The short version
If you can't say what it was measured against, it isn't a result.
What a good case study has
- The starting point. The business and a baseline, so there's something to compare against.
- The problem. What wasn't working, in plain words.
- What was done. Specifically. Not "a social strategy".
- The timeframe. Results after one month and after one year are different things.
- The results. Numbers, and what they're measured against.
- What didn't work. This is the part that makes the rest believable.
Red flags
- Percentages with no baseline.
- Only vanity numbers: impressions, likes, views.
- No timeframe.
- No client name, and no sign the client agreed to be in it.
- Credit taken for things other factors also drove, like a season, a price change or a new location.
How to write yours
- Ask the client first, and show them the draft.
- Take before and after numbers from the same source and the same kind of period.
- Say what you'd do differently.
- One story per page.
Where ours are
We're putting our first case studies together with the people we work with. They'll live in Portfolio. Our Confessions series is the other kind of story: true tales from behind marketing books, told the Accroche way.