Case studies are powerful marketing collateral for companies.
Why?
Because if you select your subjects carefully, your prospects will say, “That subject is just like me. And the company’s solution solved the subject’s problem. Perhaps the solution will solve my problem also.”
Ideally a company would want to publish dozens of case studies, so their prospects could find one case study—or perhaps two or three—that describe the exact same problem the prospect is encountering.
It’s hard to create case studies
But case studies are by definition more difficult for a company to create.
- For other types of content, the approval process resides completely within the company itself.
- But case studies by definition require approval by two companies…even if the end customers in the case studies remain anonymous.
Perhaps that’s why there are so few published, recent case studies.
On Tuesday I had the occasion to visit four technology websites.
- One had 5 case studies, all written in 2024.
- One had 4 case studies, all written in 2023 and all anonymous.
- One had 8 case studies, all written in 2021.
- One had no case studies at all, even though the company had clients who could be referenced.
And the approvals don’t just involve the end customer.
A former friend interviewed many customers but was only able to complete one case study; the approvals from company legal, other company executives, and the end customers were overwhelming, delaying the other case studies.
So how do you expedite case study creation and approval?
Three tips for creating case studies
Here are three tips to expedite the creation of case studies.
Creation tip 1: Get the facts first
If the sales rep, program manager, or the subject itself can provide the basic facts beforehand, then the interview can simply consist of confirming facts and filling gaps.
Creation tip 2: Outline the case study and tell your story
Whether you use the STAR method (situation, task, action, result) or some other method (I prefer the simpler problem, solution, result), take the facts you gathered above. Then fit them into the outline and into the story you want to tell. Then see what pieces of the story are missing.
Creation tip 3: Obtain a meeting transcript
Since the subject has already consented to the case study, they should consent to the meeting being recorded.
The most efficient way to do this is with one of the popular AI note takers, which lets the case study writer review the actual words from the interview without going back and forth through a video recording.
And AI note takers are more efficient than the way I used to transcribe case study interviews.
Three tips for approving case studies
Here are three tips to expedite the approval of case studies.
Approval tip 1: Read the contract
The language of the contract with the subject may have clauses regarding publicity.
If the subject wrote the contract, then it may prohibit any promotional publicity whatsoever, or it may dictate that any publicity must be approved by a high-level governing board in a foreign country.
If the provisions are onerous or impossible, don’t use that subject and find another.
Approval tip 2: Get pre-approvals, or at least grease the wheels
Let your approvers know what’s coming, and when you think it will come.
Once I submitted a case study for pre-approval even before the results were available. This subject had a lengthy approval process, so I wanted the approvers to see the first part of the case study as soon as possible.
Approval tip 3: Use every ethical method to get those approvals
While the case study may be critically important to you, it may be merely important (or even inconsequential) to the lawyer with 50 other tasks.
From the lawyer’s perspective, it may be better if the company does NOT publish the case study. Fewer potential lawsuits that way.
Do everything you can to expedite the approval. If the CEO is demanding a published case study in three days, say so.
If not…well, that’s why you’re a salesperson. Oh, you’re NOT a salesperson? You are now.
One final tip
You don’t have to go it alone. If your staff is stretched, or if your staff has never written a case study before, Bredemarket can help. Visit my content for tech marketers page.
Bredemarket 
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