Walt Kania   :Writer
 
Case Studying
Sometimes Zzzzzzzz is what they want
 
How interesting do case studies have to be?
 
A while back, when I first started writing case studies for one of my larger technology clients, I secretly worried that I wasn't handling them very well.
 
I wondered if my case studies were coming out too. . . well, dull as dirt.
 
The clients didn't seem to think so.  But as a writer, I couldn't help feeling all these cases were horribly flat.  They had none of the elements that make a story a story.  There was no dramatic tension.  There were no interesting twists and turns.  No surprising outcomes. (Or none that anyone wanted to speak of.)   No larger-than-life personalities.  To me, they all sounded the same.  Same format.  Same opening, same subheads, same predictable quotes.”
 
  1. "ABC company chose XYZ 's solution because of their long experience and dedication to service and superior value proposition.  The installation went flawlessly and the team was great and now ABC company enjoys these four benefits."
 
So I went proactive.  I played around with a fresh new format, with teaser leads, more provocative heads, sidebars, and a sharper narrative edge.  I re-wrote a piece or two to show they what they’d look like in the new style.  The pieces read like cover features in Forbes and Fortune:  compelling, engaging, smart.
 
And the client hated it.  Hated it.
 
They politely told me to stick with the format.  Stick with the same tone.  Don’t try to be interesting.
 
I'm embarrassed to admit it, but it finally dawned on me:  Uneventful and plain vanilla was exactly the point.  That's what those case studies were for.
 
No time for drama
 
When a customer is trying to decide if he should invest $50,000 of his budget into your solution, he doesn't want dramatic tension and fine writing.  He wants to know that eighty-four other companies bought this, and it worked out.  He doesn't want cleverness and ingenuity.  He wants assurance that you know what you're doing.  He wants to know that if he buys this thing, that everything will go like clockwork.  Period.
 
In fact, as a wily ad manager once told me, you can accomplish much of that even if no one reads the thing.  Just get the headline right.
 
  1. JKL Company chooses QRS 4800 solution for their MRI upgrade.
  2.  
  3. ("Hmm.  A prestigious well-known company bought this.")
  4.  
  5. LMNO 1300 streamlines transactions for multi-location retailer
  6.  
  7. ("A company just like mine bought this.")
  8.  
  9. HIJ Limited:  Integrated CDE Services Optimized Our Claims Management
  10.  
  11. ("And it actually worked.")
 
Here, being predictable won't hurt you.  In fact, in this way of thinking, simply having a pile of happy predictable case studies is enough.  
 
The exception.  A big one.
 
On the other hand, if you rely on case studies (or whatever you call them) to explain exactly what your company does, or to show precisely how your product works, your stories need to be more seductive, more alluring.
 
If no one reads the piece, no one will understand what you do.  That's a challenge consulting firms like McKinsey and Accenture face every day.   This isn’t about showing a happy implementation.   It’s about demonstrating how and where your expertise actually fits in, what good it does.
 
I suggest you flavor your 'case study' more like a feature article for a business magazine.   How would Forbes magazine cover this?  How would Fast Company profile your team?
 
Look for a 'hook' or an angle that suggests something interesting, unexpected, or out of the ordinary happened here.   Or something that everyone is trying to do.  
 
Show remarkable clients doing remarkable things with remarkable approaches.
 
Talk about roadblocks or challenges.  Or even minor setbacks.
 
Even a little conflict is okay.  Were their differences of opinion?  Two possible approaches?
 
Use suspense.  Don't telegraph the entire story upfront. Unfold your story step by step.  ("While that solved the integration issues, nothing would happen without buy-in from the sales force.  That wouldn't be easy.)  Leave some room for doubt about the outcome.  Or at least how you got there.
 
Tell the story through live people, not just business units or organizations.  Let them talk about what they did.  Show their pictures.
 
Make your company the hero, of course, but be gracious about it.
 
Don't be overly concerned with length.  But stop when it ceases to be interesting.
 
Which is right about now.
 
 
Walt Kania is a freelance writer specializing in marketing communications for B2B and technology companies.  He works out of New Jersey.  
 
Contact him here.
 
“If you rely on case studies to explain exactly what you do, you need to entice readers into the story.
 
“Show remarkable clients doing clever things in unexpected ways.”
“And always stop when it ceases to be interesting.”