Top 5 Case Study Killers

Case Studies are meant to help your prospects understand what you can do for them, through the eyes of your existing customers.

So don’t leave prospects in the dark with jargon, vagueness and confusion in your case studies. This will only give the impression that you’re as clueless about your proposition as they are.

Here are the top five mistakes to avoid in your case study literature:

Mistake number one: Jargon-filled headlines.

These are supposed to be eye-catching and compelling, drawing the reader in. Stuffing them with jargon, in the hope that this will make you look like an expert, will backfire. You will lose your reader immediately.

Instead, give your prospect an enticing, specific and quantifiable fact about your client’s success. Use a number. But use fewer than 8 words. And make them as Anglo-Saxon as possible without being offensive.

Mistake number two: Vague setting and context.

If you don’t describe the nature of your client’s business and the problem they were looking to solve, then anything else you present in the study will be meaningless.

Instead, paint the picture of your client’s situation as clearly and concisely as possible – using plain English. It only needs a couple of sentences to help the reader understand the context. Omit this and your case study will lack purpose.

Mistake number three: Confusing Challenge and Solution.

I recently came across one case study in which the business described their own challenge in meeting the customer’s requirements. This immediately undermined their expertise and left me wondering whether they knew what they were doing.

Instead, take care to present the challenge as the customer’s and the solution as yours to provide. More nuanced details about how you faced project issues together can be addressed, but not in such a way as to make you look incompetent.

Mistake number four: More Jargon!

Yawn. Just don’t do it.

Mistake number five: Seemingly implausible results

Without proper context and purpose any results you present in your study will appear implausible – even though they may be accurate!

Take care to explain how your solution met the challenge, then led to the results. Omit this sequence and it will appear as if you have plucked numbers out of thin air.