{"id":260,"date":"2011-09-29T13:50:14","date_gmt":"2011-09-29T13:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.write-angle.com\/thewritestuff\/?p=260"},"modified":"2011-09-29T13:50:14","modified_gmt":"2011-09-29T13:50:14","slug":"one-simple-rule-for-making-your-case-studies-more-readable-and-effective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.write-angle.com\/thewritestuff\/one-simple-rule-for-making-your-case-studies-more-readable-and-effective\/","title":{"rendered":"One simple rule for making your case studies more readable and effective"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dreamstime.com\/register?jump_to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dreamstime.com%2Froyalty-free-stock-photo-maze-problem-solved-image15654915\"><img decoding=\"async\" id=\"myimage\" title=\"Maze - Problem Solved\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dreamstime.com\/maze-problem-solved-thumb15654915.jpg\" alt=\"Maze - Problem Solved\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Calibri,Verdana,Helvetica,Arial;\">It&#8217;s become a cliche in marketing to say that a case study is supposed  to be more about about your user, not about you. \u00a0Still, reading a lot  of case studies will convince you that a relatively few vendors have  gotten this message.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Case studies are valuable selling tools because buyers rely on them in the purchasing process, specifically in the discovery phase  of research. \u00a0What do they look for? \u00a0They want to know how people like  them solved problems like the ones they want to solve. \u00a0They want  to read about those people and those problems much more than read  praises for any particular solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a suggestion to keep your case studies honest. Review some recent  samples and screen them for mentions of your company name vs. how many  times the customer or user&#8217;s name was cited. \u00a0Just do a simple &#8220;Search  in Document&#8221; if you&#8217;re using Word, for example. \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/write-angle.com\">Our own experience <\/a> suggests that your user&#8217;s name should appear at least 50% more than  yours. \u00a0If your name is cited 10 times, for example, the name of the  user in the case should come up 15 times. \u00a0If you show up 20 times in the  case, your customer should be referenced 30, and so on. \u00a0This  rule-of-thumb does two things: it forces the writer to focus on the main  character of the story, namely, the user. \u00a0This, in turn, makes the  case study spotlight the benefits to the user in the eyes of the reader.  It also makes for far more compelling reading.<\/p>\n<p>How do your cases measure up? \u00a0How do you ensure that they are less  about your solution and more about the problem you solved and the  benefits you delivered?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s become a cliche in marketing to say that a case study is supposed to be more about about your user, not about you. \u00a0Still, reading a lot of case studies will convince you that a relatively few vendors have gotten this message. Case studies are valuable selling tools because buyers rely on them in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,52,36,37,10],"tags":[210,26,38,6],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-studies","category-content-marketing","category-content-strategy","category-marketing","category-website-content","tag-case-studies","tag-content-creation","tag-content-strategy-2","tag-writing-case-studies"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>One simple rule for making your case studies more readable and effective - The Write Stuff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.write-angle.com\/thewritestuff\/one-simple-rule-for-making-your-case-studies-more-readable-and-effective\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One simple rule for making your case studies more readable and effective - The Write Stuff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s become a cliche in marketing to say that a case study is supposed to be more about about your user, not about you. \u00a0Still, reading a lot of case studies will convince you that a relatively few vendors have gotten this message. 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