How to Write a B2B Case Study That Converts: A Copywriter's Guide

When you’re trying to hook those all-important B2B clients, you need proof that your solution works. Testimonials and references from previous clients are some of the best ways to prove your case. You can also strengthen your pitch with a B2B case study. These case studies offer real-world examples of how your solution works with measurable results. Well-written, persuasive case studies can push a person from the decision-making stage to the purchasing stage. This B2B copywriting guide covers case study design including tips that will show you how to write a B2B case study that converts. 

Start With Your Target Audience

You can’t write an effective case study without choosing your audience first. Start by outlining your goals and use them to select your target audience. Knowing your target audience will help you frame your case study from their perspective. Ask yourself: 

• Who are my best customers? 
• What do they have in common? 
• What are their pain points? 
• How will this case study resonate with potential customers? 

Answering these questions will help you find the best target audience for your unique value proposition. You can also develop the most compelling case study for potential customers.

Select Relevant Case Study Candidates

Social proof remains one of the most effective components of B2B marketing. Your happiest customers serve as the best ambassadors for your brand. They are enthusiastic about the results you’ve achieved for them and pitch your case more effectively than your sales team with positive reviews and word of mouth. A B2B case study is like a written referral. Choose your most satisfied customers and ask them to sit down for an interview. 

Best Practices for Interviewing Customers

Before conducting your interview, review your case study goals. This will help you determine the best questions to ask your former client. To get the best data for your case study: 

• Record the interview and take notes.
• Ask open-ended questions.
• Listen to the answers instead of waiting to ask the next question.
• Focus on the outcomes.

If you’re asking a series of “yes” or “no” questions, you’ll have to pry harder to get anything useful from your interview. Open-ended questions and active listening result in useful conversation. Allowing your interviewees to guide the conversation highlights information you may not have considered when drawing up your questions. If you hear something interesting or unexpected, don’t be afraid to follow up and take the conversation off course. 

Gathering Authentic Insights and Testimonials

Customer testimonials are more effective when they’re genuine. Your best customers will be more enthusiastic about how you helped them solve their problems which lends credibility to your case study. 

To find your best clients, start with anyone who has already given you a positive review or a referral. Comb through your social media feeds and find people who have great things to say about your company. If you send out customer surveys, look for people who’ve given you in-depth examples of how your product or service worked for them. 

Employ Powerful Storytelling Techniques

B2B copywriting can easily fall flat, particularly if you sell highly specified products or services. You don’t want potential customers to toss your marketing case study in the trash because the first paragraph failed to reel them in. 

Effective storytelling will engage your target audience and help them visualize how your products or services can help them. Stay away from stiff language packed full of jargon. Instead, weave anecdotes and statistics throughout your narrative. Breathe life into your case study to help your audience visualize what your solution can do for them. Make your stories relevant and engaging. 

Structure Your Case Study Effectively

You can use various types of marketing case studies, depending on your goals, to highlight a client's success or focus on your product. Whichever type you use, laying out your case study in a logical way will help you tell a better story. It will also guide the reader through the case study and keep them engaged. 

Presenting the Challenge

Help your potential customers put themselves into the story by clearly stating the client’s pain points. Set the stage by offering proper context. Introduce your reader to the company, its industry, its size, and any market-related information that matters to your prospective clients. Be specific. Include quotes from the company’s decision-makers to highlight your point. 

Consider these two B2B case study introduction examples: 

“Barry Jenkins for XYZ company needed to make more sales. To help him, our company presented our solution which tracks customer behavior.” 

“Feel like your paid social media posts end up in a black hole never generating the leads you need? Barry Jenkins from XYZ company felt the same way. XYZ company provides medical billing and coding software to practices across the country. According to Jenkins, ‘We were spending $2,500 on paid ads each quarter and not seeing a high bump in leads.’ 

“Enter our solution.” 

The second example lays out the problem and offers actual numbers supporting the customer’s pain points. 

Detailing the Solution

This section of your customer case studies highlights how you solved your problem for your previous customer. Include multiple details about your product or service and outline the steps you took to provide the solution. 

This stage of the case study is great for illustrations, photos, and infographics. Adding visually appealing infographics makes it easier for potential customers to skim the case study and still understand your solution. 

When writing your solution, highlight what makes you unique. This is the part of the case study in which you can hammer home your unique value proposition. Show potential customers how your solution stands out from your competition. 

Include quotes from your customers to display how you successfully met customer needs. 

Showcasing the Results

B2B marketing case studies are most impactful when you can highlight concrete results. In this section, include multiple metrics. Highlight your successes by including important metrics in graphics. Add quotes showing how your past clients benefitted from your solution. 

You want to include concrete figures in the results of your case study. Avoid vague statements such as “XYZ company saw an increase in qualified leads.” Showcase as many quantifiable results as possible. “In 90 days following our solution’s implementation, XYZ company’s social media campaigns generated 25% more qualified leads.” 

Make this section easier to write by asking for results in your interview. Prepare your subject in advance and ask them to compile a list of measurable results you can expand while having your conversation. 

Using Data To Support Your Case Study

Word of mouth is persuasive but cold, hard facts make you seem more credible. Key metrics demonstrate your potential in actual results. These facts and figures allow your potential customers to visualize themselves using your solution and achieving similar results. 

You don’t need to fabricate data or it comes across as false advertising. Instead, spend some time with past customers during the interview learning how your product benefitted them. 

If you have previous customer surveys, look for commonalities among your customer successes. You might be able to glean consistent metrics from multiple customers. See if there is a regular range in your metrics such as increased revenue, cost savings, or other key metrics you use to measure your success. These numbers will help you focus your discussion. 

Enhancing Engagement With Visuals

Marketing materials are more engaging with photos, infographics, and other visuals. Putting your most important data in tables or text boxes helps you show your reader where to focus. Putting stats in multiple text boxes throughout your case study lets decision-makers understand your solution without reading the full case study. If you’re selling to busy executives, you can use your visuals to highlight the most important parts of your case study. 

Make sure your visuals relate to the information in your case study. If you’re pulling stats and putting them in boxes, place them in the right section of your case study. Use visuals that are clean and easy to read. A busy, overstimulating infographic won’t achieve your desired result. Instead, make it digestible and appealing so someone skimming your case study gets all the relevant points. 

You can also pull impactful quotes and highlight them in a text box. 

Content Promotion: Exploring Various Formats for Case Studies

Knowing how to write a B2B case study is just the tip of the iceberg. With so many social media platforms available, you’re not limited to the written word. Explore some of these tactics to promote and distribute your compelling story. 

Write Compelling Blog Posts

Blog posts give you the benefits of B2B storytelling, and they are a great way to draw readers into your case studies and make them curious. Dedicate blog posts to the most impressive parts of your case studies. Choose a single challenge and solution and craft an interesting story around it. 

Choose an exciting headline that conveys your most important points such as “How XYZ Company Boosted Qualified Leads By 25% in 90 Days.”

Tell the story from your customer’s perspective and use relevant keywords to boost your online visibility. Use a single case study to create multiple blog posts by featuring different parts of the study. You can put the full case study behind a paywall or use the blog as a lead-generating tool and present the full case study during your sales pitch. 

Create Engaging Videos and Scripts

Video is an effective marketing tool, and 41% of businesses planned on increasing their video marketing efforts in 2024. Instead of writing your customer’s story, interview them on camera and post the video to your social media feeds. 

Weave in animations and graphics to keep your viewers’ interest and make the case study more engaging. Appeal to a viewer’s emotions by choosing a case study that resonates with your target audience. 

When you’re making videos, choose previous customers who are animated and engaging. They should be comfortable on camera and speak to your viewers in a conversational tone. If your previous clients are camera shy, make a script and tell the story using visuals and testimonials, or save that story for written media. 

Include an interesting introduction for each video using animations and graphics bring them into your video. When you’re presenting a case study on video, walk your viewers through complex aspects of the case through visuals and animations. You can use tools such as Crello, Canva, or Adobe Spark to make animated visuals. Turn these animations into thumbnails so people can find your videos online. 

Designing Informative Infographics

An infographic is a visual representation of your data that readers can skim to get your key points. They usually feature a combination of graphics such as icons and simple charts alongside text.  Before designing your infographics, create an outline. Choose what to highlight so you can plan your layout and your icons. 

Use the right colors. You can pick a color scheme that matches your branding but pay attention to how the infographic looks in print and on screens. You want your graphics and text to stand out against your backdrop and use fonts that are large enough to see. People shouldn’t have to strain to read your infographics. 

Before publishing your infographic, make sure your data is accurate and clear. 

Writing Attention-Grabbing Emails

Leverage your email list to promote your B2B case studies. Email marketing remains effective and is expected to be a $17.9 billion industry by 2027. Make your case study emails more effective by focusing less on sales and more on establishing your credibility. 

Identify the pain points that matter most to your email audience and highlight them in the subject line. Craft compelling stories around these pain points and highlight your solution. 

Emails should be short and to the point. Instead of reiterating your entire case study in email form, break out your key points and add a call to action encouraging readers to contact you for the full story. Make sure your emails are mobile-friendly so people can read them on their phones. 

If your email list is segmented, create different emails for each section of your list. You can frame your case study to speak to people at various stages of your marketing funnel. For example, to reach people at the top of the funnel who aren’t very familiar with your company, tailor the case study to broad industry challenges. 

To reach people who need to be pushed from decision-making to purchasing, highlight quantifiable results in your emails. 

Create Scroll-Stopping Social Media Posts

Case studies are great for paid social media posts. You can also use them to drive organic traffic but repurposing them into sponsored posts can help you generate new leads with people who aren’t following you. 

First, choose which social platform you’ll use to promote your case study. In the B2B realm, LinkedIn is popular, because you can reach multiple decision-makers on one platform. 

Whichever platform you use, define your target audience and create engaging content. Showcase quotes and impactful data points to bring people into your posts. Boost your engagement by using hashtags and keywords to help more people find your case study. Add interesting visuals such as graphs and photos to stop people while they’re scrolling. 

Metrics To Measure B2B Case Study Effectiveness

Once you’ve written and promoted your case studies, you want to know that they’re working for you. Draw up a list of key metrics to measure based on your overall goals for the case study. For example, if at the beginning of your journey you wanted to generate more qualified leads with your case study, set a timeframe to measure your results. 

Record your number of qualified leads before pushing your case study and follow up after 30 days. If your case study has generated interest, you should see a boost in your number of qualified leads. Make sure you’re using a landing page or unique link to track how much traffic you’re getting from the case study. 

You can use a case study in multiple ways, so it’s not always easy to measure success. Track these metrics to determine your success level: 

• Landing page traffic
• Conversions
• Sales volume
• Click-through rates from socials, blogs, and videos
• Form fills
• Success rate for proposals highlighting that case study
• Downloads
• Sales calls scheduled

Connecting B2B Case Study Copywriters With Great Companies

So how do you write a B2B case study? Start with your target audience in mind and tell an impactful story that speaks to their needs. A well-written case study serves as proof that your product or service can benefit potential customers. Interview your best customers and let them tell your story for you. 

If you don’t consider yourself to be creative or you’re pressed for time, Compose.ly can help. We will connect you with B2B copywriters who can bring your story to life. You can handle the interviews yourself or leave them to us. 

Our case study writing services help build your brand trust and generate more qualified leads. Once we have drafted the best case study for your business, we pass it to you for approval. 

Contact us today to find out how we can level up your B2B marketing efforts. Are you an experienced B2B copywriter? Learn how you can join our team.