how to create killer case study

How to Create Killer Case Studies and 10 Examples to Learn From

Telling a story about how your product has helped a customer can greatly improve your lead generation efforts. This article provides insight into the best ways to create compelling SaaS studies.

Content Team

One thing that customers consider during the buying journey is—getting the most accurate information to influence their buying decisions.

What can be more powerful to convince prospects of your product solution than a compelling customer story? SaaS case studies are the most effective type of content that answers your prospect's most pressing questions.

In this article, we'll share the best strategic tips for creating killer case studies that will help to improve your brand’s credibility and showcase your product solution. We'll also provide 10 examples of SaaS case studies from well-known SaaS companies.

Firstly, let's explain what a case study is and why it is important for your business.

Table of contents

What is a case study.

• Why are case studies important for your business?

How to Write a SaaS case study

• 10 Examples of SaaS case studies

A case study is a piece of content that narrates the success a particular customer achieved with your product.

You can think of a case study as an additional marketing and sales tool that acts as social proof to improve your brand awareness while encouraging leads to become paying customers.

Why are SaaS case studies important for your business?

97% of companies say that real success stories impact their buying decisions more than traditional. This shows that a well-written SaaS case study is a valuable marketing tool that not just builds relationships with customers but also provides answers about your product that will make a customer journey less challenging.

If you have plenty of SaaS case studies then you have powerful marketing collateral that can change the trajectory of your marketing efforts. A compelling SaaS case study can:

• Boost your brand credibility and authenticity
• Showcase your product solution
• Provide a clear option for potential customers and improve their search for information

When it comes to writing a compelling saas case study, you need to set the right systems and processes to make it successful. The process of creating a case study is divided into three stages:

• The foundational stage
• Structure stage

Distribution stage

In this section, we'll explain each of these stages and how to use the insight to create a compelling case study for your saas business.

Foundational stage

As the name implies—this stage is everything from setting goals, to finding the right customer for your case study. Let's dig deeper into the necessary steps you can take in this stage.

1. Figure out the goal of your case study

Before you begin writing a handful of SaaS case studies, you need to figure out the purpose of the content piece.

Do you want to increase website traffic? Or do you want to build trust with B2B buyers? Once you figure out what you want to achieve from your case studies, you can start planning your case study in a way that aligns with the interest of your audience.

Other reasons for writing a case study include:

• To nurture potential customers
• To educate your ideal customer persona about your product

Setting the right goals is the key to laying a solid foundation for a compelling case study.

2. Find the ideal customer that'll participate

This process is crucial because you need an authentic source to write a great SaaS case study. So, how do you identify the right customer? While every customer is unique, each of them might not have a compelling story worth sharing.

The right customer is the person that is a loyal advocate for your business and has derived maximum benefit from your product. If the process of finding the right customer is confusing, you can ask your customer success, marketing, and sales teams for recommendations.

That being said, we have outlined some criteria for choosing the ideal customer for writing your SaaS case studies.

• Customers who share your product solution on social media platforms
• Customers that have written a review after a satisfactory experience with your product
• Customers who actively use your product

3. Gather background information

Once you have chosen the ideal customer for your case study, you need to gather enough background information. This includes details about the customer, their industry, and the problem that you hope to address.

To get the best results, you can ask your customer directly about what you need. You can set up an email series with a customer and ask for some information. Or you can send a survey via in-app messages to know about their pain points.

Structuring your saas case studies

The truth is that writing SaaS case studies are all about telling a good story. A customer story that captures your audience's attention, helps to visualize themselves in the story.  

4. Create an outline

After you’ve gathered enough information for your case study, you need to start working on an outline.

Each section of your outline should include:

• A compelling headline with a maximum of 70 characters
• A short introduction with approximately 100-150 words. That gives a short overview of your customer, the opportunities they see in your product, and the success they achieved
• A problem statement that highlights customer pain points
• Solution statement  highlighting your customer’s decision process  that led to your product
• The outcome
• Well designed visuals

5. Tell a story

Think of your case study as a story, not a report. This involves taking numeric data, a compelling narrative, and quotes and weaving them into a compelling customer story.

Ensure that quotes from your customers are included creatively and blend well with the overall design.  

6. Keep it short

Brevity is key when creating your SaaS case studies. While you aim to write a compelling story, you also need to keep your customer story clear and focused without rambling.

Include bullet points, short paragraphs, and subheadings to make your content easy to read.

7. Highlight the customer not your product

While it may be tempting to showcase the awesomeness of your product, you need to remember that potential customers don’t want to hear about your product. They expect to hear what customers think about your product solution.

For this reason, you need to share your story from your customer’s point of view by including direct quotes and the results they achieved from your product.

After structuring your case study accordingly, it's time to share it with the world. You can turn it into a lead magnet, or upload it to your website.

10 examples of SaaS case studies

This case study by Gong instantly highlights Drift's major challenge and how Gong helped the company to solve it.

Even more, the case study includes customer quotes, and short paragraphs and reads like a conversational copy that makes the content piece more engaging.

Buffer's case study includes well-designed graphics and immediately shows how Campaign Monitor was able to use the platform to solve a major problem.

This case study is well-formatted and highlights customer results. It also includes relevant quotes from many employees to help potential customers understand how Heap provided a solution to their problems.

This case study from DataBox starts with a compelling headline that highlights customer results (saving 40hours per week). The study's two content formats (video and transcript) provide options for prospects.

5. Chilipiper

Just like DataBox, Chilipiper also starts its case study with a compelling headline that highlights customer results (300% revenue increase). The study combines numerical data and a compelling story to engage prospects.

6. Typeform

This case study from Typeform includes customer quotes to reveal the benefits they have gotten from the platform. It also includes actionable tips for prospects to replicate their positive outcome.

Drift's case study includes quotes from many employees to highlight the benefit the product provides. The content also includes great design and applies a more conversational approach.

8. Amazon web services

This case study provides visuals, customer quotes, and subheadings to the content easy to grasp while highlighting value.

In this SaaS case study , HubSpot reveals how Airstream generated 78% more leads with its platform. The study is well-formatted and includes relevant customer quotes as well as visuals.

Slack starts its case study with a compelling headline and customer quotes that make the content a great story. It reveals customer problems and how the Slack platform was able to provide a solution.

SaaS case studies are useful marketing resources that can not just shorten the customer journey but also increase conversions. Use the strategic tips mentioned above to help you create a compelling case study for your business.

Remember you need to establish the purpose of your case study and gather concrete information on the ideal customer. Then use the customer data to create a customer story that aligns with your prospect's interests.

With Engage, you can send emails, SMS, push notifications, and In-app messages that convert. Get started for free.

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How to Make Killer Video Case Studies

Everyone loves a good story. Maybe that’s why video case studies are popular. Case studies are stories that give us insight, provide a behind-the-scenes look, and introduce us to real people at a real company. Many businesses use case studies to show how their products and services are making an impact on their customers. They can document new product development, or show how a company has made improvements, changed corporate culture, or leveraged resources for the benefit of a community.

We’ll explore every facet of video case studies, breaking down what they are, how to make them, and what makes a successful one. We’ll also provide you with case study video examples as well as tips for making effective videos that will drive results.

Key Takeaways

What is a video case study?

A video case study is a compelling audiovisual presentation that tells the story of how a particular product, service, or solution positively impacted a real-world customer or client. It typically features interviews with the customer, highlights their challenges and goals, and showcases how the featured product or service provided a solution and delivered measurable benefits.

Video case studies are powerful marketing tools, as they build trust, demonstrate credibility, and provide potential customers with real-life examples of successful outcomes, ultimately influencing their purchasing decisions.

What are the benefits of video case studies?

The truth is, consumers want more video content. In a 2023 study from Wyzowl , 91% of respondents claimed that they wanted more video content from brands. So why not give the people what they want? On top of that, using case study videos can offer several significant benefits for a business:

• Credibility and trust: Case study videos showcase real-life success stories, demonstrating that your products or services have delivered tangible benefits to satisfied customers. This builds trust and credibility with potential clients or customers.
• Engagement: Videos are inherently engaging and can captivate your audience better than text or static images. Case study videos allow you to tell a compelling narrative, keeping viewers interested in your content.
• Demonstration of expertise: Through case studies, you can showcase your expertise and industry knowledge. They establish you as an authority in your field and position your business as a go-to solution provider.
• Problem-solution narrative: Case study videos often follow a problem-solution structure, helping potential customers identify with the challenges presented and visualize how your product or service can solve their own problems.
• Personal connection: Including customer interviews or testimonials in your videos adds a personal touch. Prospective clients can relate to real people who have benefited from your offerings, making your brand more relatable.
• Versatility: Case study videos can be shared across various platforms, such as your website, social media, email marketing, and presentations. This versatility ensures that your success stories reach a wide audience.
• Measurable impact: Case study videos can include data and metrics that demonstrate the concrete results achieved by your clients. This evidence of ROI can be particularly persuasive.
• Lead generation: Well-optimized case study videos can serve as valuable lead magnets, attracting potential customers who are actively seeking solutions to problems similar to those addressed in your videos.
• Storytelling: Effective storytelling in case study videos helps create an emotional connection with your audience, making your brand more memorable and relatable.

Incorporating case study videos into your marketing strategy can have a profound impact on your business by fostering trust, engagement, and conversions while showcasing your expertise and the real-world benefits of your products or services.

Are there different types of video case studies?

As with any genre of film or video production, there are some commonalities in style and tone you’ll see as you delve into that genre. The same holds true with video case studies, where there are several common types you will encounter.

Product/Service Reviews

Purpose: Product or service review case study videos aim to provide an in-depth analysis of your offering’s features, functionality, and benefits. These videos offer an objective evaluation and often serve as informative resources for potential customers.

• Introduction: Begin with an introduction to the product or service being reviewed.
• Features and Benefits: Highlight key features and benefits, explaining how they address specific needs or pain points.
• Demonstration: Showcase the product or service in action through practical demonstrations.
• User Experience: Share real user experiences, feedback, and opinions.
• Comparison (optional): Sometimes, a review may compare your offering with competitors to illustrate its advantages.
• Conclusion: Summarize the review, emphasizing the overall value and why viewers should consider your product or service.

Audience: These videos are geared toward potential customers who are actively researching your product or service. They seek detailed information to make an informed purchase decision.

Benefits: Product/service review case study videos build trust and transparency with your audience. They offer an unbiased evaluation and help potential customers understand how your offering can meet their needs.

• Testimonials

Purpose: Testimonial case study videos feature satisfied customers or clients sharing their personal experiences and success stories with your product or service. These videos serve as powerful social proof, demonstrating real-world benefits.

• Introduction: Introduce the customer or client who will provide the testimonial.
• Problem: Describe the challenges or issues the customer faced before using your product or service.
• Solution: Explain how your offering addressed those challenges.
• Benefits: Highlight the specific results, improvements, or positive outcomes achieved.
• Recommendation: Conclude with the customer’s recommendation or endorsement of your product or service.

Audience: Testimonial case study videos are effective for a broad audience, particularly those in the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey. They provide credibility and build trust.

Benefits: Testimonial videos offer authenticity and credibility, showcasing real customers who have benefited from your offering. They help potential customers relate to others with similar needs and challenges.

Narrative Case Studies

Purpose: Narrative case study videos are storytelling-focused. They aim to engage viewers emotionally by presenting a compelling narrative that highlights a customer’s journey from problem to solution, often emphasizing the transformational aspects.

• Introduction: Set the stage by introducing the customer or client and their unique situation.
• Challenge: Describe the significant challenges or pain points the customer faced.
• Journey: Take viewers on the customer’s journey, emphasizing their struggles and emotional experiences.
• Solution: Reveal how your product or service came into play, providing a solution and sparking change.
• Transformation: Showcase the transformation or positive outcomes that occurred as a result.
• Conclusion: Conclude with a powerful message that resonates emotionally and reinforces your product or service’s role.

Audience: Narrative case study videos are particularly effective for creating an emotional connection with viewers. They engage a wide range of audiences, including those in the awareness and consideration stages.

Benefits: These videos go beyond showcasing features and benefits; they create an emotional connection. Narrative case study videos are memorable and can inspire action by demonstrating the profound impact of your offering on a customer’s life or business.

Each type of case study video serves a unique purpose and engages different aspects of your audience’s decision-making process. Depending on your goals and the subject matter, one of these case study styles should help you convey the message you’re trying to get across.

How to make a video case study

Case studies as a rule won’t necessarily follow an exact timeline or template, but in general, the following steps are typically part of the video case study production process.

1. Planning and Pre-production

Before diving into the video production process , it’s crucial to lay a solid foundation. Start by clearly defining your objectives for the case study video. Identify the specific goals you want to achieve, such as increasing brand awareness, showcasing product effectiveness, or driving conversions.

Selecting the right client or customer is a pivotal step. Choose someone who has a compelling story to tell and has experienced significant benefits from your product or service. Gather initial information about their experience and challenges to ensure they align with your goals.

Set clear goals and key messages you want to convey through the case study. These messages will guide the direction of your video. Assemble your team, which may include videographers, editors, and interviewers, and develop a production timeline to keep the project on track. Don’t forget to secure any necessary permissions and releases from your client and any individuals featured in the video.

2. Research and Interviews

With your pre-production work complete, it’s time to dive into the research phase. Conduct in-depth interviews with your chosen client or customer. These interviews should yield insightful testimonials that highlight the impact of your product or service.

During the interviews, aim to identify the pain points and challenges your client faced before using your solution. Document their journey in detail, from their initial struggles to the moment they found your product or service. Equally important is to capture how your solution addressed these challenges and the benefits it provided.

Supporting data and metrics are key to substantiating your case study. Collect relevant statistics, customer feedback, or any measurable results that reinforce the success story. Build a storyboard or outline for your video, which will serve as the roadmap for the narrative you want to convey.

3. Filming and Production

The production phase involves bringing your case study to life through video. Start by meticulously planning the video shoot. This includes location scouting to find suitable settings, setting up equipment, and assembling your production team if necessary.

Conduct interviews with your client to capture their story authentically. Additionally, capture B-roll footage that complements the narrative. Ensure that you maintain high-quality audio and visuals throughout the shoot to create a professional and engaging video.

Consistency in branding and style is essential. Your case study video should align with your brand’s identity and values. If needed, shoot additional footage to fill any gaps and enhance the overall storytelling.

4. Post-production

After filming, the post-production phase is where the pieces come together to create a cohesive and compelling video. Begin by reviewing all the footage and selecting the best clips that tell the story effectively.

The editing process is crucial. Arrange the footage in a way that builds a compelling narrative, starting with the problem and progressing to the solution. Add supporting graphics, text, and data to provide context and enhance viewer understanding. Pay close attention to enhancing visual and audio quality to maintain professionalism.

Incorporate music or voiceover, if appropriate and necessary for the narrative. Test the video for clarity and impact, and obtain feedback from stakeholders to ensure the final product aligns with your goals and objectives.

5. Finalization and Distribution

With the video edited and polished, it’s time for finalization and distribution. Add branding elements and a clear call to action that guides viewers on what to do next.

Consider creating different versions of the video, such as shorter snippets for social media and a longer, more detailed version for your website or email marketing.

Optimize the video for search engines if you plan to host it online. Set up a dedicated landing page or platform for hosting the video.

Develop a distribution plan that outlines how and where you’ll share the video, ensuring it reaches your target audience effectively.

6. Monitoring and Analysis

Once the video is live, your work isn’t over. Track key video metrics such as views, engagement (likes, shares, comments), and conversions. Collect feedback from your audience to gauge their response and make improvements for future videos.

Evaluate the video’s impact on your defined objectives. Did it drive the desired results, whether that’s increased brand awareness or conversions? Use this analysis to refine your future video case studies.

7. Post-Release Engagement

Stay engaged with your audience after releasing the video. Respond promptly to comments and questions on social media and other platforms where the video is shared. Encourage viewers to share their own experiences or thoughts related to the case study.

8. Case Study Promotion

Highlight the case study video prominently on your website. Incorporate it into sales presentations and pitches to showcase real success stories. Leverage the video in email marketing campaigns to engage with your subscribers. Share it across all relevant social media channels and communities, harnessing the power of social proof to influence potential customers.

By following these outlined steps, you’ll be well-prepared to create a captivating and effective video case study that not only tells a compelling story but also drives results for your business.

10 top tips for video case studies that succeed

Now that you have a solid background on the fundamentals of case studies and how to bring them to life in video, let’s dig a little deeper and discuss some of the keys to creating winning case studies.

Find an engaging story

Find a story with depth to carry the video. We have all been to movies or read a book where the plot is thin or non-existent. A video case study needs to have a plot. It can’t be business as usual; something needs to happen, or no one will care. Is there a problem that was solved? Did you find a better way to accomplish a task? Break into new markets? It helps if the story is about a company or individual whose name people know. Of course, that might not be possible. An interesting, smaller company or unique person can also be engaging.

Camera-friendly interviewees

Video case studies often include real people. The engineer or scientist who made an amazing discovery. The shop floor worker who found a better way to make a product. The customer service representative who solved a problem. People do great work, but can they be engaging on camera? Look for those who are excited to tell their story. Watch to see if they have good eye contact and answer questions concisely. Most people need some coaching, so be sure you have a professional interviewer. They will put people at ease and know when they hear that perfect soundbite.

Choose the right format

There are several formats that can work to make great case studies. Interesting interviews can carry a story by weaving them together. This requires a well-thought-out storyline and a producer who knows how to get interviews that tell the complete story.

A second option is to combine narrative and soundbites. We pick the most interesting soundbites and then write narrative transitions as needed. Narrative can be helpful because it shortens up and crystallizes what might be lengthy explanations by interviewees.

The final option is all narrative. This gives you complete control of the story and the video production supports it.

Great visuals

You know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words?” It’s true. Sometimes it’s easy to capture visuals. People working on cool machines. A bustling office or factory. A time-lapse of something being built or installed. Think about the visual opportunities you have to support the content of the interviews. At CK and CO, we can help decide what to shoot… and how to “make video” when the settings are limited.

Use motion graphics

Some video case studies are about concepts or elements that cannot be seen. Take, for example, the transfer of data to the cloud. You can’t see it, but you know it happens. Motion graphics can illustrate things we can’t see or visualize complex processes and procedures. They can also spice up videos to make them even more appealing.

Impressive results

Viewers love “wow” statistics. As you tell your story, it’s important to share tangible results. For example:

Did you reduce costs by 30% or increase productivity?

Did you get a return on your investment in half the projected time?

Have you improved employee retention by 20%?

You get the idea. Brag about what you have achieved. Sometimes, it is too soon to know the results of your story. In that case, you might include a vision statement about what you hope to achieve.

High content. Short timeframe.

We live in a world where Twitter and Instagram have influenced how we consume information. Whether or not you use these tools the mindset today is, “give it to me now, give it to me fast and don’t make me think about it.” As a result, your viewers expect a video case study that provides high content in a short timeframe. Every word is important, and when coupled with great visuals, you can get your message across in far less time than you might think.

Create alternate versions of the same story.

Meaty stories beg for more time. The truth is that audiences vary in how much time they are willing to devote to a video. At CK and CO, we often create several versions of a case study using the same raw video. We might create a longer piece (5:00-6:00) for use in a face-to-face opportunity. That same video content can be cut down to a shorter video (2:30-3:00) for use on a website. One length does not fit all. If you have spent the time and money to capture the story, consider your options.

Tease your video case study

Just as filmmakers cut movie trailers to generate interest in a film, you can “tease” your video case study. We often pull short compelling soundbites and package them into media shorts. These :15-:30 videos end with a call to action to view the entire video.

Add a whitepaper

While it’s true that many people prefer video to print, don’t miss an opportunity. Create a short whitepaper to accompany your video case study. The whitepaper should not be a transcript of the video, but instead should complement it. This is the place for highly technical elements and background information that does not translate well to video.

Video case studies are an effective tool for engaging potential customers and telling your company’s story. So, consider how you might use them to tell your story.

Where to use video case studies

We discussed this briefly above in the “how to” section, but it’s worth revisiting in more detail. Once you’ve put the finishing touches on your case study video you need to get it out to the world. But where exactly should you be promoting it?

1. Your Website

Embed the video case study prominently on your website’s homepage or a dedicated landing page to make it easily accessible to visitors. Having a dedicated section or page for all your case studies can provide a convenient reference point for interested prospects.

2. Social Media

Share the video on your compa ny’s social media profiles, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. Optimize the video for each platform’s specifications, and actively engage with your audience through comments, likes, and shares to increase its visibility and reach.

3. Email Marketing

Include the video case study in your email marketing campaigns, especially when targeting segments of your email list interested in the topic. Additionally, use the video in email signatures to add a dynamic touchpoint to your email correspondence.

4. Sales and Marketing Presentations

Integrate the video into your sales pitches and marketing presentations. By doing so, you can provide real-world examples of your product or service’s success, which can be highly persuasive during client interactions.

5. Content Marketing

Incorporate the video into your content marketing strategy by using it in blog posts, articles, or other written content related to the case study’s topic. You can also create teaser content from snippets or excerpts of the video to pique the interest of your audience and direct them to the full video for more in-depth information.

These strategic placements will help you maximize the visibility and impact of your video case study across different channels and engage your target audience effectively.

Case study video examples worth watching

Want to see some effective case study video examples? We’ve put together a short list here with some key takeaways and tips for video case studies that might prove helpful as you look to create your next video masterpiece.

Video case study example 1

• Quick summary: Queen City Candy has a sweet history that spans more than three decades as a buyer, packager and reseller of candy and confections to customers throughout the world. But in 2015 the company began manufacturing candy – all thanks to Siemens automation.
• Why it works: The visuals help guide this video as the interviewees describe their challenge and how Siemens helped them discover a solution. It’s impossible to look away while colorful candy floats across the screen. Not to mention the impressive results, like a 40% increase in sales thanks to Siemens technology.
• Key takeaway(s): Outcomes and visuals are a critical component of any video case study.

Video case study example 2

• What do you do when your company name and identity no longer reflect what you do? You change your name and update your brand with a new look. But there is still work to be done. You need to communicate the changes to your existing customers and attract new ones once rebranding efforts are completed.
• Why it works: This piece uses compelling motion graphics and narrative to create a short, simplified message. It helps the viewer see that Marana group knows their struggles when it comes to breaking through the noise and getting their message to prospective customers. It then shares how Marana group can help.
• Key takeaway(s): Simple graphics and messaging are key to the success of this case study. A topic than can be complex to share is made simple thanks to motion graphics.

Video case study example 3

• Quick summary: Vibrant cities require reliable, convenient and comfortable transportation systems. Get a look at the Charlotte Streetcar and see how the 4-mile-long streetcar line connects the Historic West End through Center City Charlotte to the Elizabeth neighborhood. This Siemens Mobility project shows how transportation is the lifeblood of a community. 
• Why it works: With this case study, viewers understand how the Charlotte Streetcar is helping bring a city together – connecting diverse neighborhoods and making them more accessible for all. It also highlights the key features and benefits the city has come to appreciate from the Siemens Mobility Streetcar.
• Key takeaway(s): Customers are often your biggest promoter – if you have a project that has gone well, further build the relationship by sharing the story together with your customers.

Cynthia Kay

Cynthia Kay founded Cynthia Kay and Company media production 35 years ago. The company produces communications for organizations from Fortune Global 100 to small businesses. A graduate of Michigan State University, Kay holds a master’s in communications from Western Michigan University. She is the Past Board Chair of the Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM) and the National Small Business Association (NSBA). Cynthia has been honored with many awards including numerous Tellys and Woman Owned Small Business Supplier of the Year from Siemens in 2018. She has been named One of West Michigan’s 50 Most Influential Women 5 times. She is also the recipient of over 30 broadcast awards from UPI, AP and other news organizations.

• Cynthia Kay https://thinkck.com/author/cynthiakay/ How to Make Corporate Videos More Interesting
• Cynthia Kay https://thinkck.com/author/cynthiakay/ Different Types of Animation
• Cynthia Kay https://thinkck.com/author/cynthiakay/ Video Production Process FAQ
• Cynthia Kay https://thinkck.com/author/cynthiakay/ Video Preproduction: Common Questions and Costly Mistakes to Avoid

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How to Create a Killer Case Study Video – 7 Tips

A case study video, also known as a testimonial video, is a great way to show your customers that your product or service actually works for real people like them.  It also allows them to picture themselves having the same success.  Here are our top tips for creating engaging and effective case study videos:

1. Keep your case study videos short

In the age of online viewing, where there is so much content to compete with, the golden rule is that ‘less is more’. 1 minute is a great length for a case study video.  It’s just enough time to showcase the all the key elements of the story, whilst keeping it short enough to maintain the viewer’s attention.

1 minute also works for social media channels, including Instagram, which has a 60 second limit.  Creating a 1 minute video means you won’t have to re-edit your films for these platforms

1. Consider batch filming   

The most cost-effective way to create case studies is to batch film.  Production costs are based on daily filming rates, so it’s best to film all your case studies in one day to keep costs down.  There will also be economies of scale in the edit process.

Filming case studies on location

There are generally two ways of filming case study videos.  The first option is to do the filming ‘on location’.  This means going to the customer to get atmospheric shots of the them to illustrate the interview and make it visual and engaging.  For example, if you were filming an engineer recruitment case study, seeing shots of the engineer at work, on location, on a production line would be more engaging than just an interview of them at your offices.

If you are filming on location, it will usually take 2 to 3 hours to film each story.  If the customers are within reasonable driving distance apart, you could film around 3 per day.

Bringing your customers to you to film

The second way to film a batch of case studies is to bring all the interviewees to one location.  You can film a lot more (up to 10 a day) with this method. The location could be your offices, or you could even tag the filming onto an event that your customers will be attending.

With this method, you won’t get visuals of them to illustrate the interview.  One way of getting around this is to use photographs to illustrate the interview.

Here’s an example of a case study video that we created for an aviation training customer using interviews filmed at their open day event and photographs:

3. Choose the right customer

When considering which case studies to pick for your videos, there are a number of important factors to consider.

Think about you target audience

The first question to ask yourself is ‘who is my target audience?’.  For example, for a training company that up- skill women who have had a career break, a woman aged 35 to 50 who is getting back to work after having children, would be a good subject.

Chose strong stories

Next you have to think about finding a strong story.  You’re looking for someone who is enthusiastic about your product or service.  You also need a customer whose journey clearly demonstrates the benefits of your business. For example, a digital marketing company would be looking for a customer that has experienced significant growth in the business, as a direct result of the company’s work.

Find a good talker

Once you have some good stories to consider, you’ll need to think about choosing a customer who is a good talker.  You’re looking for someone who is warm and can talk openly, from the heart. If you have someone who has a strong story on paper, but they have told you they aren’t confident and probably wouldn’t enjoy the experience, then it would be advisable to find a more confident talker with a slightly less strong story.

Consider diversity

The last thing to consider is about reflecting diversity in your case studies.  If you were doing three case studies about apprenticeships, you’d want to choose three different industries to showcase.   For example, a retail role, an office-based role and a construction role.  It’s also a good idea to consider representing a varied mix of ethnicity and genders in your case studies.  You might also consider trying to challenge gender stereotypes, where possible, like this apprentice case study video that features a female electrician:

4. Use a simple structure

The basic elements of a case study story are:

• Background – who they are and what they do
• The problem – what was the situation before they got involved with your company and what was the problem that needed to be solved?
• The solution – what your company did for them and what was their experience of working with you
• The outcome – what benefits have they seen a result of your work

5. Don’t send the interview questions in advance

When it comes to the shoot day, it’s important to get the most out of your client in interview.  A top tip here is to NEVER to send interview questions in advance.  This is because if people prepare, they are likely to sound scripted and wooden on camera.  People will usually ask for interview questions, so give them a rough idea of the themes and explain they will sound more authentic if they don’t prepare their answers in advance.

6. Include a Call to Action

It’s a great idea to include a clear call to action at the end of your video.  Whether it be a phone number, website URL or email address, make sure you use this opportunity to speak to your target audience whilst they are engaged.

7. Get your case study videos seen!

As well as creating the case study videos, you’ll need to think about a strategy to ensure people see them!

In the first instance, you’ll want to put a case study on your website but make sure it’s in the right place. For example, it would be more effective to place a case study on the webpage that outlines one of your key services, as opposed to placing it on a generic web page called ‘Videos’.

Optimise your video for social media

Publish your videos on social media but make sure they are correctly formatted for sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  The first thing to consider is that most social media videos are viewed without sound.  According to a study, 85% percent of Facebook videos are viewed without sound .  This means you’ll need to add captions.

You may also consider editing your videos so they are a 1×1 square format for mobile viewing, although this will cost more in post-production.

Show your case study video at events

Remember to show your case study videos at events, pitches and presentations.  Breaking up presentations with a short video is a great way to engage the audience and demonstrate the value of your work.

Bounce Video is run by BAFTA-winning former BBC Producer, Grace Gibbons , and specialises in helping businesses of all sizes create compelling case studies. You can find out more information about our case study video packages here.

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How to Write a Killer Case Study Intro

The blinking cursor of death….

You’ve read the client brief, recorded the interview, and found the perfect case study template. Now you’re sitting in front of your computer with a strong cup of coffee (your most important writing tool), and you’re ready to crank out a killer case study.

But where do you begin?

Oftentimes, the hardest part of writing a case study (other than putting together the headline, which we’ll cover in another post) is just getting started. How do you find that perfect hook to pull in the reader?

In this article, you’ll learn about the only three things you need to create a perfect case study intro every time.

1. Make it personal

The first thing you need to remember is that your case study isn’t actually about the client you interviewed, nor is it about your company; it’s about your readers.

The goal of your case is to create a stirring testimonial that (A) your readers identify with, and (B) overcomes their pain points and objections. That means every sentence you write and every quote you include should be specially selected to win the hearts and minds of your audience.

So it should go without saying that understanding your readership is essential.

When you know your audience, you’ll be able to set the scene more provocatively. Describe your interviewee in such a way that it’s easy for your target reader to see themselves in, and then do the same with the challenges they faced.

DO NOT just rattle off the boilerplate company description for your client – you can let a sidebar description do that for you. Instead, dive right in by bringing the person inside of the organization – their goals, needs, frustrations and responsibilities – into the spotlight.

If your readers can visualize themselves with your solution, your case study is a success.

To make your intro more personal…

• Keep your exposition on the client’s company short and to the point; let the customer’s quotes and the sidebar do the heavy lifting.
• Describe your interviewee in a way that makes them relatable to your target audience.
• Elaborate on your client’s pain points and make them feel RAW; your readers are probably struggling with the same problems. Don’t settle for inspecific problems!

2. Make a promise your readers will care about

The intro to one of my favorite fairy tales reads, “Once upon a time there was a poor tailor who could barely feed his twelve children. When the thirteenth was born, the distraught man ran out to the road nearby determined to find someone to stand as godfather to the child.”

This intro succinctly establishes three things:

• An identifiable character (i.e. the poor tailor)
• Pain points (i.e. the tailor is poor)
• A narrative arc (i.e. what will happen to the child)

In writing your case study intro, you need to accomplish these three things as economically as the Brothers Grimm: identify your client, describe their challenges, and then promise to show off your results by study’s end.

Usually, you want to show off your most dramatic result in your headline, and then promise to reveal how you achieved that result in your intro. Your promise should be something your readers are interested in to spur them onward.

To weave a narrative into your intro…

• Write as if you’re telling a particularly captivating bedtime story—keep your language simple, and always keep the ‘plot’ moving forward.
• Tease your results, but don’t give them all away! It’s okay to use the headline to hammer home a huge stat that people will care about (the “so what?” of your study) – but keep in mind that the details will be just as juicy for those with the same problem.

3. Let your client do the talking (or: remember, this isn’t about YOU )

Nobody clicks on a case study to read ‘Company X’ drone on and on about how great they are. They came for the testimonials of your clients, so the sooner you get to good stuff, the better.

Importantly, that means this isn’t a monologue.

Best practice is to keep your intro short. You have 1-2 short paragraphs to set the scene and establish a problem, and then it’s time to hand the reins over to your interviewee. Try to interject as little as possible for the duration of your case study.

That said, your intro will have more exposition than any other part of your case study. Make sure you set up who the client is, why your readers should care about them, and what challenges they faced. Then it’s time to shut up and let your interviewee speak for themselves.

To cram more info into the fewest words possible…

• Only use exposition to set the scene and to glue quotes together into a cohesive narrative.
• Let your interviewee describe the challenges they faced in their own words.
• Make sure every interjection adds new info or moves the story forward; never just regurgitate your client’s words.

With just a bit of thinking and planning, you can get that intro locked and loaded, and get into the meat of the study where heroes are born and monsters are felled.

Just don’t trip on your way there.

Joel Klettke

Joel founded Case Study Buddy to bring companies an end-to-end partner in tackling the challenges of case studies and testimonials. He's passionate about seeing B2B companies systematize, scale, and reap the rewards of customer success stories.

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How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: November 30, 2023

Earning the trust of prospective customers can be a struggle. Before you can even begin to expect to earn their business, you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver on what your product or service promises.

Sure, you could say that you're great at X or that you're way ahead of the competition when it comes to Y. But at the end of the day, what you really need to win new business is cold, hard proof.

One of the best ways to prove your worth is through a compelling case study. In fact, HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report found that case studies are so compelling that they are the fifth most commonly used type of content used by marketers.

Below, I'll walk you through what a case study is, how to prepare for writing one, what you need to include in it, and how it can be an effective tactic. To jump to different areas of this post, click on the links below to automatically scroll.

Case Study Definition

Case study templates, how to write a case study.

• How to Format a Case Study

Business Case Study Examples

A case study is a specific challenge a business has faced, and the solution they've chosen to solve it. Case studies can vary greatly in length and focus on several details related to the initial challenge and applied solution, and can be presented in various forms like a video, white paper, blog post, etc.

In professional settings, it's common for a case study to tell the story of a successful business partnership between a vendor and a client. Perhaps the success you're highlighting is in the number of leads your client generated, customers closed, or revenue gained. Any one of these key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of your company's services in action.

When done correctly, these examples of your work can chronicle the positive impact your business has on existing or previous customers and help you attract new clients.

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.

Why write a case study? 

I know, you’re thinking “ Okay, but why do I need to write one of these? ” The truth is that while case studies are a huge undertaking, they are powerful marketing tools that allow you to demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers using real-world examples. Here are a few reasons why you should write case studies. 

1. Explain Complex Topics or Concepts

Case studies give you the space to break down complex concepts, ideas, and strategies and show how they can be applied in a practical way. You can use real-world examples, like an existing client, and use their story to create a compelling narrative that shows how your product solved their issue and how those strategies can be repeated to help other customers get similar successful results.  

2. Show Expertise

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a given topic or industry. This is where you get the opportunity to show off your problem-solving skills and how you’ve generated successful outcomes for clients you’ve worked with. 

3. Build Trust and Credibility

In addition to showing off the attributes above, case studies are an excellent way to build credibility. They’re often filled with data and thoroughly researched, which shows readers you’ve done your homework. They can have confidence in the solutions you’ve presented because they’ve read through as you’ve explained the problem and outlined step-by-step what it took to solve it. All of these elements working together enable you to build trust with potential customers.

4. Create Social Proof

Using existing clients that have seen success working with your brand builds social proof . People are more likely to choose your brand if they know that others have found success working with you. Case studies do just that — putting your success on display for potential customers to see. 

All of these attributes work together to help you gain more clients. Plus you can even use quotes from customers featured in these studies and repurpose them in other marketing content. Now that you know more about the benefits of producing a case study, let’s check out how long these documents should be. 

How long should a case study be?

The length of a case study will vary depending on the complexity of the project or topic discussed. However, as a general guideline, case studies typically range from 500 to 1,500 words. 

Whatever length you choose, it should provide a clear understanding of the challenge, the solution you implemented, and the results achieved. This may be easier said than done, but it's important to strike a balance between providing enough detail to make the case study informative and concise enough to keep the reader's interest.

The primary goal here is to effectively communicate the key points and takeaways of the case study. It’s worth noting that this shouldn’t be a wall of text. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, charts, and other graphics to break up the content and make it more scannable for readers. We’ve also seen brands incorporate video elements into case studies listed on their site for a more engaging experience. 

Ultimately, the length of your case study should be determined by the amount of information necessary to convey the story and its impact without becoming too long. Next, let’s look at some templates to take the guesswork out of creating one. 

To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we've put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business with free case study templates for creating your own.

Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today:

And to give you more options, we’ll highlight some useful templates that serve different needs. But remember, there are endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the work your business has done.

1. General Case Study Template

Do you have a specific product or service that you’re trying to sell, but not enough reviews or success stories? This Product Specific case study template will help.

This template relies less on metrics, and more on highlighting the customer’s experience and satisfaction. As you follow the template instructions, you’ll be prompted to speak more about the benefits of the specific product, rather than your team’s process for working with the customer.

4. Bold Social Media Business Case Study Template

You can find templates that represent different niches, industries, or strategies that your business has found success in — like a bold social media business case study template.

In this template, you can tell the story of how your social media marketing strategy has helped you or your client through collaboration or sale of your service. Customize it to reflect the different marketing channels used in your business and show off how well your business has been able to boost traffic, engagement, follows, and more.

5. Lead Generation Business Case Study Template

It’s important to note that not every case study has to be the product of a sale or customer story, sometimes they can be informative lessons that your own business has experienced. A great example of this is the Lead Generation Business case study template.

If you’re looking to share operational successes regarding how your team has improved processes or content, you should include the stories of different team members involved, how the solution was found, and how it has made a difference in the work your business does.

Now that we’ve discussed different templates and ideas for how to use them, let’s break down how to create your own case study with one.

• Get started with case study templates.
• Determine the case study's objective.
• Establish a case study medium.
• Find the right case study candidate.
• Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.
• Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
• Download a case study email template.
• Define the process you want to follow with the client.
• Ensure you're asking the right questions.
• Layout your case study format.
• Publish and promote your case study.

1. Get started with case study templates.

Telling your customer's story is a delicate process — you need to highlight their success while naturally incorporating your business into their story.

If you're just getting started with case studies, we recommend you download HubSpot's Case Study Templates we mentioned before to kickstart the process.

2. Determine the case study's objective.

All business case studies are designed to demonstrate the value of your services, but they can focus on several different client objectives.

Your first step when writing a case study is to determine the objective or goal of the subject you're featuring. In other words, what will the client have succeeded in doing by the end of the piece?

The client objective you focus on will depend on what you want to prove to your future customers as a result of publishing this case study.

Your case study can focus on one of the following client objectives:

• Complying with government regulation
• Lowering business costs
• Becoming profitable
• Generating more leads
• Closing on more customers
• Generating more revenue
• Expanding into a new market
• Becoming more sustainable or energy-efficient

3. Establish a case study medium.

Next, you'll determine the medium in which you'll create the case study. In other words, how will you tell this story?

Case studies don't have to be simple, written one-pagers. Using different media in your case study can allow you to promote your final piece on different channels. For example, while a written case study might just live on your website and get featured in a Facebook post, you can post an infographic case study on Pinterest and a video case study on your YouTube channel.

Here are some different case study mediums to consider:

Written Case Study

Consider writing this case study in the form of an ebook and converting it to a downloadable PDF. Then, gate the PDF behind a landing page and form for readers to fill out before downloading the piece, allowing this case study to generate leads for your business.

Video Case Study

Plan on meeting with the client and shooting an interview. Seeing the subject, in person, talk about the service you provided them can go a long way in the eyes of your potential customers.

Infographic Case Study

Use the long, vertical format of an infographic to tell your success story from top to bottom. As you progress down the infographic, emphasize major KPIs using bigger text and charts that show the successes your client has had since working with you.

Podcast Case Study

Podcasts are a platform for you to have a candid conversation with your client. This type of case study can sound more real and human to your audience — they'll know the partnership between you and your client was a genuine success.

4. Find the right case study candidate.

Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates.

Product Knowledge

It helps to select a customer who's well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers.

Remarkable Results

Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case studies. If their own businesses have seen an exemplary ROI from your product or service, they're more likely to convey the enthusiasm that you want prospects to feel, too.

One part of this step is to choose clients who have experienced unexpected success from your product or service. When you've provided non-traditional customers — in industries that you don't usually work with, for example — with positive results, it can help to remove doubts from prospects.

Recognizable Names

While small companies can have powerful stories, bigger or more notable brands tend to lend credibility to your own. In fact, 89% of consumers say they'll buy from a brand they already recognize over a competitor, especially if they already follow them on social media.

Customers that came to you after working with a competitor help highlight your competitive advantage and might even sway decisions in your favor.

5. Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.

To get the case study candidate involved, you have to set the stage for clear and open communication. That means outlining expectations and a timeline right away — not having those is one of the biggest culprits in delayed case study creation.

Most importantly at this point, however, is getting your subject's approval. When first reaching out to your case study candidate, provide them with the case study's objective and format — both of which you will have come up with in the first two steps above.

To get this initial permission from your subject, put yourself in their shoes — what would they want out of this case study? Although you're writing this for your own company's benefit, your subject is far more interested in the benefit it has for them.

Benefits to Offer Your Case Study Candidate

Here are four potential benefits you can promise your case study candidate to gain their approval.

Brand Exposure

Explain to your subject to whom this case study will be exposed, and how this exposure can help increase their brand awareness both in and beyond their own industry. In the B2B sector, brand awareness can be hard to collect outside one's own market, making case studies particularly useful to a client looking to expand their name's reach.

Employee Exposure

Allow your subject to provide quotes with credits back to specific employees. When this is an option for them, their brand isn't the only thing expanding its reach — their employees can get their name out there, too. This presents your subject with networking and career development opportunities they might not have otherwise.

Product Discount

This is a more tangible incentive you can offer your case study candidate, especially if they're a current customer of yours. If they agree to be your subject, offer them a product discount — or a free trial of another product — as a thank-you for their help creating your case study.

Backlinks and Website Traffic

Here's a benefit that is sure to resonate with your subject's marketing team: If you publish your case study on your website, and your study links back to your subject's website — known as a "backlink" — this small gesture can give them website traffic from visitors who click through to your subject's website.

Additionally, a backlink from you increases your subject's page authority in the eyes of Google. This helps them rank more highly in search engine results and collect traffic from readers who are already looking for information about their industry.

6. Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.

So you know what you’re going to offer your candidate, it’s time that you prepare the resources needed for if and when they agree to participate, like a case study release form and success story letter.

Let's break those two down.

Case Study Release Form

This document can vary, depending on factors like the size of your business, the nature of your work, and what you intend to do with the case studies once they are completed. That said, you should typically aim to include the following in the Case Study Release Form:

• A clear explanation of why you are creating this case study and how it will be used.
• A statement defining the information and potentially trademarked information you expect to include about the company — things like names, logos, job titles, and pictures.
• An explanation of what you expect from the participant, beyond the completion of the case study. For example, is this customer willing to act as a reference or share feedback, and do you have permission to pass contact information along for these purposes?
• A note about compensation.

Success Story Letter

As noted in the sample email, this document serves as an outline for the entire case study process. Other than a brief explanation of how the customer will benefit from case study participation, you'll want to be sure to define the following steps in the Success Story Letter.

7. Download a case study email template.

While you gathered your resources, your candidate has gotten time to read over the proposal. When your candidate approves of your case study, it's time to send them a release form.

A case study release form tells you what you'll need from your chosen subject, like permission to use any brand names and share the project information publicly. Kick-off this process with an email that runs through exactly what they can expect from you, as well as what you need from them. To give you an idea of what that might look like, check out this sample email:

8. Define the process you want to follow with the client.

Before you can begin the case study, you have to have a clear outline of the case study process with your client. An example of an effective outline would include the following information.

The Acceptance

First, you'll need to receive internal approval from the company's marketing team. Once approved, the Release Form should be signed and returned to you. It's also a good time to determine a timeline that meets the needs and capabilities of both teams.

The Questionnaire

To ensure that you have a productive interview — which is one of the best ways to collect information for the case study — you'll want to ask the participant to complete a questionnaire before this conversation. That will provide your team with the necessary foundation to organize the interview, and get the most out of it.

The Interview

Once the questionnaire is completed, someone on your team should reach out to the participant to schedule a 30- to 60-minute interview, which should include a series of custom questions related to the customer's experience with your product or service.

The Draft Review

After the case study is composed, you'll want to send a draft to the customer, allowing an opportunity to give you feedback and edits.

The Final Approval

Once any necessary edits are completed, send a revised copy of the case study to the customer for final approval.

Once the case study goes live — on your website or elsewhere — it's best to contact the customer with a link to the page where the case study lives. Don't be afraid to ask your participants to share these links with their own networks, as it not only demonstrates your ability to deliver positive results and impressive growth, as well.

9. Ensure you're asking the right questions.

Before you execute the questionnaire and actual interview, make sure you're setting yourself up for success. A strong case study results from being prepared to ask the right questions. What do those look like? Here are a few examples to get you started:

• What are your goals?
• What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
• What made our product or service stand out against our competitors?
• What did your decision-making process look like?
• How have you benefited from using our product or service? (Where applicable, always ask for data.)

Keep in mind that the questionnaire is designed to help you gain insights into what sort of strong, success-focused questions to ask during the actual interview. And once you get to that stage, we recommend that you follow the "Golden Rule of Interviewing." Sounds fancy, right? It's actually quite simple — ask open-ended questions.

If you're looking to craft a compelling story, "yes" or "no" answers won't provide the details you need. Focus on questions that invite elaboration, such as, "Can you describe ...?" or, "Tell me about ..."

In terms of the interview structure, we recommend categorizing the questions and flowing them into six specific sections that will mirror a successful case study format. Combined, they'll allow you to gather enough information to put together a rich, comprehensive study.

Open with the customer's business.

The goal of this section is to generate a better understanding of the company's current challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of their industry. Sample questions might include:

• How long have you been in business?
• How many employees do you have?
• What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?

Cite a problem or pain point.

To tell a compelling story, you need context. That helps match the customer's need with your solution. Sample questions might include:

• What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?
• What might have happened if you did not identify a solution?
• Did you explore other solutions before this that did not work out? If so, what happened?

Discuss the decision process.

Exploring how the customer decided to work with you helps to guide potential customers through their own decision-making processes. Sample questions might include:

• How did you hear about our product or service?
• Who was involved in the selection process?
• What was most important to you when evaluating your options?

Explain how a solution was implemented.

The focus here should be placed on the customer's experience during the onboarding process. Sample questions might include:

• How long did it take to get up and running?
• Did that meet your expectations?
• Who was involved in the process?

Explain how the solution works.

The goal of this section is to better understand how the customer is using your product or service. Sample questions might include:

• Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?
• Who is using the product or service?

End with the results.

In this section, you want to uncover impressive measurable outcomes — the more numbers, the better. Sample questions might include:

• How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?
• In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?
• How much have you increased metrics X, Y, and Z?

10. Lay out your case study format.

When it comes time to take all of the information you've collected and actually turn it into something, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Where should you start? What should you include? What's the best way to structure it?

To help you get a handle on this step, it's important to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the ways you can present a case study. They can be very visual, which you'll see in some of the examples we've included below, and can sometimes be communicated mostly through video or photos, with a bit of accompanying text.

Here are the sections we suggest, which we'll cover in more detail down below:

• Title: Keep it short. Develop a succinct but interesting project name you can give the work you did with your subject.
• Subtitle: Use this copy to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What was done? The case study itself will explain how you got there.
• Executive Summary : A 2-4 sentence summary of the entire story. You'll want to follow it with 2-3 bullet points that display metrics showcasing success.
• About the Subject: An introduction to the person or company you served, which can be pulled from a LinkedIn Business profile or client website.
• Challenges and Objectives: A 2-3 paragraph description of the customer's challenges, before using your product or service. This section should also include the goals or objectives the customer set out to achieve.
• How Product/Service Helped: A 2-3 paragraph section that describes how your product or service provided a solution to their problem.
• Results: A 2-3 paragraph testimonial that proves how your product or service specifically benefited the person or company and helped achieve its goals. Include numbers to quantify your contributions.
• Supporting Visuals or Quotes: Pick one or two powerful quotes that you would feature at the bottom of the sections above, as well as a visual that supports the story you are telling.
• Future Plans: Everyone likes an epilogue. Comment on what's ahead for your case study subject, whether or not those plans involve you.
• Call to Action (CTA): Not every case study needs a CTA, but putting a passive one at the end of your case study can encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

When laying out your case study, focus on conveying the information you've gathered in the most clear and concise way possible. Make it easy to scan and comprehend, and be sure to provide an attractive call-to-action at the bottom — that should provide readers an opportunity to learn more about your product or service.

11. Publish and promote your case study.

Once you've completed your case study, it's time to publish and promote it. Some case study formats have pretty obvious promotional outlets — a video case study can go on YouTube, just as an infographic case study can go on Pinterest.

But there are still other ways to publish and promote your case study. Here are a couple of ideas:

Lead Gen in a Blog Post

As stated earlier in this article, written case studies make terrific lead-generators if you convert them into a downloadable format, like a PDF. To generate leads from your case study, consider writing a blog post that tells an abbreviated story of your client's success and asking readers to fill out a form with their name and email address if they'd like to read the rest in your PDF.

Then, promote this blog post on social media, through a Facebook post or a tweet.

Published as a Page on Your Website

As a growing business, you might need to display your case study out in the open to gain the trust of your target audience.

Rather than gating it behind a landing page, publish your case study to its own page on your website, and direct people here from your homepage with a "Case Studies" or "Testimonials" button along your homepage's top navigation bar.

Format for a Case Study

The traditional case study format includes the following parts: a title and subtitle, a client profile, a summary of the customer’s challenges and objectives, an account of how your solution helped, and a description of the results. You might also want to include supporting visuals and quotes, future plans, and calls-to-action.

Image Source

The title is one of the most important parts of your case study. It should draw readers in while succinctly describing the potential benefits of working with your company. To that end, your title should:

• State the name of your custome r. Right away, the reader must learn which company used your products and services. This is especially important if your customer has a recognizable brand. If you work with individuals and not companies, you may omit the name and go with professional titles: “A Marketer…”, “A CFO…”, and so forth.
• State which product your customer used . Even if you only offer one product or service, or if your company name is the same as your product name, you should still include the name of your solution. That way, readers who are not familiar with your business can become aware of what you sell.
• Allude to the results achieved . You don’t necessarily need to provide hard numbers, but the title needs to represent the benefits, quickly. That way, if a reader doesn’t stay to read, they can walk away with the most essential information: Your product works.

The example above, “Crunch Fitness Increases Leads and Signups With HubSpot,” achieves all three — without being wordy. Keeping your title short and sweet is also essential.

2. Subtitle

Your subtitle is another essential part of your case study — don’t skip it, even if you think you’ve done the work with the title. In this section, include a brief summary of the challenges your customer was facing before they began to use your products and services. Then, drive the point home by reiterating the benefits your customer experienced by working with you.

The above example reads:

“Crunch Fitness was franchising rapidly when COVID-19 forced fitness clubs around the world to close their doors. But the company stayed agile by using HubSpot to increase leads and free trial signups.”

We like that the case study team expressed the urgency of the problem — opening more locations in the midst of a pandemic — and placed the focus on the customer’s ability to stay agile.

3. Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a snapshot of your customer, their challenges, and the benefits they enjoyed from working with you. Think it’s too much? Think again — the purpose of the case study is to emphasize, again and again, how well your product works.

The good news is that depending on your design, the executive summary can be mixed with the subtitle or with the “About the Company” section. Many times, this section doesn’t need an explicit “Executive Summary” subheading. You do need, however, to provide a convenient snapshot for readers to scan.

In the above example, ADP included information about its customer in a scannable bullet-point format, then provided two sections: “Business Challenge” and “How ADP Helped.” We love how simple and easy the format is to follow for those who are unfamiliar with ADP or its typical customer.

4. About the Company

Readers need to know and understand who your customer is. This is important for several reasons: It helps your reader potentially relate to your customer, it defines your ideal client profile (which is essential to deter poor-fit prospects who might have reached out without knowing they were a poor fit), and it gives your customer an indirect boon by subtly promoting their products and services.

Feel free to keep this section as simple as possible. You can simply copy and paste information from the company’s LinkedIn, use a quote directly from your customer, or take a more creative storytelling approach.

In the above example, HubSpot included one paragraph of description for Crunch Fitness and a few bullet points. Below, ADP tells the story of its customer using an engaging, personable technique that effectively draws readers in.

5. Challenges and Objectives

The challenges and objectives section of your case study is the place to lay out, in detail, the difficulties your customer faced prior to working with you — and what they hoped to achieve when they enlisted your help.

In this section, you can be as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, but remember: Stress the urgency of the situation. Don’t understate how much your customer needed your solution (but don’t exaggerate and lie, either). Provide contextual information as necessary. For instance, the pandemic and societal factors may have contributed to the urgency of the need.

Take the above example from design consultancy IDEO:

“Educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other.”

We love how IDEO mentions the difficulties the United States faces at large, the efforts its customer is taking to address these issues, and the steps IDEO took to help.

6. How Product/Service Helped

This is where you get your product or service to shine. Cover the specific benefits that your customer enjoyed and the features they gleaned the most use out of. You can also go into detail about how you worked with and for your customer. Maybe you met several times before choosing the right solution, or you consulted with external agencies to create the best package for them.

Whatever the case may be, try to illustrate how easy and pain-free it is to work with the representatives at your company. After all, potential customers aren’t looking to just purchase a product. They’re looking for a dependable provider that will strive to exceed their expectations.

In the above example, IDEO describes how it partnered with research institutes and spoke with learners to create Bendable, a free educational platform. We love how it shows its proactivity and thoroughness. It makes potential customers feel that IDEO might do something similar for them.

The results are essential, and the best part is that you don’t need to write the entirety of the case study before sharing them. Like HubSpot, IDEO, and ADP, you can include the results right below the subtitle or executive summary. Use data and numbers to substantiate the success of your efforts, but if you don’t have numbers, you can provide quotes from your customers.

We can’t overstate the importance of the results. In fact, if you wanted to create a short case study, you could include your title, challenge, solution (how your product helped), and result.

8. Supporting Visuals or Quotes

Let your customer speak for themselves by including quotes from the representatives who directly interfaced with your company.

Visuals can also help, even if they’re stock images. On one side, they can help you convey your customer’s industry, and on the other, they can indirectly convey your successes. For instance, a picture of a happy professional — even if they’re not your customer — will communicate that your product can lead to a happy client.

In this example from IDEO, we see a man standing in a boat. IDEO’s customer is neither the man pictured nor the manufacturer of the boat, but rather Conservation International, an environmental organization. This imagery provides a visually pleasing pattern interrupt to the page, while still conveying what the case study is about.

9. Future Plans

This is optional, but including future plans can help you close on a more positive, personable note than if you were to simply include a quote or the results. In this space, you can show that your product will remain in your customer’s tech stack for years to come, or that your services will continue to be instrumental to your customer’s success.

Alternatively, if you work only on time-bound projects, you can allude to the positive impact your customer will continue to see, even after years of the end of the contract.

10. Call to Action (CTA)

Not every case study needs a CTA, but we’d still encourage it. Putting one at the end of your case study will encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.

It will also make it easier for them to reach out, if they’re ready to start immediately. You don’t want to lose business just because they have to scroll all the way back up to reach out to your team.

To help you visualize this case study outline, check out the case study template below, which can also be downloaded here .

You drove the results, made the connection, set the expectations, used the questionnaire to conduct a successful interview, and boiled down your findings into a compelling story. And after all of that, you're left with a little piece of sales enabling gold — a case study.

To show you what a well-executed final product looks like, have a look at some of these marketing case study examples.

1. "Shopify Uses HubSpot CRM to Transform High Volume Sales Organization," by HubSpot

What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. This reflects a major HubSpot value, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why Shopify uses HubSpot and is accompanied by a short video and some basic statistics on the company.

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

2. "New England Journal of Medicine," by Corey McPherson Nash

When branding and design studio Corey McPherson Nash showcases its work, it makes sense for it to be visual — after all, that's what they do. So in building the case study for the studio's work on the New England Journal of Medicine's integrated advertising campaign — a project that included the goal of promoting the client's digital presence — Corey McPherson Nash showed its audience what it did, rather than purely telling it.

Notice that the case study does include some light written copy — which includes the major points we've suggested — but lets the visuals do the talking, allowing users to really absorb the studio's services.

3. "Designing the Future of Urban Farming," 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, he or she is greeted with a big, bold photo, and two very simple columns of text — "The Challenge" and "The Outcome."

Immediately, IDEO has communicated two of the case study's major pillars. And while that's great — the company created a solution for vertical farming startup INFARM's challenge — it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, those pillars are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.

4. "Secure Wi-Fi Wins Big for Tournament," by WatchGuard

Then, there are the cases when visuals can tell almost the entire story — when executed correctly. Network security provider WatchGuard can do that through this video, which tells the story of how its services enhanced the attendee and vendor experience at the Windmill Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

5. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Boosts Social Media Engagement and Brand Awareness with HubSpot

In the case study above , HubSpot uses photos, videos, screenshots, and helpful stats to tell the story of how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used the bot, CRM, and social media tools to gain brand awareness.

6. Small Desk Plant Business Ups Sales by 30% With Trello

This case study from Trello is straightforward and easy to understand. It begins by explaining the background of the company that decided to use it, what its goals were, and how it planned to use Trello to help them.

It then goes on to discuss how the software was implemented and what tasks and teams benefited from it. Towards the end, it explains the sales results that came from implementing the software and includes quotes from decision-makers at the company that implemented it.

7. Facebook's Mercedes Benz Success Story

Facebook's Success Stories page hosts a number of well-designed and easy-to-understand case studies that visually and editorially get to the bottom line quickly.

Each study begins with key stats that draw the reader in. Then it's organized by highlighting a problem or goal in the introduction, the process the company took to reach its goals, and the results. Then, in the end, Facebook notes the tools used in the case study.

Showcasing Your Work

You work hard at what you do. Now, it's time to show it to the world — and, perhaps more important, to potential customers. Before you show off the projects that make you the proudest, we hope you follow these important steps that will help you effectively communicate that work and leave all parties feeling good about it.

Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in February 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2021.

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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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5 Steps for Writing a Killer Marketing Case Study

December 5, 2019

By Natalie Boyd

Create content in a silo. Keep your wins to yourself. Promote nothing. This is marketing’s mantra, right? Not even close.

Today’s marketers have a full-time job creating content, generating leads, driving traffic, collaborating across channels, and staying in the know when it comes to understanding the ins and outs of their ideal customer—and a case study can display your success.

Though the type of marketing material can vary from infographics to blogs to videos to e-books , the case study is a piece of content that should be in every organization’s front pocket. It is a valuable tool everywhere from the website to the sales floor that can:

• Boost Your Industry Credibility. Whether you work across industries or you are specialized within a particular niche, experience must be shared. A case study is a perfect avenue to promote your industry know-how. After all, birds of a feather flock together. Showcasing your achievement through a case study within a specific industry will boost your credibility while delivering proof points that may attract similar clients.
• Show Your Success . You have customer wins. Flaunt them. Unlike traditional marketing materials, a case study delivers validation from your customers of your good work. It takes words to a different level by showing the journey from point A to point B in a narrative format, while being authentic enough to share where you were challenged and transparent enough to share your secrets—all while delivering the data to back it.
• Repurpose the Content. A case study gives an in-depth look at your problem-solving skills. With this content in hand, it is easy to create blogs or videos—or let your public relations team use the case study as a talking point with the media. If you repurpose the case study content across formats and channels, you will give your success wings.

The case study is not only the perfect content to arm the sales team with data-driven points, but it is also a document that serves as a testimony from those outside of your organization.

After all, you ask your family and friends to recommend their favorite businesses, you read reviews before booking your vacation hotel, and you see the movies that have won the most awards. (Nearly 90 percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.) It’s natural to want to surround yourself with products, services, and companies that have the blessing of those that have gone before you. And that, in a nutshell, is what the case study is.

The case study will give you credibility, flaunt your customer wins, and give you a narrative for additional content. You’ve taken the time to understand your customers. Your products, services, or tactics have blown through their obstacles and there is data to prove your strategies work—now it’s your turn to make a case study work for you.

Tips for Creating High-Performing Case Studies

1. build trust.

The best case studies leverage the right relationships.

First off, you should establish a plan for selecting candidates. Your participants should have extensive product knowledge and impressive results. If possible, highlight any notable brands you work with.

When reaching out to participants, building trust is important. You want something authentic—so remove the case study verbiage from your initial request. Make your prospective participants feel special, and start by asking them to help tell their story.

As you move forward with the interview process, remember that your customers are busy. So be prepared. Keep questions clear and concise, but also open-ended. Drive the conversation, but allow your participants to openly describe their experience.

2. Tell a Story

Once you gather the facts, it’s time to start writing.

The “hero journey” is a narrative outline in which a hero goes on an adventure, wins a victory, and comes home changed or transformed. And according to marketer Sid Smith, a loose adaptation of Joseph Campbell's literary theory can be applied to your marketing case study:

• Hero suffers a loss or experiences a serious problem …
• Hero attempts to resolve issues through usual means, and fails …
• Hero goes on a journey and discovers an ally or new approach …
• Hero overcomes tremendous odds to resolve the problem …
• Hero returns triumphant and tells all about his conquest.

What does this all mean? That storytelling drives case studies. Identify your sample customers, their goals, their needs, and how your company helped them meet these goals.

3. Pay Close Attention to Formatting

No one enjoys huge chunk of texts. As we’ve blogged about before here at SmartBug Media, too many words might not get your message across , or even worse, scare off readers.

The first rule of thumb? Keep it simple.

Like other inbound content, case studies do not have to be complicated. When it comes to length, I’ve seen several schools of thought. Marketers such as Debbie Weil claim that 500 words works best while Neil Patel touts the benefits of long-form copy .

Worry less about word count and more about telling your story. Also, like other forms of content, employ effective formatting elements, including:

• Bulleted lists
• Bolded text

Most importantly, it’s up to you to find out what’s best for you and what resonates with your end-users.

4. Include the Facts

This may seem like a no-brainer, but a marketing case study without facts is like a car without gas: It will sputter out before you reach your destination. However, as important as it is to include facts, it’s also essential to show real numbers and real proof.

Rather than use ambiguous terms such as “doubled traffic” or “tripled conversions,” display the actual numbers. You want data to be crystal clear.

Ultimately, numbers should contribute to your overall story. They’ll outline tangible results. And when properly portrayed, data can show exactly where your customers began and where they ended up with your help.

5. Talk Strategy

Just as it’s important to include real data, it’s equally important to provide specific strategy. You’ll want to include a conclusion that explicitly proves how your product or service impacted your customer—and how it helped them reach their goals.

Rather than simply say how your services led to your customer’s end results, tell your readers exactly how your services impacted your customer. At this point, you’ve already told your story. Now is the time to finish it.

This post was originally published in March 2017, and it has since been updated.

Easily craft compelling customer interviews & provide leads with the information they need to make an informed decision.

Case Study Questions Template

About the author

Natalie Boyd was formerly a Marketing Specialist at SmartBug Media with 10 years of experience supporting in-house, freelance, and agency clients. She is passionate about using inbound marketing to help businesses succeed and make meaningful connections with their target audience. Read more articles by Natalie Boyd .

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How to Write Killer Case Studies for Your Freelance Business

A case study is an interesting marketing tool for freelancers. It consists of extensive research on a given subject, with the aim of creating knowledge and offering new perspectives. It can serve as a pillar for the development of new studies, or as social proof. It is in this last aspect that a case study can be particularly interesting and useful for freelance professionals.

In this article we will show you what a case study is and give you an example of how to write a freelancer case study. Let’s get started.

• The importance of case studies

What is a case study?

• More sales/More projects
• Case study as a marketing strategy driver
• Personalization
• Storytelling
• Encourage clients to give you feedback
• Do an in-depth interview about what they liked
• Add visually appealing elements
• Examples of freelancer case study

The Importance of Case Studies

As a freelancer, recommendations are a very powerful marketing tool . By being recommended by someone and painted as a reliable, generous, and easy-going professional, your chances of being hired increase considerably .

Just waiting around for recommendations won’t work, though. Making yourself known is not an easy task: it takes time, investment, and a lot of hard work. 

In order for you to take advantage of the full potential of this type of marketing, you will need to not only strive to get good recommendations but develop ways to present your wins to potential customers . The best way to do this is by submitting case studies .

In the social sciences, case studies offer a very deep analysis of a given subject. In the case of freelancers, we can substitute the term for “success stories”. A case study presents the positive feedback of a client , talks about the positive aspects of a successful endeavor or about a partnership that worked well .

It should be noted, however, that case studies aren’t simply testimonials from clients . The case study tends to be much broader and more complete than a simple statement. It describes the work process in a precise, detailed, and optimized way . 

A complete and realistic case study should not only take into account achievements and strengths but difficulties as well .

It is also important to note that there is no universal formula for building a good case study. Each project is unique and should be viewed as such. The essential thing to remember is that the study presented should be motivating and adapted to its proper context . Let’s have a look down below at the elements that make case studies exceptional for your professional marketing.

Advantages of presenting a case study

By learning how to do a case study, you gain access to one of the most powerful and interesting tools that a freelancer can use.

The main advantage of presenting a case study is the social validation and the scope that these surveys offer . These materials are aimed at the general public, thus allowing potential customers to have contact with their level of knowledge and experience on a specific topic or area.

Shown below are the main advantages of presenting freelancer case studies:

1. More sales/More projects

Your goal as a freelancer is to always get more sales or more projects. Or, if you are a highly sought after freelancer, get projects with better terms and conditions.

A case study is an excellent way to show clients your potential and the advantages that your work offers. Potential clients can then get in touch with you with a real project.

We can affirm that case studies have the potential to directly influence the decision of a potential client , which is why it is a strategic part of any good marketing strategy.

2. Case study as a marketing strategy driver

When used in a marketing campaign, a case study can have an impact in two ways: it can increase your professional reputation as a freelancer or be a r eference for your future projects.

The most important point about case studies is that, when done well, they showcase your ability to overcome certain obstacles , in order to achieve an established goal. Any client who is interested in hiring your services will feel more confident after taking a look at your case study.

You can also use this material to capture the attention of specialized media. A well-designed case study with relevant specialized information can open the doors to the press, which is always very interesting.

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What are the elements that make a case study successful?

1. personalization.

Case studies are all about the people . Personalization is how you relate to other customers and clients and how you help them empathize.

Make sure your case study offers more than just generic descriptions – remember that you need to stand out! – and illustrate, whenever possible, the people and situations mentioned in your study. Real examples give your work credibility!

2. Relatable

The next step that makes case studies work well is them being relatable . You want a potential client to look at a case study and think, “Wow, this person had the same problem as me and this freelancer managed to solve it! I’m going to send them an email now!”.

This means that you need to know who your target audience is and how to reach them . If you often do projects for small businesses, provide a case study that demonstrates this rather than showcasing a project with a large company. In doing so, you may end up making small businesses believe that you are inaccessible to them.

3. Storytelling

Another important element of a good case study is the story, which must be concise and well structured . In other words, it’s about good storytelling. That can mean following simple rules like introducing the original problem of a client first, elaborating on your method next and inserting their positive feedback as a conclusion.

These are writing techniques that we use almost subconsciously. When writing a case study, ask yourself, “Is this story good and is it told in a way that showcases your abilities?” If your answer is yes, you’ve probably got yourself a decent case study.

Storytelling can help you boost your freelance career. Once you finish this article, check out our article on how you can use storytelling as a freelancer!  

How can you write effective case studies?

1. encourage clients to give you feedback.

The first step in creating a case study for your freelancer business is to create incentives for clients to give you feedback. Sending an email at the end of a completed project and asking how the client feels it went, for example, can go a long way.

If you want to go further, create a short questionnaire and send it to your clients at the end of a project. This is not only a great way to understand what works and what doesn’t. It’s also an essential first step towards creating a case study.

2. Do an in-depth interview about what they liked

After you get some feedback, you can choose to go one step further and do an in-depth interview . This will work best with clients who are eager to talk about how they feel about the project.

If someone is reluctant at the first stage, don’t pressure them into an interview. You’ll be wasting your time and bothering them with something they don’t want to do. Focus on the people who have stories they’d like to share – that’s where the best case studies come from.

3. Add visually appealing elements

Case studies composed of large amounts of text won’t always be able to catch the reader’s attention and will most likely be ignored. Yes, those paragraphs may be incredibly well written and might contain the best things a client has ever said about you, but they just won’t work as a standalone.

Remember, case studies are about personalization and relatability . You will need visual help for that – that can be a lot of things, depending on the project: A picture of your client, an image of the site you created, a graph showing the traffic spike after you wrote an article for them, etc. Those will act as eye-catchers and make sure your great case study doesn’t get overlooked.

Example of a Freelancer Case study

Case study – sun-activated advertising.

Objective: Find a way to promote Neutrogena’s new line of sunscreens for sunny days.

Description: Neutrogena is a brand specializing in dermatological products. The company intended to announce its new line of sunscreens for sunny days, but did not intend to follow the traditional line of advertising on mobile weather applications.

Difficulties:

• Activation of a mobile campaign only during sunny hours
• Intention to advertise on mobile devices, presenting advertising to the most relevant target audience
• Neutrogena did not want to limit its campaign to meteorological applications, as it knew that these applications are full of information that users only access for a few seconds
• High competition niche

Relevant aspects:

• Target audience defined as women concerned with daily skin protection. Aged between 24 and 54 years old.
• Target audience aware of the impact of the sun on the skin, but willing to play with their children outdoors, taking appropriate protective measures.
• Using technology based on location and weather conditions, Neutrogena was able to use its advertising budget more strategically and efficiently.
• The campaign took into account several factors before presenting an ad, which was automatically created taking into account the distance to a store, the time of day and the type of landscape.
• Neutrogena’s mobile advertising campaign allowed ideal UV conditions to automatically activate advertising for the “Neutrogena Beach Defense” product line.
• The Neutrogena campaign increased the level of knowledge about Neutrogena Beach Defense products from 0 to 63%
• Purchase intentions rose 43%

This is a concise example of the potential that a case study can have. When reading this information, people can see the creative way that Neutrogena used to present a new product to the market.

Additionally, by observing the results, it can be seen that the campaign was not only creative but really relevant as a marketing and advertising tool.

Have you ever written case studies for your freelancer business? Share your stories with us and the freelancermap community in the comment section below this article!

Viktor Marinov

Viktor is the voice behind the freelancermap blog. Every week he comes up with helpful hints, checklists, and guides for freelancers and independent workers. If you would like to know how to find remote jobs online or how to niche yourself as a freelancer, don't miss his freelancer tips!

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How To Create a Killer Consulting Case Study

by Rob O'Byrne | Nov 11, 2016 | Start Consulting | 0 comments

If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know how strongly I advocate the need for marketing skills if you want to be a successful independent consultant. That doesn’t just mean you need to sell your brand well; you also need to know and utilise a range of effective marketing tools and techniques, one of which is the consulting case study.

Naturally your first consulting case study will have to wait until you complete a successful project worthy of note. Once you complete such a project though, you should waste no time in shouting to the world about how you helped your client improve his/her business.

The Value of a Consulting Case Study

A consulting case study is a valuable and versatile vehicle for marketing your business on the basis of proven results. Case studies can be used on your website, included in brochures and newsletters, and submitted to journalistic publications.  Best of all, a consulting case study comes with the endorsement of a satisfied client.

Like any marketing technique though, there is a right and a wrong way to go about writing a case study. The following tips will help you to do it the right way, so you can create killer consulting case studies to get your business noticed.

Take the Right Approach

Let’s begin with a look at the approach needed for a really effective consulting case study. The following seven points cover what to do and what not to do if you want your case study to create a stir and drive qualified leads to your business.

1) Keep your consulting case studies short. Lengthy tomes tend to turn busy readers off.

2) Include some reference details somewhere in the case study if possible.

3) Detail exactly how the client received value from your services, but don’t overstate the results—keep it factual.

4) Describe the project in detail. Include specifics and try to avoid generalisations.

5) Emphasise how you worked with the client to solve his/her problem.

6) Use a storyline to take readers through your consulting case study. People prefer to read a story than wade through a list of facts.

7) Focus readers’ attention on the success enjoyed by your clients, not on your consulting achievements.

If you follow these seven general points, you’ll know you’re on the right path to a compelling case study. Let’s get a little more specific now and consider the ingredients that can make your story really powerful.

Killer Case Study Power Tips

• Include quotes from your client. This will help readers to engage with your story.
• Encapsulate the story within a strong and compelling title.
• Incorporate statistics showing the benefits the client received from your services.
• Include high quality, relevant photographs in your case study.
• Try using sidebars and text boxes to highlight key facts about the case.
• Be sure to ask your client to review and approve your consulting case study before you publish.
• Remember to write out industry terms in full the first time you use them. Include any acronyms in brackets. You can just use the acronyms for subsequent references to the terms.

You Don’t Have to DIY

Hopefully the tips in this short guide will help you to create your own killer consulting case studies. However, if you don’t have time to do it yourself or you simply don’t enjoy copywriting, you can always engage a freelance copywriter, virtual assistant, or marketing company to create your case studies for you. Just remember to show them this guide and ask that they follow the key points outlined within it.

Whether you enlist some help or write your consulting case studies yourself, consider the value of a good photographer to capture images of your client’s business. It can save you a lot of time searching for stock images online and you won’t need to pester your client with requests for photos.

Ready to State Your Case?

All that remains now is to complete a successful project and document it in your first consulting case study.  Of course you may already have a number of projects under your belt. If so, why not contact your clients and ask for their agreement to publish a case study?

That can be a great excuse to check in with previous clients too. You never know, they might even be ready to engage your services for something new.

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How to write a killer case study

Case studies are a brilliant way to promote your business. They give potential customers an insight into the experience and benefits of working with you. Case studies also provide that all-important endorsement that adds credibility to your business and can persuade potential customers to try you.

So, how do you write a killer case study that will benefit your business? Here are my tips. But before I delve into those, here are two things to bear in mind:

Firstly, and most importantly, always be mindful of collecting case studies. Whenever a customer is delighted with your product or service, ask them if they would be happy to contribute to a case study. Make collecting case studies a regular part of your marketing activity.

Secondly, consider using a freelance copywriter or external marketing professional to write your case studies. A professional will have the skills to write a compelling case study, and the customer might feel more comfortable discussing their experience with someone outside the business.

8 tips to write a killer case study

1. Interview your customer, asking them key questions such as "Why did you choose us?", "What problem did we solve?", "How was the experience of working with us?". Drill down into the detail, so the case study isn't vague, and anyone reading it can understand the experience and benefits.

2. You can write the case study in the 1st (we) or 3rd person (they) but be consistent throughout. I prefer 1st person as it's friendlier and more readable.

3. Avoid jargon and acronyms that your customers might not understand.

4. Tell the story - show what problem you solved and how the customer benefitted from your product or service.

5. Break up the content with testimonials from the customer.

6. If relevant, use statistics or figures to demonstrate tangible value.

7. Include relevant images to make the case study more visually appealing.

8. Give the case study a strong headline, for example,"'Company X' boosts sales by 40% using 'your company'"

Once you've got your case studies, share them on your website and social media. Include them in proposal documents and your customer newsletters. And, if they're stand-out case studies, send them to the relevant trade press.

You might find my case study template helpful if you've not written a case study before. And if you'd like some external help to write a killer case study, please get in touch .

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• Open access
• Published: 02 April 2024

Warning sign of an accelerating decline in critically endangered killer whales ( Orcinus orca )

• Rob Williams   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7496-453X 1 ,
• Robert C. Lacy 2 ,
• Erin Ashe 1 ,
• Lance Barrett-Lennard 3 ,
• Tanya M. Brown 4 ,
• Joseph K. Gaydos   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6599-8797 5 ,
• Frances Gulland   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6416-0156 6 ,
• Misty MacDuffee 3 ,
• Benjamin W. Nelson 7 ,
• Kimberly A. Nielsen   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6019-2919 1 ,
• Hendrik Nollens 8 ,
• Stephen Raverty   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2879-073X 9 ,
• Stephanie Reiss 1 ,
• Peter S. Ross 3 ,
• Marena Salerno Collins 1 ,
• Raphaela Stimmelmayr 10 &
• Paul Paquet   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4844-2559 11  

Communications Earth & Environment volume  5 , Article number:  173 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Ecological modelling

Wildlife species and populations are being driven toward extinction by a combination of historic and emerging stressors (e.g., overexploitation, habitat loss, contaminants, climate change), suggesting that we are in the midst of the planet’s sixth mass extinction. The invisible loss of biodiversity before species have been identified and described in scientific literature has been termed, memorably, dark extinction. The critically endangered Southern Resident killer whale ( Orcinus orca ) population illustrates its contrast, which we term bright extinction; namely the noticeable and documented precipitous decline of a data-rich population toward extinction. Here we use a population viability analysis to test the sensitivity of this killer whale population to variability in age structure, survival rates, and prey-demography functional relationships. Preventing extinction is still possible but will require greater sacrifices on regional ocean use, urban development, and land use practices, than would have been the case had threats been mitigated even a decade earlier.

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The Laúd OPO Network

Historical reconstruction of the population dynamics of southern right whales in the southwestern Atlantic Ocean

M. A. Romero, M. A. Coscarella, … E. A. Crespo

Introduction

Challenges in conservation biology are generally assigned into small population or declining population paradigms 1 . Resource management typically distinguishes between decisions to protect the welfare of individuals and those to promote recovery of populations 2 . Below a critical threshold, populations become sufficiently small that demographic stochasticity (i.e., random fluctuations in birth and death rates) can result in extinction, even when the average population growth rate is positive 3 . Many of these extinction events are taking place undocumented, before a species has even been described scientifically, in a process termed memorably as dark extinction 4 . The concept of dark extinction could lead some to conclude falsely that extinction is largely an information deficit problem. In other words, if only we knew that a population or species were declining toward extinction, we would step in to mitigate anthropogenic stressors and reverse declines. In our experience, many populations and species are declining toward extinction in plain sight. We call this latter process a bright extinction, with thanks to Boehm and colleagues for inspiring the term.

Small populations can persist despite large variability in environmental conditions around some long-term stationary state, whereas a deteriorating trend in environmental conditions increases extinction risk in small populations 5 . Drake and Griffen hypothesize that “environmental degradation may cause a tipping point in population dynamics, corresponding to a bifurcation in the underlying population growth equations, beyond which decline to extinction is almost certain” 5 . In practice, demographic parameters of wild populations are rarely estimated with sufficient precision to detect these early warning signs (a bifurcation in population rates of change) until a decline may be irreversible 6 , 7 . Evidence-based conservation requires knowledge of demographic rates, as well as natural and anthropogenic influences on those rates, to guide timely and effective interventions 5 , 8 , 9 . While improved tools for data analyses to assess conservation status and extinction risks are needed urgently to protect data-poor species and populations 10 , 11 , not all extinctions can be attributed to an information deficit alone 12 , 13 . To complicate matters further, the threats that lead to a legal listing recognizing a population’s endangered status may not represent the same drivers likely to lead to population recovery. Instead, wildlife population dynamics and risk of extinction can be the net result of multiple concurrent, persistent, interacting, and evolving drivers that include both natural ecological and anthropogenic factors 14 , 15 .

Population assessment of Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW, Orcinus orca ) is extremely data-rich compared with those of many other wild mammals. These whales represent the smallest (75 individuals 16 ) of four separate, non-interbreeding, behaviorally, and culturally distinct, fish- eating ecotypes of killer whales in the eastern North Pacific Ocean. Every individual in the population has been censused annually by the Center for Whale Research and colleagues since the 1970s 17 . Depleted in the 1960s and 1970s by an unsustainable live-capture fishery for aquaria displays, the population has failed to recover due to a combination of sublethal and lethal stressors, including reduced availability and quality of Chinook salmon ( Oncorhynchus tshawytscha ), its preferred prey; noise, which further reduces foraging efficiency 18 ; contaminant exposure, which is associated with decreased fecundity, increased calf mortality, and other adverse effects 19 , 20 ; and vessel strikes 21 . The whales’ preferred prey, Chinook salmon, are themselves heavily depleted, and the ability of Chinook salmon stocks to support survival, let alone recovery of SRKW has been in question for over two decades 22 , 23 . Years with low Chinook salmon abundance are temporally associated with low SRKW reproduction and survival 22 , 23 . Ensuring recovery of SRKW and the salmon on which they depend hinges on explicit recognition of the costs and conflicts associated with recovery of predator and prey alike 24 .

Results and discussion

Given observed demographic rates over the last 40 years, the baseline population dynamics model predicts a mean annual population decline of roughly 1% (Fig.  1a, b ). This average decline is characterized by gradual reduction for roughly two generations (~40 years), followed by a stereotypical period of accelerating decline that presages extinction (Fig.  1 ). This baseline model is optimistic, because all evidence suggests that natural and anthropogenic drivers of population status are dynamic, transient, and multifactorial, and many threats are expected to worsen in future.

Population growth rate (r) (Fig. 1 a ) and number of whales and proportion of current gene diversity projected (Fig. 1 b ) over 100 years and averaged across 1000 iterations of the Baseline model of the SRKW population. The expected growth rate is in blue, the projected decline is in red, and the horizontal dashed line represents the mean rate. Note the bifurcation around 50 years (two killer whale generations) indicative of an accelerating decline, even without accounting for increasing threats 5 . Shading represents the 95% confidence intervals around SRKW abundance (dark blue line) and gene diversity (light blue line).

By using more recent data, the aforementioned relationships between interannual variability in Chinook salmon and SRKW survival and fecundity 25 are changing enough that we predict that prey-mediated changes in SRKW survival and reproduction (Fig.  2a, b ) are likely to lead to even more dramatic declines in the coming decades than the prior baseline model suggests (Fig.  3 ). Our analyses reveal that the population shows lower recovery potential than previously estimated, due to reduced leverage of prey availability on SRKW demography, adverse stochastic effects (e.g., few female offspring in recent years, mortality from vessel strikes), and potentially amplifying effects of inbreeding 20 , 26 , 27 . Ultimately, overexploitation caused the initial decline, but proximate effects of habitat degradation and loss (and possibly destruction) are inhibiting SRKW recovery 19 . The whales are also obligate prey specialists on the largest, fattiest Chinook salmon, which limits their ability to adapt to a changing environment. Accordingly, SRKW epitomize the naturally rare, wide-ranging or broadly distributed species that may be hardest to protect.

Annual survival rates (Fig. 2 a ) and reproductive rates (the proportion of breeding age females producing a calf) (Fig. 2 b ) for SRKW of different age-sex classes (Table  1 ) predicted from logistic regressions against the Chinook salmon prey abundance. Calf survival is in yellow, post-reproductive female is in red, older male is in green, older female is in orange, subadult survival is in dark blue, young female is in light blue, and young male is in blue.

Spider plot showing relative impacts of the 5 most influential factors affecting SRKW population growth. The x-axis is scaled for each factor so that the Baseline value is set to 50, and the range scaled from 0 to 100. (See Table  2 for definitions of factors and ranges tested.) Chinook abundance expected due to climate change is in red, the Chinook abundance index is in yellow, noise is in light blue, the PCB accumulation rate is in blue, preventable deaths is in orange, and total PCBs plus other contaminants is in dark blue. Other factors listed in Table  2 had lesser impacts on SRKW population growth, and their relative impacts are provided in  Supplementary Notes and Supplementary Fig.  S20 .

Immediate, multidisciplinary approaches, including supporting Chinook salmon recovery and appropriate veterinary interventions when indicated, will be necessary to stabilize the population (Fig.  4 ). Although no single scenario can help SRKWs reach one stated recovery objective of 2.3% sustained growth over 28 years, concerted efforts can reverse the decline and possibly reach 1% annual recovery. Slowing or halting the population decline might provide opportunities to develop and implement new strategies to mitigate and facilitate recovery of SRKW that are not yet feasible. In a population of 75 individuals, a single birth or death represents an annual population growth or decline of 1.4%, underscoring the value of each individual in preventing the disappearance of a population.

Projections of SRKW population size, averaged across 1000 iterations for six scenarios that range from optimal to pessimistic: “Road to recovery” (in blue) assumes direct and indirect human impacts on the whales and their habitats re removed (1.5× Chinook, no climate change effects, no noise, human-caused mortalities prevented, no PCBs or other contaminants); “Slow recovery” (in yellow) assumes lesser but still considerable improvements to threats (1.3× Chinook, no climate change, no noise, no human-caused mortalities, environmental PCBs reduced with 25-year half-life); “Persistence” (in light blue) assumes each threat reduced to half as much as in “Slow recovery”; “Current decline” (in orange) is the Baseline; “Decline toward extinction” (in dark blue) adds further threats (8% reduction in prey size, climate change decimating Chinook salmon stocks, total contaminants 1.67× PCB, a low probability of oil catastrophic spills); “Worst case” (in red) adds further plausible increases in threats (0.7× Chinook, noise disturbance 100% of time, oil spills at higher frequency).

Recovery considerations

Treating individual wild animals to promote population recovery only benefits conservation when individual animals are known and populations are small enough for individual survival to make a considerable difference 28 , such as in the recovery of habituated mountain gorillas 29 , Ethiopian wolves 30 , and Hawaiian monk seals 31 . For SRKWs to attain a 1% population growth, non-invasive diagnostic investigations, informed clinical intervention, and ongoing post treatment monitoring of animals that present with serious morbidity or clinical disease is warranted. This extreme conservation measure enables humans to reduce mortality in high value animals, such as reproductively active females. When feasible, post mortem examination of stranded SRKWs is critical to inform future clinical decisions and management options. Interventions should be rank ordered and those injuries attributed to human activities, such as vessel strike or net, line or hook entanglement, or potential oil exposure are priorities that may warrant immediate intervention 21 . Other future interventions may include remote administration of antiparasitic drugs and other treatments 32 for treating disease 33 . It may be time to discuss more drastic measures, including pre-emptive vaccination to protect individuals against pathogens with known high morbidity and mortality rates among cetaceans (e.g., cetacean morbillivirus, Brucella cetorum , Toxoplasma gondii ) 34 . We encourage transboundary and inter- agency discussions to coordinate emergency plans for veterinary intervention, including permits and decision trees, before a high-profile crisis necessitates implementation. Emergency veterinary intervention plans could be modeled on similar bilateral, multi-agency plans to respond to an oil spill in these transboundary waters 35 . With timely and effective management actions (such as mandated reduced vessel speeds near whales to minimize vessel strike) to reduce human-caused mortality 36 , we estimate that up to 28% of natural mortality could be deferred each year (Fig.  4 , Supplementary Notes ). Given the delay between medical interventions and demographic changes (e.g., survival, growth, fecundity, abundance) regular evaluation of short-term health benchmarks (e.g., body condition, reproductive potential of existing population, behavior, pregnancies, etc.) is critical to strike a balance between risk and reward of any particular intervention.

Southern Resident killer whales are known to be among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world, with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) concentrations readily exceeding established thresholds for health effects, including growth and development, immune function, and reproductive performance 37 . However, PCBs are an important, but not exclusive, contaminant class found in SRKW. Despite their phase-out under the terms of the international Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), the persistence of PCBs in the marine environment and resistance to metabolic elimination means that it will take decades before this population is considered to be ‘safe’ from PCB and other legacy contaminant-related health effects 38 . This lag between mitigation and benefits to wildlife, together with the co-occurrence of many other contaminants, suggest that threats attributable to POPs will decline, but the population consequences will linger. This lag time was accounted for using the predicted PCB level trends in this killer whale population 38 and a 1.75× factor was applied to our previously modeled population impact attributed to PCBs to capture the contribution and associated risk of other POPs, including legacy organochlorine pesticides (OCPs). This 1.75× factor was derived from a endocrine disruption risk-based quotient for local harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) 27 , a species that has been used previously as a surrogate to characterize Resident killer whale contaminant levels and risk in the North Pacific 39 . Contaminant mitigation alone will be insufficient to promote population growth, but should be considered as one pillar of a comprehensive, ‘action’-oriented plan to protect at-risk coastal cetaceans 40 , 41 .

Biological resilience is partially determined by genetic diversity. Due to the decline in the SRKW population from the 1960s, the population is currently so small that there are relatively few breeders (especially males) and, that we anticipate inbreeding will exacerbate this process and population decline (Fig.  1 ). In this way, the continued loss of genetic diversity will likely hamper the population’s ability to adapt to an ever-evolving threatscape. Kardos et al. found that the SRKW population is already partly inbred and that reduced survival further jeopardizes its recovery potential 26 . Recovery is currently more difficult than if effective measures had been initiated a few decades ago, although other small marine mammal populations with low genetic diversity have continued to reproduce effectively 42 .

The time scales needed to detect demographic effects of threats and benefits of mitigation might be too long in this species to be the primary metrics by which we gauge success (Fig.  4 ). Short-term benchmarks (e.g., body condition, growth rate, pregnancy, behavior, etc.) for measuring the success of mitigation measures are critical given the long lifespan, low reproductive rate, and small sample size in this population. In fact, Canada’s Species At Risk Act outlines a recovery goal to: “ensure the long-term viability of Resident Killer Whale populations by achieving and maintaining demographic conditions that preserve their reproductive potential, genetic variation, and cultural continuity 43 .” Environmental degradation may manifest in social network fragmentation and loss of cultural traditions (e.g., resting lines and greeting ceremonies) long before demographic effects become detectable against background fluctuations.

Marine species are no more or no less vulnerable than terrestrial counterparts to extinction 44 . Although indiscriminate exploitation and unintentional bycatch tend to be the dominant factors in decline and extinction of marine taxa, habitat loss is a close second 44 . Predicting when and how a species is likely to go extinct is extremely challenging, but it is a fundamental task of conservation science 45 . Without rich demographic data on wildlife populations, extinction risk due to habitat loss can be modeled in a species-area relationship framework. Species-area approaches can overestimate the proportion of habitat loss that would result in the removal of the last individual from a population. An inverse relationship has been found between species diversity and density, so protecting part of a species’ range, without considering density, habitat use, or sampling effort, can lead to a false sense of confidence about population-level protection 46 . One study found a 53-year average lag between the time of the last sighting of a species and its reported extinction 44 . None of these statistical issues are at play for SRKW, in which clinically ill and lost animals are recognized through ongoing surveys and a census that is conducted annually.

Although wildlife censuses are rare in conservation biology, many seemingly irreversible and overt population declines are being witnessed in plain sight, even when the causes of these declines are well known. We use the term bright extinction to refer to data-rich cases where a decline toward extinction has been identified early, the driver(s) of the decline have been well quantified, but the population has declined to a precarious state nonetheless despite interventions. The loss of the baiji (Yangtze River dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer ) illustrates the bright extinction concept well 7 . The species was extirpated from part of its range by the 1950s, and a precipitous decline in its core habitat was well documented between the 1980s and 1990s. In this case, the cause was attributed to fisheries-related mortality. By 2006, the population was declared functionally extinct. Proposals to create an ex situ or semi-natural reserve were made and ignored since the 1980s; perhaps policy-makers thought we had more time than we did 47 . A similar bright-extinction process appears to be underway for vaquita ( Phocoena sinus ) in the northern Gulf of California, Mexico 48 . The species has been declining since the 1990s due to unsustainable bycatch levels in fish and shrimp gillnet fisheries. Although the decline is well documented and the cause well understood, management actions have proven insufficient 49 . By 2018, only nine individuals were thought to be left 50 . Numbering in the low hundreds, North Atlantic right whales ( Eubalaena glacialis ) are also facing unsustainable levels of human-caused mortality due to vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear 51 .

Importantly, these select examples represent cases where declines in small and highly vulnerable populations have been detected. The loss of each animal reduces the power to detect decreases in population abundance 52 . If we are unable to implement timely interventions of these high-profile species, what hope do we have for meeting our current and future biodiversity conservation objectives at large?

Preventing bright extinctions: from knowledge to action

Preventing extirpation of small populations may require extraordinary measures, but several populations of terrestrial and marine wildlife recovered from the brink of extinction offer a useful roadmap to ensure survival and recovery of SRKW.

The California condor ( Gymnogyps californianus ) was decimated to 27 individuals by 1987, from a combination of poaching, cyanide and lead poisoning, and habitat degradation. Captive breeding saved the population from extinction. Although infectious disease did not cause the initial decline, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has begun testing avian influenza vaccines in captive condors and considers capture and vaccination of wild condors in face of the ongoing multi-year epizootic 53 . Owing to declines in prairie dog ( Cynomys sp.) (prey species) and their habitat, the black-footed ferret ( Mustela nigripes ) was once thought to be extinct; however, after the species was rediscovered in Wyoming in 1981, captive breeding and reintroductions, habitat protection, vaccination against canine distemper and cloning helped restore this species to over 300 free-ranging animals. Like SKRW, black-footed ferrets were largely dependent on a single prey species, prairie dogs. All of those conservation efforts for the black-footed ferret could be undone by a single outbreak of plague in their prey, necessitating management vigilance to prevent a disease outbreak 54 . By the time the whooping crane was listed as endangered in 1967, only 50 birds remained. Whooping cranes ( Grus americana ) remain one of North America’s most threatened birds, but their recovery to an estimated 600 birds today is a testament to the progress that is made possible by acting decisively 55 . Mountain gorillas ( Gorilla beringei beringei ) were thought to be extinct by the end of the 20 th century, but a large population now resides in protected forest in Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo 29 . Extreme vigilance in the form of veterinary monitoring and intervention is now needed to prevent backsliding and gorilla mortality 56 . Other populations brought back from the brink include black robin ( Petroica traversi ) 57 and the Eastern barred bandicoot ( Perameles gunnii ) 57 . In both cases, low levels of genetic diversity did not prevent recovery. Brazil’s golden lion tamarin ( Leontopithecus rosalia ) was recovered from a few hundred individuals in the 1970s to about 3700 individuals in 2014 after actions were taken to restore habitat, re-establish connectivity via wildlife corridors, and release captive animals and conduct translocations among wild tamarins 58 . A yellow-fever epidemic in 2017–2018 reduced the population to about 2600 individuals, a decline that would have doomed the species had their habitat and population numbers not been previously recovered 58 .

Meanwhile, as Caughley warned 1 , many previously wide-ranging species have declined in plain sight. Boreal woodland caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) have been extirpated from vast sections of their range due to habitat loss and hunting, with few signs of success following recovery efforts 59 . Having failed to address those root causes, predation on calves now appears to be inhibiting population growth 60 . Karner blue butterfly ( Plebejus samuelis ) are dependent on the native sundial lupine, which has been eliminated from much of its range due to habitat loss and replacement in the northeast by Lupinus polyphyllus , a western species that has been introduced in the east. Conservation of Karner blue butterfly cannot be assured without aggressive measures to reduce ultimate population stressors and protect the microsites on which large fractions of the population depend 61 . Decades of warnings failed to prevent the functional extinction of northern white rhino ( Ceratotherium simum cottoni ) due to hunting and poaching, while conservation organizations and governments debated if, when, how, and who should act 62 . There is an ongoing debate whether radical proposals to clone the northern white rhino may come at the cost of urgently needed measures to prevent the extinction of southern white rhinos 63 .

While many species have been brought back from the brink through interventions such as captive breeding programs, SRKW recovery will require aggressive actions to protect and restore their habitat, which includes mitigating effects to both SRKWs and their primary prey, Chinook salmon. Our analysis showed that the threat with the greatest impact to SRKW population growth is the availability of Chinook salmon (Fig.  3 , Supplementary Fig.  S20 ). Salmon recovery is a crucial component of achieving SRKW recovery. Although no salmon recovery scenario alone resulted in a fully recovered SRKW population, all of the successful multi-threat mitigation scenarios included some ambitious salmon recovery scenario.

Vessel noise can reduce the amount of time SRKWs spend foraging 18 , but it can also have a direct impact on the behavior of prey species 64 , limiting the number of salmon available to SRKWs. Efforts to mitigate impacts from vessel noise include a suite of approaches ranging from building quieter ships to designating slowdown areas 65 . Voluntary efforts to slow ships in important feeding areas for SRKWs has been shown to reduce noise levels by nearly half  66 , which in turn results in increased foraging activity by killer whales 18 . While efforts are underway to reduce noise from existing ships, a number of development applications are underway that would increase shipping traffic in the region 67 . It may be necessary to consider ocean noise budgets, caps, or limits that allow killer whales to hunt scarce prey efficiently.

Protecting SRKWs appears to be impossible without restoring diminished populations of Chinook salmon, which in turn requires effective implementation of conservation and precautionary resource management measures. Implementation will require acknowledgement of the potential trade-offs involved between conservation and resource management, including harvest, and open dialog between involved agencies and stakeholders 24 . Both Canada and the USA have produced recovery plans and strategies for SRKW 43 , 68 . Those plans have recognized the need to ensure adequate prey sources for survival and recovery of SRKW since at least 2008. In a declining population, the longer the lag time between knowledge and mitigation, the more draconian the recovery actions can become, with a larger social cost, and a higher risk that harm reduction actions may not work 69 , 70 . Unfortunately, a legal species listing alone is insufficient to ensure survival and recovery of threatened taxa 63 . In the face of bright extinction, targeted threat reduction measures and community involvement, in addition to monitoring, are needed to reverse declines 71 . Yet the capacity to determine what we can do often outstrips our ability to decide what we will do; a dilemma that leads to delays in threat reduction measures and perpetuates extinction debt, especially in long-lived species 72 .

Abundant examples, however, of successful rescues of plants, insects, and animals in aquatic, terrestrial, and aerial environments confirm that we can halt the loss of endangered wild species and that extraordinary measures can even recover critically imperiled ones. Unfortunately, these eleventh-hour rescues carry higher environmental and societal costs than earlier actions might have. Preventing extinctions of populations on the brink require a high degree of planning and coordination by scientists, managers, decision makers, stakeholders, and affected communities, and may require higher levels of threat reduction than would have been the case had actions been taken sooner. The benefits of species recovery may be difficult to define, both in terms of reversing global biodiversity loss and to the long-term resiliency and health of ecosystems. Rising to the challenge of biodiversity conservation requires robust data on species and threats, but also acting on those threats in a timely manner 73 .

We used program Vortex 10.6.0 to parameterize a population viability analysis (PVA) model (software and manual available at scti.tools/vortex) for Southern Resident killer whales (SRKW) 20 with demographic rates observed over 1976 through 2022. We tested the sensitivity of population growth to variability and uncertainty in fecundity and survival rates (by age class), and prey-demography functional relationships 22 , 23 . Next, we constructed a PVA that explores population consequences of the three primary anthropogenic threats to SRKWs identified in Canadian and USA recovery plans, namely prey limitation (Chinook salmon), noise-mediated disruption of foraging, and effects of contaminants (e.g., PCBs).

We ran more speculative scenarios to consider the threat of not only PCBs, but also other POPs including legacy organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), pathways of effects of contaminants on calf survival 74 , 75 , climate-mediated impacts of Chinook salmon on SRKW demography 22 , 23 , climate- and fisheries-related declines in the size of Chinook salmon 76 , and increased oil spill risk related to industrial development applications in the Salish Sea 67 . In addition to modeling population consequences of threats, efforts were made to model the likely population-level benefits of management measures intended to mitigate human-caused impacts to abundance and population structure from fisheries.

Addressing prey needs requires increasing the abundance of large, older Chinook. Increased abundance and quality of prey within SRKW critical habitat can be realized by changing fishing practices. Moving Pacific Salmon Treaty fisheries in Alaska and BC away from Chinook rearing grounds and migration routes into terminal river and estuarine locations results in an immediate increase of Chinook salmon in critical habitat of up to 25% (Supplementary Table  S2 ). Secondly, transitioning marine fisheries to terminal (river-based) areas can recover a more archetypical Chinook age structure (early- mid 20th century). By not harvesting immature fish in marine fisheries, and then allowing large females to pass through terminal fisheries to spawning grounds, a size increase up to 40% can occur over a 50-year period. Scaling these scenarios to consider both improved value and abundance of mature Chinook salmon in critical habitat results in increases of 35%, 28%, 18%, and 9% at the end of 50 years, if scaled for effectiveness at 100%, 75%, 50%, and 25% (Supplementary Table  S2 ). While not quantified, freshwater habitat restoration and protection would further support recovery of wild Chinook abundance.

The relative importance of each threat and mitigation opportunities were explored by projecting the population growth across the possible range of each threat. Finally, we used the PVA to explore the degree to which threats would have to be mitigated, alone or in combination, to stop the decline and achieve positive population growth toward recovery 68 .

For the baseline model, parameters for fecundity and survival (for calves; subadults young, older, and post-reproductive adult females; young and older adult males) were estimated from 1976 to 2022 data (Table  1 ). Prey availability was drawn from the Chinook prey indexed to the mean from 1976 to 2022 (i.e., impacts scaled such that when Chinook = 1, demographic rates are the means over that time span). The prey-demography relationship of killer whale breeding rate and survival of each age class to the Chinook salmon index was drawn from a recent re-analysis 77 . Inputs for noise (disturbance) impacts and its effect on feeding were as in Lacy et al. 20 . We used the model from Hall et al. 74 for PCB accumulation and depuration parameters and the impact on calf survival was estimated through a comparison between a sympatric killer whale population, Northern Resident killer whales and SRKWs. A 1.75× factor was applied to our previously modeled population impact attributed to only PCBs to capture the contribution and associated risk of other POPs, including legacy OCPs. The factor was derived from a risk-based quotient for endocrine disruption for local harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) 27 . Inputs for variance in male breeding success were sampled from beta distribution (mean = SD = 0.40). Effects of inbreeding depression were set to 6.29 lethal equivalents per diploid, imposed via reduced calf survival.

Data availability

Please see additional technical details on methods and results in the Supplementary Notesfile. The data needed to replicate the model can be found on Zenodo at: Lacy, Robert C, & Williams, Rob. (2023). Vortex project file for PVA of Southern Resident Killer Whale — manuscript by Williams et al. (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8099710 .

Code availability

The Vortex code needed to replicate the model can also be found on Zenodo at: Lacy, Robert C, & Williams, Rob. (2023). Vortex project file for PVA of Southern Resident Killer Whale — manuscript by Williams et al. (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8099710 .

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Puget Sound Partnership for funding this study, with special thanks to Scott Redman. This project was a collaborative, interdisciplinary endeavor. We thank both US and Canadian government, community, and non-profit partners who contributed to and attended a webinar on “Assessing the status, threats, and options for the Southern Resident killer whale”. The Vortex PVA software is made freely available by the Species Conservation Toolkit Initiative and its sponsoring organizations. Open Access page charges were covered by the BC Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and SeaDoc Society, a program of the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center.

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Rob Williams, Erin Ashe, Kimberly A. Nielsen, Stephanie Reiss & Marena Salerno Collins

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Robert C. Lacy

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Contributions

R.W. conceived of the study, coordinated the project, and contributed to writing. R.C.L. conceived of the study, performed all statistical modeling with custom code, and contributed to writing and editing. E.A. conceived of the study and contributed to writing. L.B.L. contributed to writing. T.M.B. contributed to writing. J.K.G. contributed to writing and editing. F.G. contributed to writing. M.M. contributed to writing and editing. B.W.N. parameterized the prey-demography part of the model. K.A.N. generated figures and contributed to writing and editing. H.N. contributed to writing, particularly related to veterinary interventions. S.Raverty contributed to writing. S.Reiss assisted with project coordination. P.S.R. contributed to writing, particularly related to prey impacts. M.S.C. generated figures and contributed to writing and editing. R.S. contributed to writing. P.P. contributed to writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Rob Williams .

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Williams, R., Lacy, R.C., Ashe, E. et al. Warning sign of an accelerating decline in critically endangered killer whales ( Orcinus orca ). Commun Earth Environ 5 , 173 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01327-5

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01327-5

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Prairie voles display signs of human-like depression

Critters can be used to better understand depression.

Psychology researchers at The University of Texas at El Paso are making progress towards understanding the biological underpinnings of depression, a leading cause of disability that affects approximately 280 million people around the world.

In a study published this April in the Journal of Affective Disorders , UTEP psychologist Sergio Iñiguez, Ph.D., and his co-authors make the case that prairie voles, small rodents that are found throughout the central United States and Canada, can be effectively used as animal models to further the study of clinical depression.

"The findings of this investigation are important because we show, for the first time, that prairie voles display some of the core symptoms of depression after chronic stress exposure -- just like humans," Iñiguez said. "This is exciting because we can now use this animal model to potentially uncover the biological factors that underlie illnesses like depression and anxiety."

The UTEP study focuses on the impact of "bullying" on voles' behavioral patterns. Researchers observed what happened when individual male voles were bullied by more aggressive males over the course of ten days, inducing what Iñiguez refers to as "social defeat stress."

Iñiguez explained that that the voles who were bullied exhibited changes in body weight, performed worse on spatial memory tests and were less sociable with other voles compared to those who were not bullied. Where voles generally show a preference for sugar water, the bullied voles showed no preference when given a choice between regular water and sugar water, a pattern known as anhedonia, or loss of pleasure in regular activities, Iñiguez said.

Iñiguez and his fellow researchers concluded that "social defeat" activated the voles' stress response and became a risk factor for symptoms that mirrored those of depression in humans.

Iñiguez, a professor in the Department of Psychology at UTEP who studies behavioral neuroscience, said that while depression has certain defining characteristics -- such as sadness, lack of pleasure in normal activities, and disruption in sleep and eating patterns -- researchers don't yet have a full picture of what causes it.

"We have some information about the many factors that contribute to depression, but the ethical implications of doing neurobiological research in humans make it difficult to pinpoint the biology behind this debilitating condition," Iñiguez said.

Rats and mice are often used in psychology studies, but prairie voles share several unique characteristics with humans that make them better candidates for research, such as having monogamous relationships, raising vole pups in pairs, and even taking on parental roles for orphaned pups.

Psychology doctoral student Minerva Rodriguez is the lead author of the study.

"These unique and specialanimals have opened doors to understanding aspects of depression we simply could not with mice and rats," Rodriguez said. "Their distinct social behaviors provide fresh research avenues, demonstrating the prairie vole's immense value as a model for delving into the neurobiology of social stress-induced depression."

Future studies will examine how the voles rebound from depression-like experiences and how they respond to antidepressant medications like Prozac or ketamine.

The project is funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

• Mental Health Research
• Workplace Health
• Psychology Research
• Mental Health
• Behavioral Science
• Prairie Restoration
• Bipolar disorder
• Clinical depression
• Food and Drug Administration
• Psychopathology
• Learning disability

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Texas at El Paso . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Minerva Rodriguez, Anapaula Themann, Israel Garcia-Carachure, Omar Lira, Alfred J. Robison, Bruce S. Cushing, Sergio D. Iñiguez. Chronic social defeat stress in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster): A preclinical model for the study of depression-related phenotypes . Journal of Affective Disorders , 2024; 351: 833 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2024.02.001

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