To be effective, case studies need to be credible. There are three main ways
to ensure this:

Incorporate the voice of your customer

Include first-person accounts and testimonials of what the company experienced while using your product or service. Make sure you get permission to use any testimonials you want to include, and always attribute them correctly, noting the name and title of the relevant person.

And remember that more often than not, the best way to get testimonials is to ghost write them for your customer, rather than asking them to come up with something on their own. That not only makes the process easier for your customer (who then simply has to edit and approve what you’ve written), it also helps ensure that each testimonial focuses on the
most important points.

Including a testimonial or two from a relevant stakeholder from inside your business can also help further personalize the case study and build credibility.

Create a well-written, clear, and concise document

As with all of your external content, make sure your case study is well-written, clear, and error free. This is especially important with case studies because you’re not only representing your brand, but also your customer’s brand.

And, if that representation contains errors, typos, or other quality issues, you’re associating your company and your customer’s company with that poorly written content. Make sure you have a B2B copywriter system in place to adequately review your content before you publish it, whether that involves human editors or some form of optimization technology.

Show tangible results

We touched on this earlier but it bears repeating. While stating what you did is important, it won’t get you very far unless you can also explain the resulting impact.

While qualitative results are great (we increased sales, customer satisfaction went up, etc.), quantifying those results is even better. By what percentage did sales increase? How much higher is customer satisfaction now than it was before?

Numbers can go a long way toward demonstrating tangible ROI, which in turn builds credibility.

Tell a relatable story

While credibility is certainly a top priority, to really ensure that your case study resonates, it needs to do more than simply relay facts. It has to tell a story. Practically speaking that means:

• Making the case study relatable by putting it into the appropriate context so that your readers identify with it.
• Ensuring that you have a strong narrative and adopt a conversational tone of voice.
• Incorporating the elements of any good story: strong characters trying to overcome a challenge, ups and downs along the way, and a satisfying resolution.

If you can wrap your case study into a compelling and credible story, you’re all but guaranteed to create a highly effective piece of content.