Winning a project with a new client can be a struggle — especially if you're competing with equally qualified professionals. Before you can even get past the vetting phase, you need to be able to show prospective clients that you have the experience, expertise, and skill set to help them accomplish their business goals.

Sure you can handle all of the above in the interview phase, but before you get there you need to be able to win them over with actual projects completed. The best way to show prospective clients that you can help them accomplish their goals is with a case study.

Research shows that case studies are one the most valuable pieces of content that can push a decision forward. When done correctly, it highlights the positive impact your work has had on clients — helping you attract even more clients. It’s why we’ve released our product feature — Graphite Case Studies.

Now you can showcase your expertise front and center in the platform to help you win more projects, faster. So how can you make sure that you get the most out of this new feature to fill your pipeline with new, exciting initiatives? We’ll provide you with the insights you need to ensure you're creating the best case study possible.

Before we get started on how to structure your case study for the best impact, it's important that we first walk through case study best practices. This will help set the tone and approach for building out your success stories.

A rule of thumb when writing any piece of content is to make it easy to read and follow. That plays into the actual length, structure, and tone of the case study.

When writing your case study, ask yourself what are the key pieces of information you want the client to walk away knowing. This will help you to remove any unnecessary information that isn’t supportive of the actual narrative of the case study.

You’ll also want to make sure that the copy is easy to read. Avoid long paragraphs that look like large blocks of text. Break it up so that the reader can easily read through it. Large copy blocks can be intimidating to the reader and can lead to them ignoring your case study altogether.

Finally, try to keep your language concise and to the point using plain language. Avoid jargon and complex sentences - these can disengage the reader. But if you do use jargon, be sure to define it. Here’s a good example of that in bold, “I was tasked to audit the company’s current CRM (content management system) platform and report back to the head of content.”

We just talked about the importance of being concise, but making sure that your being thorough is of equal importance. That’s because the main point of a case study is to show the potential client how you helped a past client achieve a certain result by showing how you got the past client from point A to point B.

You need to be able to show the client how the outcome happened. This has two benefits. One it shows the client your expertise and ability to handle similar projects. Second, it provides the client an inside look at your thought process and how you approach work — this will ultimately help them decide whether you're a good fit for the role and the company.

Think about your typical case study. What’s the typical impression that you tend to have? If you’ve answered that they tend to be dry and unimaginative, you’re not alone.

The best case studies tend to have one thing in common: they tell compelling stories. They help the audience envision themselves in the problem and they become active participants in the story you’re telling by using storytelling techniques. They have tension, a turning point, and a resolution.

Now let’s move to the structure.

Case studies tend to be very straightforward. You want to give the reader a glimpse of the actual business situation, the solution, and the results. Only in the template that we’ve created, showcasing the deliverables is of utmost importance for acquiring new clients. Let’s dig deeper into what those are.

This section is very important. It serves as the foundation for the rest of your case study and is the beginning of the story that you will tell that will capture your reader's attention.

Start by setting the foundation of who the client is. You don’t need to get into specifics like the client’s name, but provide just enough information that the reader understands who the client is and what they do. Then paint the picture of what challenge the client was facing.

For example, it could be that the client was undergoing a recent M&A because the business portfolio wasn’t working well, or they were trying to improve profits because they experienced an impact by some market force, like the pandemic. Whatever the citation is, make sure that the reader understands what prompted the client to experience that challenge and what they were looking for in you to help solve it.

In the solution, you want to walk the reader through how you solved the problem. Again, you don’t necessarily want to get too into the weeds, but you also want to make sure that you touch on the most important points that would be of value to the reader.

For example, you can start by stating how you first set a meeting up with key stakeholders to understand the problem. Then talk through what steps or frameworks you used to analyze the situation to develop strategic recommendations.

Finally, you can provide insights into the outcomes of your recommendations, the duration of each phase of the project, who you worked with on the client side, the makeup of your team, and more.

All of this information will give the reader insights into the value you provide and how you approach your work.

Consulting is all about the deliverables, so you want to give the reader insights into the end product you delivered to the client. Whether that was a go-to-market plan or deck compiling all the insights and advice for a market research project, give the reader insights into what you provided.

Now it's time for the best part of the case study, the results. Sometimes it can be hard to get this information as an independent consultant, but as a best practice, you should always look to seek feedback from your clients after an initiative has been completed.

During this process, you can ask the client for insights into the results which should help formulate this section. If you worked on optimizing a supply chain process, speak to the outcomes of this process such as X% increase in efficiency and output.

And there you have it! With the above tips and our new Case Studies feature, getting more projects into your project pipeline should be much easier.