Improve Your Case Studies

Case studies are one of the best types of sales enablement content. (Content that helps your sales team close sales.)

That’s because they’re a natural place to combine three powerful persuasion techniques:

  • Social proof
  • Concrete numbers
  • Storytelling

Here’s how to use all three techniques in your case studies.

We’ll use this excellent case study by ShipHero as an example.

Social proof:

Every case study should include at least one quote from the customer it’s about. This makes it more trustworthy and memorable.

ShipHero’s case study features the following quote on the first page. And then several more throughout the rest of the case study.

Customer quote example in case study

Concrete numbers:

Highlighting concrete numbers makes your case study more believable and more impressive. Best if you can include a specific number in the title.

Here’s the title of ShipHero’s case study:

Improve Your Case Studies 1

Storytelling:

People are 22 times more likely to remember something when it’s part of a story.

Plus, stories are inherently interesting. It’s hard to stop reading one.

Case studies are fundamentally customer success stories. So don’t be afraid to play up the “story” part.

ShipHero’s case study uses a narrative structure on the right. But it also provides skimmable highlights on the left:

Case study narrative story example

As you can see, social proof, concrete numbers and storytelling are a natural fit for case studies.

But you can also apply these same tips to your other sales-enablement content. Like white papers, individual testimonials, email drip sequences, and even landing pages.