Get examples of marketing case study mastery. Learn by example how to engage and convert more prospects and launch your effort with battle-tested templates.
A great marketing case study is a compelling narrative, showcasing real-world success, complete with quantifiable results. It weaves strategy, execution, and outcome into a captivating story that inspires and convinces the reader to take the desired action.
Marketing case studies are an essential step for many prospects to see if they can trust you, if you meet their particular needs, and if tying their business with yours feels right.
Marketing case studies provide prospects a sense of security without which they’ll never convert.
But when done poorly, case studies can become little more than digital white noise. They’ll fail to build trust and confidence, but worse yet, they might just drive prospects to go with your competition.
Too many companies invest time, thought, and money into creating “white noise” case studies without knowing that they may cause more harm than good.
But there’s a way forward. This post will serve as your compass, guiding you to the promised land of persuasive, profit-driving success stories.
Let’s get started!
A marketing case study is a narrative showcasing a company's successful marketing strategy. It outlines the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, and the achieved results. This tool effectively demonstrates value, builds credibility, and convinces potential customers to take action.
The purpose of a marketing case study is to build trust and authority and inspire action from potential clients. It's intended to present a narrative of success through a transformational business story with measurable outcomes. Its goal is to encourage potential customers to envision their own success with the help of your solution.
Think of your case study as a rags-to-riches success story starring your client. They struggle with problems, they stumble on your product or service which guides them back to safety. But here the 'happily ever after' is a measurable outcome.
A case study shows how you brought tangible indisputable results. It shows the positive transformation you helped bring about for your client. It's like having a credible friend vouch for you—it has an authentic persuasive effect that nothing you say yourself could ever achieve.
A good marketing case study nudges the reader to think: 'If it worked wonders for them, why not for me?' It subtly encourages potential customers to envision their own success with your product or service, though they came doubtful.
A marketing case study doesn’t just show a specific problem. By highlighting challenges similar to those faced by your potential customers, a case study makes your solution look more than “a good fit” it makes you look like “the best fit”, or even “the only fit”.
Our Head of Marketing has this piece of advice for you:
"When we write a marketing case study we treat it like a personal story we’d share with friends over lunch.
This makes our case studies feel familiar and gives them the credibility of personal experience, which tends to inspire others to act the same way."
—Amotz Harari, Head of Marketing at Storydoc
Looking to craft a marketing case study that grips, convinces, and converts? Here's your blueprint.
A compelling marketing case study should include:
A captivating title: Much like a great book, your case study needs an intriguing title. One that grabs attention and promises an interesting story - a story of a problem solved, a challenge overcome, a victory achieved.
The protagonist: Every good story needs a hero. In your case study, it's the client or customer. Start by introducing them - who are they? What do they do? What unique challenge were they facing?
The problem: Detail the problem your customer faced. This is the villain of your story - the hurdle that stood in your customer's way. Make it relatable, so potential customers facing the same issue can see themselves in your protagonist's shoes.
The solution: Now introduce your product or service - the knight in shining armor. Explain how you swooped in to tackle the problem. Highlight what makes your solution unique and effective.
The implementation process: Give a brief account of how the solution was implemented. This is the journey part of your story - the struggle, the strategy, and the steps taken to overcome the challenge.
The results: The happily-ever-after of your tale. Showcase the positive results achieved using your product or service. Be specific and use hard numbers - they provide tangible proof of your success.
The testimonial: Finally, include words of praise from your satisfied customer. A happy client is the best endorsement. This validates the story you've told and adds an emotional, human touch.
A clear next step: Conclude with a clear call to action. What should the reader do next? Contact you for a consultation? Sign up for a demo? Download a guide? Make sure the next step is relevant, clear, and compelling.
Here’s an example of a marketing case study designed according to this structure:
Selecting the right format for your case study depends on your goal, the specifics of your customer's story, and the message you wish to convey.
4 case study types to consider:
This is the classic 'hero’s journey'. Your customer (the hero) is faced with a challenge (the problem), and aided by a trusted guide (your solution) goes through a transformation overcoming their hurdles and fulfilling their full potential.
This format focuses on the details of the journey with its ups and downs.
The Cinderella tale of the business world. You show the situation 'before' your product or service came into play, and the improved situation 'after'.
This format focuses on contrasting the transformation, highlighting the dramatic changes from before your solution came in and after.
Think of this as the 'rags to riches' narrative. Rather than focusing solely on a single problem and solution, this case study celebrates an overarching success.
It provides the details of how the change was achieved but focuses mainly on the outcomes and their business impact.
This type is more personal and candid, providing direct quotes and insights from the customer’s perspective.
This format lends authenticity and focuses on building an emotional connection with the reader.
The ACORN method - 5 steps for writing story-led case studies:
I've curated for you a selection of brilliant marketing case study examples from some of the biggest names in business.
These case studies represent a variety of industries, challenges, solutions, and outcomes, providing a wealth of insights and inspiration for your own case study creation.
Let's dive in:
Tenlo, a marketing agency, worked with the Nestlé Professional Dispensed Beverage Sales Team to improve their lead generation efforts.
Through a targeted content strategy and optimized lead nurturing campaigns, they successfully empowered the client's sales team with high-quality leads, resulting in increased conversion rates and revenue growth.
Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" campaign aimed to challenge societal beauty standards.
Through an emotional and thought-provoking video campaign, Dove sparked conversations and empowered women to redefine their perception of beauty, resulting in widespread awareness and positive brand sentiment.
AppSumo, a digital marketplace for software deals, employed clever marketing tactics to drive organic growth.
Through the strategic implementation of SEO, engaging product-focused content, and effective link building, they successfully increased their blog's organic traffic and saw a significant boost in revenue from organic sources.
Start-Up Nation Central is an NGO with a clear mission—to fuel the growth of high-tech companies. They produce and send out a lot of business analysis reports, and they were looking for a way to modernize the way they present data.
By working with Storydoc to switch from static PDFs to interactive next-gen decks, they gained access to full reader analytics and A/B testing options to see which versions of their reports were getting the most traction.
Adventure PPC collaborated with Forbes Magazine to enhance their subscriber base. Through targeted paid advertising campaigns, video production, and remarketing, they achieved a significant 20% increase in subscribers.
L’Oreal cooperated with Google ahead of their new product launch to identify relevant audience segments based on hard data.
They targeted potential customers across all stages of the marketing funnel, which resulted in increasing ad recall, market share, and e-commerce sales.
You can watch the case study below:
Vissla, an e-commerce shop, was looking for a more effective way to keep an account of data across all of their marketing channels.
They partnered with Bitly Campaigns to create a dashboard containing all marketing activities, track results in real-time, and optimize their content based on hard data.
When Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the US, brought their marketing campaign production in-house, they had to find a way to scale up the number of projects.
They collaborated with Asana to increase campaign volume and streamline campaign management.
Stripe, the innovative payment platform, gathered 100 brilliant minds from within its own ranks to revolutionize features and workflows with GPT-4. Their mission? Take Stripe to new heights!
The result? 15 groundbreaking prototypes emerged, promising personalized support, expert answers to tough questions, and the power to nail fraud on community platforms.
Ryanair, a leading Irish discount airline, needed to find a way to report product performance to its main stakeholders.
They turned to Hotjar Surveys to measure user satisfaction, identify main pain points and barriers to purchase, and report the larger trends.
The leadership team at Tambla, an HR technology company in Australia, was struggling to pinpoint resource leaks.
By consolidating client work management tools using Accelo, they gained unprecedented visibility. In just two years of using the platform, Tambla doubled revenue, quadrupled project turnover and increased recurring work by 15%!
Your marketing case study design can significantly influence its effectiveness. But design is a serious business.
Imagine starting a marketing case study from zero—it's like carving a statue from a solid block of marble. But, what if you had a mold?
These interactive case study templates provide a structured narrative, coupled with the flexibility to add your own data, images, and other interactive elements designed to engage, impress, and persuade.
Considered the go-to format for case studies, PDFs offer accessibility and versatility. Share them around, download at will, or print for a keepsake.
But just because PDFs are easy for you to use, it doesn’t mean they’re easy for your audience to consume. They’re not.
PDFs are a hassle. They're tough to read, scan, and navigate. They're not mobile-friendly, they lack interactivity, and they can be downright dull.
On top of that, they take your audience offline, disconnecting them from your online assets, like your website or app.
Instead of PDFs that tank engagement, it’s better to go with the webpage option.
Webpage-designed case studies offer multimedia, interactivity, and mobile-friendly navigation that lead to renewed engagement.
They give your readers a rich content experience with videos, animations, and clickable elements like tabs, sliders, and buttons, all wrapped in a story.
However, webpage case studies are not so easy to produce. They require the involvement of designers, developers, website managers, brand managers, and so on.
With all these people involved, even adding the tiniest update to the page can become a headache.
But there’s a way to bypass all this needless complexity. Creating a case study with Storydoc combines the interactivity of a webpage and the simplicity of producing a PDF.
When using Storydoc you’re stepping into a safe walled garden where everything is already taken care of, from coding to design to branding. And making changes takes just a few seconds.
Here’s how PDF and Storydoc case studies compare:
Try Storydoc interactive case study creator for 14 days free (keep any presentation you make forever!)
