How to create a great case study
How to create a great case study
When we have surveyed sales teams, asking them, “What sales tool would be the most useful for you?”, they consistently rank case studies at the top of the list. Case studies, or success stories, explain how a product or service has solved someone else’s problem, so prospects can see how it might help them in the same way. It paints a picture of the future if they were to work with you.
How long should a case study be?
Success stories can take different formats that are useful for different types of communications. One-pager case studies are good for initial conversations with a sales prospect, while longer-form, more detailed case studies are useful during the consideration and decision phases of the sales process. Case studies can be delivered as PDF, or they can be formatted as a presentation that you talk through with a potential customer. They can even be created as videos.
What should it include?
The content flow should always include:
- Problem: Identify the customer issue you solved
- Solution: Explain the services or products your customer used
- Outcome: Describe the business impact and how the solution helped them achieve their goals
With either short or long-form case studies, they should be skimmable: the key points should be easy to identify through use of subheads, callouts, and graphics. While people want the type of proof it provides, they usually won’t take the time to read a text-heavy piece that isn’t broken up into digestible portions.
How many do we need?
For case studies to be effective, they need to be relatable. That’s why it’s often helpful to identify a set for the sales team to draw from, based on who they are talking to. You may structure the library by service or product offering, or you may frame them from the customer’s perspective by developing a set of case studies by industry. That way, when a salesperson is talking to someone in the healthcare industry, for example, they can pick up the healthcare case studies to share–making them more relevant to the potential customer.
Going even further, you could create subsets by company size–perhaps you have a large and a small healthcare client you can highlight–so that the success stories best represent the type of client you’re talking to. Ultimately, you could tailor case studies by buyer persona–creating a subset of case studies for each industry based on roles within the target company.
What makes a case study effective?
Success story content should be framed with a prospect’s point of view in mind. They don’t care about the details of the engagement with another customer, they just want to know that they have a similar problem, and you provided a solution that resulted in a beneficial outcome. So, while you don’t need to get into the nitty gritty, you should share the process you followed and quantifiable results whenever possible. The key is to strike the right balance between just the right amount of context with real data.
Need help creating better case studies?
Public education videos sensitize people to issues that matter
Public education videos sensitize people to issues that matter
Videos have the power to engage with people both rationally and emotionally. That’s why government government and non-profit agencies use public education video production to inform people about important issues, such as the environment and endangered species. By speaking to social causes, videos can invite people to act and help persuade them to get involved.
To engage people in these issues, videos should state the issue simply, address common questions and concerns, explain the ways people can become engaged in the solution, and provide a way for people to get more information if they are interested.
That’s the approach we took when we worked with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) to create a video that communicates that Oregon spotted frogs are endangered and how private landowners can partner with the agency to help save these frogs.
Public education videos start with stating the issue
Oregon spotted frogs are a native species to western Washington. Once commonly found, only six watersheds are currently known to be occupied in Washington.
In the past, we had abundant habitat for Oregon spotted frogs with wetlands that covered most of western Washington. Development for residential and commercial use meant creeks and streams were diverted and much of our wetlands were drained, creating a more fragmented habitat for aquatic frogs. These frogs return to the same breeding areas each year. We only find them now in those places that still have water year-round — and many of those are on private property.
Addressing common questions through public education videos
In Thurston County’s Black River drainage, WDFW biologists have been relatively successful in engaging private landowners to gain access to conduct surveys. Similar efforts are needed in Whatcom and Skagit counties where the distribution of the species and the population status is only partially known due in part to landowner concerns regarding potential restrictions on the use of their land if this federally listed species is detected.
Explaining ways people can become engaged
To help conserve and recover these frogs, the WDFW offers a variety of incentives to landowners when these frogs are found on their property, such as paying for a conservation easement, helping secure a tax break on the portion of the property being used as habitat, or even buying the land. These can be particularly appealing to agricultural producers such as berry farmers, dairy farmers, and ranchers, which is why we emphasized these points in the public education videos.
Oregon spotted frogs are part of our inheritance as Washingtonians, and we’re fortunate that we still have this native species on our landscape.
Need a video to help spread the word? We can help.
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strengthens marketing and advertising campaigns
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strengthens marketing and advertising campaigns
Over the past few years, inclusivity has become more important than ever—presenting an opportunity for real change. Taking a proactive approach to operating with a lens towards fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion creates a better business environment, and incorporating diversity and inclusion in marketing can improve advertising campaign performance.
What is DEI?
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a term that organizations use to describe their intentional approach to:
- recognizing differences and populations that have been underrepresented.
- promoting justice and impartiality with procedures and distribution of resources to overcome disparities.
- making people feel welcomed and able to participate fully in processes and development opportunities.
Who are we thinking about when we talk about DEI?
Organizations that prioritize DEI consider racial groups including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, Asian/Asian American, Pacific Islander, Arab American, and American Indian groups.
In addition to race, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs prioritize people with disabilities, religious minorities, LGBTQ+ persons, people over 65 years of age, and/or people adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality. This can include people who are incarcerated, immigrant and refugee communities, people with limited English proficiency, agricultural workers, as well unhoused people, and more.
What areas of an organization should consider DEI?
While we can all recognize that there are social inequities, such as racism and sexism, that affect general behaviors, there are also institutional inequities that organizations should put under the microscope by looking closely at HR policies around:
- discriminatory policies and practices;
- workplace harassment and microaggressions; and
- implicit and explicit biases.
As a result, organizations can become more equitable by:
- employing equitable recruitment, hiring, promotion, and retention practices;
- implementing anti-harassment policies; and
- increasing accessibility and accommodations.
But DEI goes beyond HR and should be considered by the marketing and communications teams as well in terms of how communications reflect a cross-section of your audience.
How should we use diversity and inclusion in marketing?
When you consider your outreach strategy and communications materials through a DEI lens, you’re actively looking to ensure all communications and outreach efforts are culturally and linguistically appropriate and accessible.
Approaching content with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind, means using language that easily understood and can be easily translated. And as the AP Stylebook guide for inclusive storytelling suggests, “At every stage of storytelling — from generating story ideas to the final editing, and all steps in between — ask whose voice or perspective is missing or should be represented more robustly. Seek to include voices and experiences from a variety of lenses.”
Graphic design with a DEI perspective can lead to images with broader representation. When planning a photo or video shoot, the AP Stylebook advises, “In the editing phase, consider whether a diverse range of views, voices and faces are making the final cut. Remember that who and what you choose to exclude can be as important as who and what you include.”
How are DEI and accessibility related?
Accessibility is about providing equal access to your communications for as many people as possible. 61 million adults in the United States live with a disability—that’s one in four American adults. This can include hearing and vision impairment among other things, which can impact how they can access information you publish on your website or in your campaigns. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities.
How does GA Creative incorporate diversity and inclusion in marketing for clients?
At GA Creative, diversity and inclusion in marketing is central to the work we do for all our clients. We are proud to be a women-owned business and more importantly we are proud to partner with clients who are intentional about building an inclusive environment. According to Deloitte—owned agency Heat, representation in ads correlates with an increase in public perception. To integrate WCAG 2.1 AA Standards, DEI, and accessible visual design into our creative process we start with our clients’ audiences–to find ways to appeal to their unique audience segment needs and perspectives.
Example: Accessible web design
Example: Inclusive advertising
For Harborstone Credit Union, upholding their promise to provide a fair banking experience and offer judgment-free solutions is reflected in the social media ads we create for them.
Example: Building a diverse photo library
In 2020, Amazon Advertising embraced the need to reflect and celebrate their diverse global audience in its photo library. Because of the pandemic, we couldn’t source original photography and therefore had to rely on stock imagery to represent people of all abilities, genders, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and sexual orientation. The result was a library of more than 150 images that helped to underscore its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Example: DEI and accessibility in video
In this Medicare Advantage Plan TV spot for Community Health Plan of Washington, we needed to show diversity in its members and included large type overlays to underscore key messages together with the phone number of the screen throughout to assist those with hearing and vision impairments.
Example: Messaging around DEI
Swedish wanted to communicate their stance around diversity, equity, and inclusion to the healthcare community. Our team delivered a web page and ads that reflect Swedish’s commitments to fostering an environment where everyone is heard, respected, and valued. As a result, they saw a 7x greater response to their overarching campaign.
Want to talk about DEI in your marketing efforts?
Five reasons why animated videos should be part of your marketing strategy
Five reasons why animated videos should be part of your marketing strategy
Animated videos are becoming one of the most popular types of videos because they have certain advantages over other marketing videos, including helping to illustrate diversity, being cost effective, and being an impactful way to communicate complex information. Here are five reasons why you should incorporate animated marketing videos into your video marketing strategy.
Why you should create animated videos for marketing
1. Animated videos are great for explaining complex information.
Sometimes animated videos, or “explainer videos” can break down complex information in a way that videos with speakers cannot. Using text overlays and callouts, these videos can help clearly illustrate how your product or service can be of benefit to a potential customer, bringing them along with helpful graphics and upbeat music. These types of videos can also be a great option when you have camera-shy subject matter experts.
2. These videos can easily communicate the basics so you can share deeper information.
More and more companies are using short video to communicate the basics rather than forcing visitors to dig around for content on their websites. Having a video easily accessible to people browsing your website prevents your customer, member, or patient service teams, as well as sales teams from having to explain the basics, enabling them to dive deeper with interested potential customers.
Videos like these are also beneficial as a complement to a great presentation for live events or sales pitch deck that goes into more detail and can be customized, whereas the animated video, sometimes called an “explainer video”, provides a high-level overview of your value proposition.
3. Animated videos can help with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts.
Since there are no live people in animated videos and subjects come in all shapes and sizes, it can be easier to show diversity with illustration.
4. They’re are often more cost effective.
Though creating custom animation from scratch can be pricey, animated videos can sometimes be more cost effective than live action videos, which require location scouting and coordination, production and editing, costs associated with hiring talent, and more.
An affordable and quicker solution can be to use stock illustrations and create movement through animation.
5. Animated videos are flexible.
The top three video types on YouTube in 2021 were commentary, product review, and how-to—animation works well for all three—plus many more! Whatever the theme of your video, animation can work. And maybe it’s because we were all raised watching cartoons, but people tend to become captivated by animation and may watch longer than if you were offering the same content using live action.
How long should my video be?
Animated videos should be less than two minutes in length, which translates into a written script of 300 words or less. Tempted to just post your script as web content and skip the video production? Unfortunately, you won’t see the same results. Videos hold people’s attention more than standard web content or blog posts. In fact, marketers who are using video are seeing an average of 49 percent faster growth in revenue, according to the latest Aberdeen report.
In fact, micro-videos are becoming more and more popular among marketers not just consumers. Can you get your message across in 15 seconds? 5- to 15-second video ads are becoming mainstream inventory.
Inspiration for animated videos
If you’d like to incorporate animated videos into your video marketing strategy, check out this list of common categories:
- Awareness – touching on a new product, service, or important public service announcement
- Benefit-driven – hitting on the top three benefits of your product/service
- How-to – breaking down a process into steps
- Demo – showcasing your product in its most popular use case
- Compete – comparing your product to your competitors’
- Recruitment – onboarding and training employees
Examples of animated videos from GA Creative
Here are four animated videos developed for a variety of purposes. They might inspire you to think about how an animated video would complement your own marketing mix.
Internal Communications Video
Product Value Proposition Video
Social Media Video
Awareness Video