If you want people to buy from you, you need to show them you're trustworthy. Case studies are great for building trust because they let your readers see the process and the results you’ve achieved for people just like them. The thing is, what if they don’t work for your business? The good news is, you don’t need loads of case studies to prove yourself.
What do I mean by case studies?
Case studies describe a specific client project you worked on and usually follow a fairly standardised format. You start with the challenge your customer was facing when they contacted you, how you worked together and the results you achieved. I usually see them shared as a blog post, so you’ll find them on a company’s blog page, or sometimes in a separate section on their website.
There are a few reasons this format might not work for you. I’ll be talking about a few of them shortly, but the biggest one might be that you don’t have that sort of access to your customers. It might work for you if you work with clients one-to-one, but what if someone just orders what they need from your website and you don’t even speak to them? Not so much.
If you’re wondering whether case studies will work for you, the first thing to consider is how you can use your content to prove you’re trustworthy.
What do you need to prove?
When you write a case study, you’re telling your future customers a story about someone you’ve already helped. They’re powerful because when you read them, you’re hearing about someone just like you. They might have a business like yours or be facing a similar personal challenge. It starts a thought process that says, “If they can help them, they might be able to help me too”.
Your readers want reassurance that you know what you’re doing. They also want to understand what the process is like and picture working with you. Sometimes, the biggest obstacle between you and a new client is fear of the unknown. A case study can demystify the process.
At the same time, case studies are only one tool, but not the only one. You can describe your process in other ways, or gather different evidence to showcase your results. I’ll be going into more detail about that in a future post, so watch this space.
Every business is different
There are loads of reasons why case studies might not work for your business. Maybe your work is confidential, and you can’t identify individual clients in a case study. You can potentially write an anonymised version, but that can be tricky if there are potentially identifying factors and you work in a regulated industry or a small geographical location. For example, no one wants their neighbours knowing the details of their divorce unless they’ve chosen to share the story. Describing a technical project could mean giving away trade secrets.
You might have a few clients that you work with closely, meaning you can’t generate loads of case studies to showcase your work. You might also not have the kind of contact with your clients that gives you insight into why they chose a particular product.
Maybe you simply don’t have time to write everything down, or you aren’t sure what to include. The right format will vary depending on your business and how you work with your clients.
How case studies work for me
I’ve written a few case studies in the past, but I don’t share them as blog posts anymore. You can find a few on my website, including some anonymised ones. Some clients don’t want to advertise the fact that they work with a writer. I focus on getting each client’s voice into their marketing and making it sound like them, so this makes sense. If I’ve created something that sounds like you, you might not want to admit someone else wrote it.
When I updated my website last year, my designer suggested highlighting clients I’d already included in my portfolio. It means those stories now live elsewhere on my website, which makes case study blog posts a bit redundant.
If you’ve been thinking about writing case studies but you aren’t sure they’ll work for you, shift your focus. Ask yourself what would help a future client trust you and how you can demonstrate that.
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