Club, the company that chose Happeo’s solution.

An elaborate embedded video further does the trick for this one. But if we were to glean one thing from this case study, it has to be the fact that Happeo has told its own success story in the words of the customer.

Can a case study be any more of a social proof? We think not!

9. NetApp Case Study by Evisort

The unique thing about this one is that it starts with an overview of the client. Evisort sets the groundwork for its message right at the beginning. Once they’ve informed us about their client’s nature, they gradually move on to the problem solved.

For one, this follows the marketing case study thumb rule of always focusing more on the client. Secondly, it prepares a solid base for the reader, helping her clearly understand what has been discussed in the coming segments.

But there’s another important thing about this Evisort case study . It tells the story of the solution focusing on a particular era, the pandemic in this case. You can also employ this strategy and give more context to the solution you provided to your client.

10. The Met by Fantasy

A complete redesign of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

How to showcase a nice and responsive website you created for a client? The simplest way is to put snaps of the website in your case study. And that’s what this Fantasy case study has done so masterfully.

What this case study teaches us is that you don’t have to write a bunch of stuff or put in statistics everywhere. If the result you provided to your client can be showcased visually, why not use the case study to do just that?

In Conclusion

Marketing case studies are one of the best ways to build credibility and trust with potential customers. They also help you generate leads by showcasing your expertise and proving that you can deliver results. Most importantly, they can help you win over new clients by showing them what to expect from working with you — and how much better things will be when they do.

So, these were a range of marketing case study examples and what we can learn from each. Which one was your favorite? Is there a pattern you identified? To be clear, each of these examples was unique and innovative in its own way. You can go ahead and pick a style and focus for your case study.

In a nutshell, relevancy matters the most if you want your case study to expand your business. So, instead of blindly following any of the examples we have listed, make your own mark with a compelling marketing case study.

We wish you all the best in your customer acquisition and expansion efforts. And we hope this article was of great help to you.

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Ranu Kumari is a Professional Writer and a Marketing enthusiast who currently runs her own Marketing Consultancy, LatitudeBOX. She has written promotional articles for multiple brands and has published her work in Scopus indexed journals. She is passionate about expressing her thoughts and ideas to connect with her readers in a voice that they understand.

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• Marketing Analytics Case Studies
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Three Short Marketing Analytics Case Studies to Inspire You to Love Data

Written by Anna Sonnenberg

Published Feb. 28 2022 · 13 min read

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From engagement statistics to content analytics to conversion metrics, data is a big part of most social media managers’ responsibilities. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy processing marketing data or drawing conclusions from it.

If data isn’t exactly your favorite part of the job, these marketing analytics case studies may change your mind.

Find out how marketing analytics helped three major brands grow their businesses—and you might develop a whole new appreciation for marketing data in the process.

What Is Marketing Analytics?

Marketing analytics is the process of collecting and evaluating metrics to understand how much value marketing efforts generate. With analytics, you can assess the return on investment (ROI) of anything from social media posts and ad campaigns to landing pages and native platform features.

For many organizations and their marketing team, marketing analytics are essential for improving offerings and driving growth.

Here are common goals you can achieve with marketing analytics.

Improving marketing campaigns

Some social media marketing campaigns are more successful than others. Analytics can help your organization pinpoint exactly what works. By analyzing metrics like engagement, click-through rate (CTR), conversions, and ROI, you can determine what resonates best with its audience. By using data science, you can craft a marketing strategy that gets you better results from your campaigns.

Decreasing expenses

Ineffective marketing campaigns, usability issues, and poorly optimized algorithms can all lead to dissatisfied customers and unnecessarily high retention costs.

By investing in marketing analytics, your organization can take steps to identify points of friction and reduce expenses.

Forecasting results

Reviewing past outcomes is useful, but forecasting the results your campaigns are likely to generate is even more valuable. With marketing analytics, you can model results and get a better sense of how marketing initiatives can impact growth over time.

Marketing Analytics Case Studies: Progressive Insurance

In the early 2000s, Progressive’s website was routinely considered one of the best in the insurance industry. When the insurance provider’s customers began switching to mobile devices a decade later, the organization aimed to develop a mobile app as effective as its desktop site.

But what did that mean exactly? And what was the insurance provider’s mobile app missing?

To determine what would make the mobile app more successful, Progressive pursued an in-depth analysis of the organization’s marketing data.

As Progressive Data & Analytics Business Leader Pawan Divakarla explains , the insurance provider’s analytics team has always sought insight into how customers are using the company’s tools.

In his words, “At Progressive, we sell insurance. But if you think about it, our product is actually data.”

After launching the mobile app, Progressive began looking for ways to optimize the user experience. As this Progressive case study explains, the organization aimed to streamline the login process and improve user satisfaction to meet its ultimate goals of increasing customer loyalty and new customer acquisition.

Because Progressive’s mobile app generated so much information, the organization needed data visualization tools for collection and processing. To analyze customers’ experiences and actions, the company opted to use a combination of Google Analytics 360 and Google Tag Manager 360.

This choice was a relatively simple one for Progressive because the company already used these tools to run A/B tests and optimize its website.

Using Google’s analytical tools to review the company’s mobile app would allow Progressive to understand what features to test and how to optimize the user experience across countless mobile devices and operating systems.

Progressive used the two Google tools for separate yet complementary functions:

• With Google Analytics 360, Progressive could track user sessions and demographics. The company integrated BigQuery for more insight into user behaviors.
• With Google Tag Manager 360, Progressive could easily implement tracking tags to measure various actions, conversions, and navigation patterns.

To get the insights the company needed to improve its mobile app, Progressive took a three-pronged approach:

User device data

First, Progressive aimed to identify which devices and operating systems were most common among the app’s user base. With this information, the company would be able to develop more effective tests for its mobile app.

App crash data

Next, Progressive wanted to analyze app crash data. The company planned to use Google Analytics 360 and BigQuery data to understand the cause for the crash and how users reacted when the app stopped working abruptly.

Login and security data

Finally, Progressive aimed to learn how users responded when failed login attempts locked them out of the app. The company planned to use Google Analytics 360 and BigQuery to see what actions users took. It planned to then test new prompts that would guide users more effectively.

Outcome of this marketing analytics case study

Using marketing analytics tools , Progressive was able to process customer behavior, identify appropriate tests, and implement successful solutions.

Here’s how each of the three approaches generated useful results that helped Progressive reach its ultimate acquisition and loyalty goals.

First, Progressive developed session-based reports that reflected the most common mobile devices and operating systems for the app’s user base. With those insights, the company identified which device and operating system combinations to prioritize for its mobile app tests.

As a result, the company reduced testing time by 20% for its mobile app—allowing the organization to find solutions much more quickly than its typical timeline would have allowed.

Next, Progressive reviewed the actions customers took right before the app crashed. The company pinpointed a server issue as the cause of a major crash that disrupted countless mobile app sessions.

Using this data, Progressive could address the server issue and prevent it from happening again.

Finally, Progressive created a custom funnel in Google Analytics 360 to evaluate users’ typical login path. After learning that many users who became locked out of their accounts never attempted to log in again, the company developed a workflow that provided better guidance.

The new workflow sends users to a Forgot Password page, which has increased logins by 30%.

Marketing Analytics Case Studies: Netflix

When companies take a digital-first approach to customer loyalty, they can collect an incredible amount of user data. With these marketing analytics, companies can improve their products, build better marketing campaigns, and drive more revenue.

As this Netflix case study shows, the online content streaming platform has leveraged its user data in a variety of helpful ways.

By using data to improve its content recommendation engine, develop original content, and increase its customer retention rate, Netflix has positioned itself far ahead of the competition.

With so much data to leverage, Netflix had wide-ranging goals for the company’s marketing analytics. However, all of the organization’s goals contributed to the company’s larger business objectives—which focus on customer retention.

Netflix aimed to go beyond basic user demographics and understand what customers want from a streaming platform—and what was likely to convince them to stay. With this knowledge, Netflix could create better products and services for happier customers.

Access issues, service outages, and platform flaws can all lead to unhappy customers and negative sentiment—which can cause customers to seek out an alternative solution.

By identifying problems early through marketing analytics, Netflix could improve its products and continue to innovate.

To work toward its customer retention objective, Netflix collected data from virtually every interaction with its 150+ million subscribers. The company then used marketing analytics tools to process this native data and evaluate everything from how customers navigate the platform to what they watch.

By creating such detailed customer profiles, Netflix could make much more personalized recommendations for each user. The more data the company collected, the more it could tailor its algorithm to suggest the ideal content to each individual viewer.

To better understand the platform’s users, Netflix collected such data as:

• The devices viewers used to stream content
• Day of week and time of day when users viewed content
• Number of serial episodes viewers watched in a row
• Whether viewers paused and resumed content
• Number and type of searches users performed

Netflix also welcomed user feedback on content . The company incorporated these content ratings into their analysis to better understand viewer preferences.

According to the streaming platform, the Netflix algorithm is responsible for about 80% of viewer activity . The company has successfully collected relevant data and used marketing analytics to generate recommendations that encourage viewers to continue watching and subscribing.

The revenue metrics suggest that Netflix’s focus on marketing analytics has been hugely beneficial to the company. The company estimates that its algorithm generates $1 billion in value every year, largely due to customer retention.

In recent years, Netflix’s customer retention rate has far surpassed competitors like Hulu and Amazon Prime. Netflix has an impressive 90% retention rate , meaning the vast majority of viewers continue to subscribe to the service month after month. (In contrast, Amazon Prime’s retention rate is 75%, and Hulu’s is 64%.)

For Netflix, customer retention means more than happy viewers. It also means more data, a continually improving algorithm, and substantial business growth.

Netflix has emerged as the world’s most highly valued company, with a total valuation of over $160 billion. Netflix can continue to increase this valuation. It leverages its data by producing original media and recommending the ideal content to viewers every time they access the streaming platform.

Marketing Analytics Case Studies: Allrecipes

As the world’s biggest digital food brand, Allrecipes has 18 websites and more than 85 million users. But the brand also has plenty of competition from other food-focused apps and websites.

To stay ahead of other recipe sites and ensure that it continues to provide all the solutions that users want, Allrecipes relies on marketing analytics.

With marketing analytics, the digital brand can better understand the customer journey and analyze trends as they emerge. As this Allrecipes case study explains, the brand can expand its audience and attract even more lucrative demographics using these insights.

To continue to gain ground as the world’s top digital food brand, Allrecipes established several wide-ranging goals.

Some of the brand’s primary objectives included the following.

Improve user experience

With more than a billion and a half visitors across the brand’s sites every year, Allrecipes generates a ton of traffic. But the company needed a way to understand how visitors were using the site, so it could improve the user experience and gauge the health of the sites.

Increase video engagement

To take advantage of a demand for video content, Allrecipes had decided to invest heavily in video. However, the video production team needed strategic guidance. The brand needed to know what types of content would drive the most engagement.

Drive mobile engagement

To continue to meet the needs of its user base, Allrecipes had to look beyond its websites. As more and more people began using mobile devices to access the brand’s content, Allrecipes realized that the company needed to optimize its mobile app.

Inform product strategy

To promote new features and integrations or pursue partner programs, Allrecipes needed to know what its community wanted. Had they adopted the new integrations yet? Did they need new features to use the site or app more effectively?

Expand user base

Cooking and dining trends come and go, and Allrecipes needed a simple yet effective way to identify these developments.

By responding quickly to trends, the brand would be able to capture a larger user base, including elusive millennials.

Grow advertising revenue

Like many digital brands, Allrecipes has a native advertising program that allows the company to monetize its website. The company aimed to increase its advertising revenue, yet the organization didn’t want to compromise the user experience. To find the right partners to grow this program, Allrecipes needed deeper insights into its audience.

Although the brand’s goals were varied, the approach was relatively straightforward. To process marketing analytics from a wide range of channels, the brand opted to use Tableau, a business intelligence platform.

With Tableau, Allrecipes could establish a single platform for visualizing data from Adobe Marketing Cloud, Hitwise, and comScore. By linking Adobe Marketing Cloud to Tableau, the brand could pull in all of its website and marketing analytics. By linking Hitwise and comScore, the brand could source demographic data.

Using Tableau allowed Allrecipes to build custom dashboards and develop tailored reports to answer all of the brand’s questions. This tool also allowed the brand to pursue collaboration options across the organization.

In fact, departments ranging from marketing and design to product and finance contributed to the tool. Teams used Tableau Server to publish dashboards, creating a single space where stakeholders could visualize or analyze data.

With Tableau, Allrecipes was able to visualize the brand’s data successfully, enabling smarter decisions and making progress toward key goals. Here’s what the brand accomplished using marketing analytics:

Using insights from Tableau, Allrecipes was able to see how visitors typically used the site—including how they submit recipes, share content, and post links on social media channels. The organization then used this data to devise a plan for improving the site.

Knowing how visitors were already engaging with the site allowed the brand to make data-driven, goal-focused decisions.

With Tableau’s marketing analytics, Allrecipes found that out of all types of recipes, dessert typically generated more views and attracted more comments and photos. As a result, the brand opted to focus on this highly engaging niche, creating a separate video hub for dessert recipes.

To increase engagement on mobile devices, Allrecipes devised an A/B test that displayed the brand’s mobile site on all devices. Then the organization used the analytics to identify what drove interactions on mobile. The brand then used insights to improve the mobile site, including optimizing content and encouraging photo uploads.

Tableau’s data visualizations helped Allrecipes understand trends in its user community and respond to preferences more efficiently. Using these insights, the brand was able to promote integrations and features while gathering data for future product enhancements.

By using Tableau’s insights to process trends, Allrecipes was able to segment audiences for various recipe types, ultimately identifying millennial users’ interests and preferences. The brand was then able to create more content geared toward this growing user base—likely responding much more quickly than competitors could.

By tapping into real-time marketing analytics, Allrecipes was able to share popular recipe searches and trending content with its advertising partners during a recent holiday season. Advertisers could then create ads tailored to these interests, generating a better ROI and creating a more appealing experience for users.

What We Learned From These Marketing Analytics Case Studies

As these marketing analytics case studies show, data can tell you a lot about what your customers want—and where your organization succeeds or has room for improvement. Using insights from marketing analytics, a digital marketer can make data-driven decisions to cultivate customer loyalty, generate more revenue, and ultimately grow your business.

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Top 10 Marketing Analytics Case Studies [2024]

The power of marketing analytics to transform business decisions is indisputable. Organizations leveraging these sophisticated tools gain unparalleled access to actionable intelligence that substantively impacts their financial outcomes. The scope of this invaluable resource extends from elevating the customer experience to fine-tuning the allocation of marketing budgets, presenting a spectrum of tactical possibilities. To explain the transformative impact and multifaceted benefits of employing marketing analytics, the article ventures into an in-depth analysis of five compelling case studies.

Each case is carefully selected to represent a distinct industry and set of challenges, offering a holistic understanding of how data-driven initiatives can surmount obstacles, amplify Return on Investment (ROI), and fortify customer retention metrics.

Case Study 1: How Amazon Boosted Sales by Personalizing Customer Experience

The situation: a tricky problem in early 2019.

Imagine it’s the start of 2019, and Amazon, a top name in online shopping, faces a confusing problem. Even though more people are visiting the website, sales are not increasing. It is a big deal, and everyone at Amazon wonders what’s happening.

The Problem: Complex Challenges

Figuring out the root problem was not easy. Amazon needed to know which customers weren’t buying stuff, their behaviors, and why the old methods of showing them personalized items weren’t working. It was a complicated issue that needed a smart and modern solution.

Related: Role of Data Analytics in B2B Marketing

The Solution: Using Advanced Tools

That’s when Amazon decided to use more advanced marketing tools. They used machine learning to understand different types of customers better. This insight wasn’t just basic info like age or location; they looked at how customers behave on the site, items left in carts, and trends based on where customers lived.

The Key Numbers: What They Tracked

To understand if the new plan was working, Amazon focused on a few key metrics:

1. Return on Investment (ROI): This showed the new marketing strategies effectiveness.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): This KPI helped Amazon understand how valuable customers were over the long term.

3. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): This measured how costly it was to get new customers.

4. Customer Retention Rate: This KPI showed how well they kept customers around.

5. Net Promoter Score (NPS): This gave them an idea of how happy customers were with Amazon.

The Results: Big Improvements

The new plan worked well, thanks to advanced marketing analytics tools. In just three months, Amazon increased its sales by 25%. Not only that, but the money they made from the new personalized ads went up by 18%. And they did a better job keeping customers around, improving that rate by 12%.

Lessons Learned: What We Can Take Away

So, what did we learn from Amazon’s success?

1. Personalizing Can Scale: Amazon showed that you can offer personalized experiences to a lot of people without sacrificing quality.

2. Track the Right Metrics: This case study clarifies that you must look at several key numbers to understand what’s happening.

3. Data Can Be Actionable: Having lots of data is good, but being able to use it to make smart decisions is what counts.

Related: Tips to Succeed with Marketing Analytics

Case Study 2: McDonald’s – Decoding Social Media Engagement Through Real-time Analytics

Setting the stage: a tantalizing opportunity beckons.

Imagine a brand as ubiquitous as McDonald’s, the global fast-food colossus. With its Golden Arches recognized in virtually every corner of the world, the brand had an expansive digital realm to conquer—social media. In the evolving digital arena, McDonald’s was trying to mark its presence and deeply engage with its audience.

The Maze of Complexity: A Web of Challenges

Steering the complicated world of social media isn’t for the faint-hearted, especially when catering to a customer base as diverse as McDonald’s. The challenge lay in disseminating content and in making that content strike a chord across a heterogeneous audience. The content must resonate universally, be it the Big Mac aficionado in New York or the McAloo Tikki enthusiast in Mumbai.

The Game Plan: A Data-driven Strategy

McDonald’s adopted a strategy that was nothing short of a data-driven symphony. Utilizing real-time analytics, the brand monitored a series of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track the impact of its social media content:

1. Likes and Reactions: To measure immediate emotional responses from the audience.

2. Shares and Retweets: To gauge the virality potential of their content.

3. Impressions and Reach: To assess the scope and scale of engagement.

4. Click-Through Rates (CTR): To assess whether the content was sufficiently engaging to drive necessary action.

Types of content monitored varied from light-hearted memes to product promotions and even user-generated testimonials.

Related: Difference Between Marketing Analytics and Business Analytics

The Finale: Exceptional Outcomes and a Standing Ovation

The result? A whopping 30% increase in customer engagement on social media platforms within a quarter. But that’s not the end of the story. The customer retention rate—a metric critical for evaluating long-term brand loyalty—soared by 10%. These numbers didn’t just happen; they were sculpted through meticulous planning and real-time adjustments.

The Wisdom Gleaned: Eye-opening Insights and Key Takeaways

Several critical insights emerged from this exercise in digital finesse:

1. Agility is King: The fast-paced world of social media requires an equally agile analytics approach. Real-time monitoring allows for nimble adjustments that can significantly enhance audience engagement.

2. Diverse Audiences Require Tailored Approaches: The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach is a fallacy in today’s digital age. Real-time analytics can help brands develop a subtle understanding of their diverse consumer base and tailor content accordingly.

3. Retention is as Crucial as Engagement: While the spotlight often falls on engagement metrics, customer retention rates provide invaluable insights into the long-term health of the brand-customer relationship.

4. Data Informs, But Insight Transforms: Data points are just the tip of the iceberg. The transformative power lies in interpreting these points to formulate strategies that resonate with the audience.

Related: VP of Marketing Interview Questions

Case Study 3: Zara—Harnessing Predictive Analytics for Seamless Inventory Management

The prelude: zara’s global dominance meets inventory complexities.

When you think of fast, chic, and affordable fashion, Zara is a name that often comes to mind. A retail giant with a global footprint, Zara is the go-to fashion hub for millions worldwide. However, despite its extensive reach and market leadership, Zara faced a dilemma that plagued even the most formidable retailers—inventory mismanagement. Both overstocking and understocking were tarnishing the brand’s revenue streams and diminishing customer satisfaction.

The Conundrum: A Dynamic Industry with Static Models

The fashion sector is a rapidly evolving giant, where the ups and downs of trends and consumer preferences create a landscape that is as dynamic as it is unpredictable. Conventional inventory systems, largely unchanging and based on past data, emerged as the weak link in Zara’s otherwise strong business approach.

The Tactical Shift: Machine Learning to the Rescue

Recognizing the inherent limitations of traditional approaches, Zara turned to predictive analytics as their technological savior. They implemented cutting-edge tools that used machine learning algorithms to offer more dynamic, real-time solutions. The tools were programmed to consider a multitude of variables:

1. Real-time Sales Data: To capture the instantaneous changes in consumer demands.

2. Seasonal Trends: To account for cyclical variations in sales.

3. Market Sentiments: To factor in the influence of external events like fashion weeks or holidays.

Related: MBA in Marketing Pros and Cons

The Metrics Under the Microscope

Zara’s analytics model put a spotlight on the following KPIs:

1. Inventory Turnover Rate: To gauge how quickly inventory was sold or replaced.

2. Gross Margin Return on Inventory Investment (GMROII): To assess the profitability of their inventory.

3. Stock-to-Sales Ratio: To balance the inventory levels with sales data.

4. Cost of Carrying Inventory: To evaluate the costs of holding and storing unsold merchandise.

The Aftermath: A Success Story Written in Numbers

The results were startlingly positive. Zara observed a 20% reduction in its inventory costs, a metric that directly impacts the bottom line. Even more impressively, the retailer witnessed a 5% uptick in overall revenue, thus vindicating their shift to a more data-driven inventory model.

The Gold Nuggets: Key Takeaways and Strategic Insights

1. Technology as a Strategic Asset: Zara’s case emphasizes that technology, particularly machine learning and predictive analytics, is not just a facilitator but a strategic asset in today’s competitive landscape.

2. The Power of Real-Time Analytics: The case reaffirms the necessity of adapting to real-time consumer behavior and market dynamics changes. This adaptability can be the distinguishing factor between market leadership and obsolescence.

3. Holistic KPI Tracking: Zara’s meticulous monitoring of various KPIs underlines the importance of a well-rounded analytics strategy. It’s not solely about cutting costs; it’s equally about boosting revenues and improving customer satisfaction.

4. The Future is Proactive, Not Reactive: Zara strategically moved from a reactive approach to a proactive, predictive model. It wasn’t merely a technological shift but a paradigm shift in how inventory management should be approached.

Related: Hobby Ideas for Marketing Leaders

Case Study 4: Microsoft—Decoding Public Sentiment for Robust Brand Management

Background: microsoft’s expansive reach and the perils of public opinion.

Microsoft is a titan in the technology industry, wielding a global impact that sets it apart from most other companies. From enterprise solutions to consumer products, Microsoft’s offerings span a multitude of categories, touching lives and businesses in unprecedented ways. But this extensive reach comes with its challenges—namely, the daunting task of managing public sentiment and maintaining brand reputation across a diverse and vocal customer base.

The Intricacies: Coping with a Data Deluge

The issue wasn’t just what people said about Microsoft but the sheer volume of those conversations. Social media platforms, customer reviews, and news articles collectively produced overwhelming data. Collecting this data was difficult, let alone deriving actionable insights from it.

The Playbook: Employing Sentiment Analysis for Real-time Insights

Microsoft addressed this issue head-on by embracing sentiment analysis tools. These tools, often leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning, parsed through the voluminous data to categorize public sentiments into three buckets:

1. Positive: Which elements of the brand were receiving favorable reviews?

2. Negative : Where was there room for improvement or, more critically, immediate crisis management?

3. Neutral: What aspects were simply ‘meeting expectations’ and could be enhanced for better engagement?

Related: How to Become a Marketing Thought Leader?

Metrics that Mattered

Among the KPIs that Microsoft tracked were:

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS): To measure customer loyalty and overall sentiment.

2. Customer Satisfaction Index: To gauge the effectiveness of products and services.

3. Social Media Mentions: To keep a tab on the frequency and tonality of brand mentions across digital channels.

4. Public Relations Return on Investment (PR ROI) : To quantify the impact of their PR strategies on brand reputation.

Outcomes: A Leap in Brand Reputation and Diminished Negativity

The result was a 15% improvement in Microsoft’s Brand Reputation Score. Even more telling was the noticeable reduction in negative publicity, an achievement that cannot be quantified but has far-reaching implications.

Epilogue: Lessons Learned and Future Directions

Precision Over Ambiguity: Sentiment analysis provides precise metrics over ambiguous opinions, offering actionable insights for immediate brand management strategies.

1. Proactive Vs. Reactive: By identifying potential crises before they snowballed, Microsoft demonstrated the power of a proactive brand management strategy.

2. The ‘Neutral’ Opportunity: Microsoft found that even neutral sentiments present an opportunity for further engagement and customer satisfaction.

3. Quantifying the Intangible: Microsoft’s improved Brand Reputation Score underscores the value in quantifying what many consider intangible—brand reputation and public sentiment.

Related: Reasons Why Marketing Managers Get Fired

Case Study 5: Salesforce—Attribution Modeling Unlocks the Full Potential of Marketing Channels

Background: salesforce’s prowess meets marketing complexity.

Salesforce, synonymous with customer relationship management (CRM) and Software as a Service (SaaS), has revolutionized how businesses interact with customers. The company’s extensive portfolio of services has earned it a lofty reputation in numerous sectors globally. Yet, even this venerated SaaS titan grappled with challenges in pinpointing the efficacy of its myriad marketing channels regarding customer acquisition.

The Challenge: Decoding the Marketing Mix

Salesforce diversified its marketing investments across multiple channels—from search engine optimization (SEO) to pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns and email marketing. However, identifying which channels were instrumental in steering the customer through the sales funnel was a complex, if not convoluted, affair. The absence of a clear attribution model meant that Salesforce could invest resources into channels with subpar performance while potentially neglecting more lucrative opportunities.

The Solution: Attribution Modeling as the Rosetta Stone

To unravel this Gordian Knot, Salesforce employed attribution modeling—a sophisticated analytics technique designed to quantify the impact of each touchpoint on the customer journey. This model shed light on crucial metrics such as:

1. Last-Click Attribution: Which channel was responsible for sealing the deal?

2. First-Click Attribution: Which channel introduced the customer to Salesforce’s services?

3. Linear Attribution: How can the value be evenly distributed across all touchpoints?

4. Time-Decay Attribution: Which channels contribute more value as the customer gets closer to conversion?

The Dashboard of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Among the KPIs that Salesforce monitored were:

1. Return on Investment (ROI): To calculate the profitability of their marketing efforts.

2. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): To gauge the long-term value brought in by each acquired customer.

3. Cost per Acquisition (CPA): To understand how much is spent to acquire a single customer via each channel.

4. Channel Efficiency Ratio (CER): To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of each marketing channel.

Related: How to Become a Chief Marketing Officer?

Results: A Refined Marketing Strategy Paying Dividends

By adopting attribution modeling, Salesforce could make data-driven decisions to allocate their marketing budget judiciously. The outcome? A notable 10% surge in overall revenue and a 5% increase in ROI. The effectiveness of each channel was now measurable, and the insights gained allowed for more targeted and effective marketing campaigns.

Postscript: Reflective Takeaways and Industry Wisdom

1. Demystifying the Channel Puzzle: Salesforce’s approach elucidates that even the most well-funded marketing campaigns can resemble a shot in the dark without attribution modeling.

2. Customization is Key: One of the remarkable aspects of attribution modeling is its flexibility. Salesforce was able to tailor its attribution models to align with its unique business needs and customer journey.

3. Data-Driven Allocations: The campaign reveals the significance of using empirical data for budget allocation instead of gut feeling or historical precedents.

4. The ROI Imperative: Perhaps the most compelling takeaway is that focusing on ROI is not just a financial exercise but a strategic one. It affects everything from budget allocation to channel optimization and long-term planning.

Related: How Can CMO Use Marketing Analytics?

Case Study 6: Starbucks – Revolutionizing Customer Loyalty with Analytics-Driven Rewards

The backdrop: starbucks’ quest for enhanced customer loyalty.

Starbucks, the iconic global coffeehouse chain, is the most preferred place for coffee lovers. Renowned for its vast array of beverages and personalized service, Starbucks confronted a pivotal challenge: escalating customer loyalty and encouraging repeat visits in an intensely competitive market.

The Dilemma: Deciphering Consumer Desires in a Competitive Arena

In the dynamic landscape of the coffee industry, understanding and catering to evolving customer preferences is paramount. Starbucks faced the daunting task of deciphering these varied customer tastes and devising compelling incentives to foster customer loyalty amidst fierce competition.

The Strategic Overhaul: Leveraging Analytics in the Loyalty Program

Starbucks revamped its loyalty program by embracing a data-driven approach and deploying sophisticated analytics to harvest and interpret customer data. This initiative focused on crafting personalized rewards and offers, aligning perfectly with customer preferences and behaviors. The analytics framework delved into:

1. Purchase Patterns: Analyzing frequent purchase habits to tailor rewards.

2. Customer Preferences: Understanding individual likes and dislikes for more personalized offers.

3. Engagement Metrics: Monitoring customer interaction with the loyalty program to refine its appeal.

The Analytical Lens: Focused KPIs

Starbucks’ revamped loyalty program was scrutinized through these key performance indicators:

1. Loyalty Program Enrollment: Tracking the growth in membership numbers.

2. Repeat Visit Rate: Measuring the frequency of customer visits post-enrollment.

3. Customer Satisfaction Index: Gauging the levels of satisfaction and overall experience.

4. Redemption Rates of Offers: Understanding the effectiveness of personalized offers and rewards.

The Triumph: A Narrative of Success through Numbers

The implementation of analytics in the loyalty program bore significant fruit. Starbucks experienced a remarkable 20% increase in loyalty program membership and a 15% rise in the frequency of customer visits. More than just numbers, these statistics represented a deepening of customer relationships and an elevation in overall satisfaction.

The Crux of Wisdom: Essential Insights and Strategic Perspectives

1. Customer-Centric Technology: The Starbucks case highlights the crucial role of technology, especially analytics, in understanding and catering to customer needs, thereby not just facilitating but enriching the customer experience.

2. Personalization as a Loyalty Catalyst: The successful implementation of personalized rewards based on analytics underscores the effectiveness of customized engagement in enhancing loyalty.

3. Comprehensive KPI Tracking: Starbucks’ meticulous tracking of diverse KPIs illustrates the importance of a multi-dimensional analytics approach. It’s a blend of tracking memberships and understanding engagement and satisfaction.

4. Proactive Customer Engagement: Beyond traditional loyalty programs, Starbucks’ strategy shifts towards a proactive, analytics-based engagement model.

Related: Marketing Executive Interview Questions

Case Study 7: Uber – Revolutionizing Ride-Hailing with Predictive Analytics

Setting the scene: uber’s mission to refine ride-hailing.

Uber, a pioneer in the ride-hailing sector, consistently leads the way in technological advancements. To refine its operational efficiency and enhance the user experience, Uber faced the intricate challenge of synchronizing the supply of drivers with the fluctuating demand of riders across diverse geographical terrains.

The Challenge: Harmonizing Supply and Demand

The core challenge for Uber lies in efficiently balancing the availability of drivers with the dynamically changing needs of customers in different locations. This balancing act was essential for sustaining operational effectiveness and guaranteeing customer contentment.

The Strategic Move: Embracing Real-Time Data Analytics

In response, Uber turned to the power of real-time analytics. This strategic shift involved:

1. Demand Prediction: Leveraging data to forecast rider demand in different areas.

2. Dynamic Pricing Mechanism: Employing algorithmic solutions to modify pricing in real-time in response to the intensity of demand.

3. Driver Allocation Optimization: Using predictive analytics to guide drivers to areas with anticipated high demand.

Results: Measurable Gains in Efficiency and Satisfaction

The results of this approach, grounded in data analytics, were impressive. Uber saw a 25% decrease in average wait times for riders, a direct indicator of enhanced service efficiency. Additionally, driver earnings saw a 10% increase, reflecting better allocation of rides. Importantly, these improvements translated into higher overall customer satisfaction.

Related: Is Becoming a CMO Worth It?

Case Study 8: Spotify – Harnessing Music Analytics for Enhanced Personalization

Backstory: spotify’s pursuit of personalized music experience.

Spotify, the global giant in music streaming, sought to deepen user engagement by personalizing the listening experience. In a digital landscape where user preference is king, Spotify aimed to stand out by offering uniquely tailored music experiences to its vast user base.

The Challenge: Navigating a Sea of Diverse Musical Tastes

With an expansive library of music, Spotify faced the critical task of catering to the incredibly diverse tastes of its users. The task was to craft a unique, personalized listening experience for each user within a vast library containing millions of songs.

The Strategy: Leveraging Machine Learning for Custom Playlists

To address this, Spotify deployed machine learning algorithms in a multifaceted strategy:

1. Listening Habit Analysis: Analyzing user data to understand individual music preferences.

2. Playlist Curation: Employing algorithms to generate personalized playlists tailored to match the individual tastes of each user.

3. Recommendation Engine Enhancement: Continuously refining the recommendation system for more accurate and engaging suggestions.

Results: A Symphony of User Engagement and Loyalty

Implementing these machine-learning strategies led to a remarkable 30% increase in user engagement. This heightened engagement was a key factor in driving a significant rise in premium subscription conversions, underscoring the success of Spotify’s personalized approach.

Related: How Can Creating a Course Lead to Marketing Your Business?

Case Study 9: Airbnb – Advancing Market Positioning and Pricing with Strategic Analytics

Overview: airbnb’s quest for pricing and positioning excellence.

Airbnb, the revolutionary online lodging marketplace, embarked on an ambitious mission to optimize its global listings’ pricing and market positioning. This initiative aimed to maximize booking rates and ensure fair pricing for hosts and guests in a highly competitive market.

The Challenge: Mastering Competitive Pricing in a Diverse Market

Airbnb’s main challenge was pinpointing competitive pricing strategies that would work across its vast array of worldwide listings. The task was to understand and adapt to market demand trends and local variances in every region it operated.

The Strategic Approach: Dynamic Pricing Through Data Analytics

To achieve this, Airbnb turned to the power of analytics, developing a dynamic pricing model that was sensitive to various factors:

1. Location-Specific Analysis: Understanding the pricing dynamics unique to each location.

2. Seasonality Considerations: Adjusting prices based on seasonal demand fluctuations.

3. Event-Based Pricing: Factoring in local events and their impact on accommodation demand.

Results: A Story of Enhanced Performance and Satisfaction

This analytical approach reaped significant rewards. Airbnb saw a 15% increase in booking rates, indicating a successful price alignment with market demand. Additionally, this strategy led to increased revenues for hosts and bolstered customer satisfaction due to more equitable pricing.

Case Study 10: Domino’s – Transforming Pizza Delivery with Analytics-Driven Logistics

Background: domino’s drive for enhanced delivery and service.

Domino’s Pizza, a global leader in pizza delivery, set out to redefine its delivery efficiency and elevate its customer service experience. In the fiercely competitive fast-food industry, Domino’s aimed to stand out by ensuring faster and more reliable delivery.

The Challenge: Streamlining Deliveries in a Fast-Paced Environment

The critical challenge for Domino’s was ensuring timely deliveries while maintaining food quality during transit. It required a subtle understanding of logistics and customer service dynamics.

The Strategy: Optimizing Delivery with Data and Technology

Domino’s responded to this challenge by implementing sophisticated logistics analytics:

1. Route Optimization Analytics: Utilizing data to determine the fastest and most efficient delivery routes.

2. Quality Tracking Systems: Introducing technology solutions to track and ensure food quality throughout delivery.

Results: Measurable Gains in Efficiency and Customer Satisfaction

Adopting these strategies led to a notable 20% reduction in delivery times. This improvement was not just about speed; it significantly enhanced customer satisfaction, as reflected in improved customer feedback scores.

Conclusion: The Transformative Impact of Marketing Analytics in Action

Wrapping up our exploration of these five case studies, one unambiguous insight stands out: the effective application of marketing analytics is pivotal for achieving substantial business gains.

1. Personalization Works: The e-commerce platform’s focus on customer segmentation led to a 25% boost in conversion rates, underscoring that tailored strategies outperform generic ones.

2. Real-Time Matters: McDonald’s implementation of real-time analytics increased customer engagement by 30% and improved retention rates by 10%.

3. Forecast to Optimize: Zara’s application of predictive analytics streamlined inventory management, resulting in a 20% cost reduction and a 5% revenue increase.

4. Sentiment Drives Perception: Microsoft leveraged sentiment analysis to enhance its brand image, achieving a 15% rise in brand reputation score.

5. Attribution is Key: Salesforce’s adoption of attribution modeling led to a 10% revenue increase and a 5% boost in ROI, optimizing their marketing budget allocation.

These case studies demonstrate the unparalleled value of utilizing specialized marketing analytics tools to meet diverse business goals, from boosting conversion rates to optimizing ROI. They are robust examples for organizations seeking data-driven marketing decisions for impactful results.

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Examines the key principles of strategic management, with particular focus on the strategy process and its individual components – analysis, choice, action and evaluation. This unit makes use of the case analysis method so that students can apply their understanding to real-world problems across a range of professional contexts.

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Building a Strategy That Really Works

Last updated on November 22, 2023

Word of mouth marketing and testimonials are an extremely effective way to promote your products.

Let’s start with the facts. 92% of consumers will believe a recommendation from friends and family over any other type of advertising. That simple statistic casually hides one of the most powerful truths in marketing: Your biggest marketing asset is your existing customer base

Today, many businesses spend millions on advertising to new audiences, while completely neglecting the marketing potential of their existing customers. And while there are many different ways to harness your existing user base, few are as powerful as word of mouth marketing, and that’s the strategy we’ll be discussing today.

What Is Word of Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth advertising (WOM advertising), also called word of mouth marketing, is the process of actively influencing and encouraging organic word of mouth discussion about a brand, organization, resource, or event.

To put it most simply, word of mouth marketers and advertisers seek to create something worth talking about and then actively encourage people to talk about it.

As we noted earlier, people love referrals  and they tend to trust the opinions of their friends when making purchasing decisions. Word of mouth advertising is essentially seeking to kickstart an exponential referral chain that drives continuous traffic, leads, and sales for the brand.

Word of Mouth Advertising Statistics: Why Does WOM Work So Effectively?

While some customer marketing tactics require a strong pitch, when it comes to word of mouth advertising, the statistics speak for themselves.

Just take a look at a few of the top statistics, and it doesn’t take long to see how powerful word-of-mouth marketing really is:

So what makes it work?

Essentially, it comes down to trust. People trust what others have to say, which means when they hear about something from a friend or previous consumer, they’re more likely to buy. But there’s more at work.

Studies by marketing expert Jonah Berger have found two driving factors that power WOM marketing content. These factors are social currency and triggers.

Top 2 Reasons Word-of-Mouth Marketing Works:

• Social Currency

Social currency relies on the idea of exclusivity. In short, we like to feel special. Hearing about an underground club or secret menu item triggers our need to belong to an exclusive group.

Accordingly, an easy way to encourage word of mouth discussion is through marketing strategies that pick up on the social currency factor, offering insider secrets or exclusive information (ex. secret menus). Triggers are a natural social mechanism that remind us about a brand or product even when we don’t see advertising.

For example, imagine your friend told you about a special happy hour deal on Tuesdays at a bar near your house. On Tuesday, when another friend mentions grabbing drinks after work, you will be triggered to remember the place you heard about with Tuesday specials. Tuesday becomes the trigger amplifying the effect of WOMM. In this way, word of mouth can also be a way to improve existing customer engagement strategies .

Word of mouth marketing & user-generated content

Another reason why word-of-mouth marketing works is because of the same principles that marketing with user-generated content is so successful.

User-generated content is voluntarily created and shared by everyday consumers, while word of mouth is the organic sharing of information or opinions about a product, company, or brand, from one consumer to the other.

One powerful type of user-generated content is reviews — and getting customers to write reviews is one way to facilitate the spread of word-of-mouth marketing. When potential shoppers read reviews, it builds customer trust by showing them that a verified customer offers their endorsement of your brand.

How to Build a Word of Mouth Marketing Strategy

Successful implementation of word of mouth campaigns can’t be accomplished via cookie cutter tactics.

There is an inherently creative element to the process that must be artfully and uniquely applied to each brand.

As I mentioned earlier, word of mouth promotion tends to incorporate two key components:

• Create something buzz-worthy
• Encourage the buzz

In other words, word of mouth promotion doesn’t simply attempt to get people excited about a business’ logistics, daily operations, or profit model.

The key to a successful word of mouth marketing strategy is to either identify something about a brand that can generate organic buzz OR create something that will generate that buzz.

To find out how to do this effectively, look to successful word of mouth marketing examples for inspiration.

Top 3 Word-of-Mouth Marketing Examples

One of the best ways to build a successful strategy of your own is by looking at what worked for other brands.

TOMS: Creating organic buzz by doing good

As you are no doubt aware, TOMS became a famous, massively profitably shoe company thanks to the viral popularity of their One-for-One business model.

When you buy one pair of shoes from TOMS, one pair is also donated to a child in need of shoes. This model was touted and received as a form of consumer-driven charity, and as a result, the company exploded, reaching a valuation of over $600 million in 2014.

In the cold reality of hard numbers, the Alpargatas shoes TOMS sells retail for around $2-5 in South America, indicating an incredibly low manufacturing cost.

With a price point of $60, its fair to say that TOMS shoes’ actual charity contributions are relatively marginal.

Despite this, TOMS realized that “company gives shoes to those in need every time you buy” made for a far more buzzworthy headline than “company donates money to poor people”.

As a result, the company focused its branding around this buzzworthy portion of its business model, and then blitzed the media with its message, generating tons of news coverage and hundreds of thousands of backlinks.

While TOMS opted to build its business model around something it could make buzzworthy, this isn’t an option for most businesses. Instead, these businesses have the opportunity to create something interesting that people will get excited about and then spread the word.

Chipotle: Creating WOM Buzz Through Storytelling

Casual dining chain Chipotle has somewhat distinguished itself being a national chain that sources its ingredients locally.

That said, “ingredients sourced locally” isn’t necessary something that is going to blow up anyone’s Facebook feed.

In order to spearhead word of mouth, Chipotle created a haunting video, with an accompanying iPhone app, depicting a dreary, over-processed world run by machinery.

The video and app combined have generated over 614 million media impressions, according to Cision, making it a major WOMM win for Chipotle.

You can make anything newsworthy with the right story. While local sourcing isn’t inherently newsworthy, the Chipotle marketing team made it newsworthy through a combination of art, storytelling, and a targeted media blitz.

Coca-cola “Share a Coke With Friends”: Omnichannel WOM

Coca-cola’s campaign asked for consumers to participate by sharing a personalized soda bottle with friends, in person and on social media.

Coca-cola even supported the campaign with events where consumers could create their own personalized Coke bottle.

Social media makes digital WOM marketing much easier, but real WOM marketing happens both on and off the web.

Build omnichannel WOM marketing with campaigns that encourage users to integrate information they gain about your product on and off the web.

Learning from these brands:

The processes from these examples can be repeated by virtually any company looking to generate grassroots word of mouth coverage of their brand.

When coming up with word of mouth marketing ideas, it’s important to see what worked for other successful brands.

Very few marketing strategies can match WOMM in terms of viral potential or cost-efficiency.

The right strategy can explode a company onto the scene for mere pennies, but it doesn’t just happen by itself.

Word of mouth marketing requires a genuine and meaningful customer engagement with the target audience. It’s a two-way participation.

Use the strategies we discussed here today, but remember that ultimately, it’s meaningful connection, rather than technique, that motivates customers to become brand ambassadors.

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Title: analyzing toxicity in deep conversations: a reddit case study.

Abstract: Online social media has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its ease of access and ability to connect with others. One of social media's main draws is its anonymity, allowing users to share their thoughts and opinions without fear of judgment or retribution. This anonymity has also made social media prone to harmful content, which requires moderation to ensure responsible and productive use. Several methods using artificial intelligence have been employed to detect harmful content. However, conversation and contextual analysis of hate speech are still understudied. Most promising works only analyze a single text at a time rather than the conversation supporting it. In this work, we employ a tree-based approach to understand how users behave concerning toxicity in public conversation settings. To this end, we collect both the posts and the comment sections of the top 100 posts from 8 Reddit communities that allow profanity, totaling over 1 million responses. We find that toxic comments increase the likelihood of subsequent toxic comments being produced in online conversations. Our analysis also shows that immediate context plays a vital role in shaping a response rather than the original post. We also study the effect of consensual profanity and observe overlapping similarities with non-consensual profanity in terms of user behavior and patterns.

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