case study examples b2b

10 B2B Case Study Examples to Inspire Your Next Customer Success Story

October 24, 2023

Case studies, also known as customer stories, are valuable content assets for attracting new customers and showing your expertise in a competitive market.

The more case studies you have, the simpler it gets for your customers to make decisions.

Case studies provide a firsthand experience of what it’s like to use your product or service, and it can give an “Aha!” moment to potential customers.

While product demos and white papers are great for generating leads, their use is limited to highlighting product features.

On the other hand, case studies showcase the transformation a business has undergone while using your product.

A case study offers potential customers a glimpse of the positive changes they can expect, which is more compelling than simply showcasing your product or service’s excellence.

Customer mission should be given at the beginning
Follow up about specifics and metrics
Use quotes from their side to highlight
Work out the biggest benefits of your offering and make reference to them
Make sure your success story follows a brief and logical story structure

In this article, we’ll review 10 examples of outstanding case studies that have collectively helped secure millions in new client business. Let’s get started.

What Is A Case Study?

In simple terms, a case study highlights how a product or service has helped a business solve a problem, achieve a goal, or make its operations easier.

In many ways, it’s a glorified and stretched-out client testimonial that introduces you to the problem that the customer is facing and the solution that the product has helped deliver.

Case studies are invaluable assets for B2B SaaS, where sales cycles tend to get lengthy and costly. They’re a one-time investment that showcases your product’s features and benefits in rooms your sales team can’t be in.

What Makes A Good Case Study?

There is no one-size-fits approach to a good case study.

Some case studies work better as long, prose-forward, and story-driven blog posts. Whereas some are better as quick and fast-fact content that doesn’t add to the chatter but gets straight to the point.

Here are some of the tenets of good case studies:

Product-Led : Focuses on showcasing the product as the solution to a specific problem or challenge.
Timely : Addresses the current issues or trends relevant to the business’s ideal customer profile (ICP) .
Well-structured: Follows a clear, organized format with easily digestible writing style and synthesis.
Story-driven: Tells a compelling and relatable story that puts the reader in the customer’s shoes.

Case studies must tell the customer’s story regardless of style or content density.

Other than that, visuals in case studies are powerful in increasing conversion rates, by providing real evidence and taking attention.

Companies can also use their website, social media, and newsletters to promote case studies and increase visibility.

Below, we have ten diverse case study examples that embody these principles.

B2B Case Study Template from Our Team

We will share great and proven B2B case study examples that you can get inspired by in the following section, but before that, let’s take a look at an easy and effective template from our team.

10 Best B2B Case Study Examples To Take Inspiration From

Plaid is a fintech company specializing in equipping users with a secure platform to connect their bank details to online applications. Addressing the pressing concern of financial security, Plaid leverages compelling case studies to showcase the remarkable transformations their clients experience.

Take Plaid’s case study of Betterment, for example.

The study begins by stating the goal that the customer is trying to achieve, which is to “onboard new users and drive engagement.” Right next to the goal is company details, and followed below is a singular problem and its solution.

The case study continues by keeping the business’ desired result front and center and offers a generous outlook on the SaaS business.

The core process of how Plaid helps Betterment is cleanly laid out, which is a brief version of a ten-page white paper.

What follows are several benefits that Plaid offered to Betterment.

Plaid’s subtle yet effective product integration and clear, well-organized process make it simple for customers facing similar challenges to envision the solution.

2. SalesHandy

SalesHandy is an email automation software that personalizes high-volume cold emails. The company heroes client success stories for its case studies and opens the heading with their wins.

Check out this B2B case study example from Sedin’s case study published by SalesHandy.

Readers need context, and case studies should always begin by outlining the exact problems their product or platform aims to solve.

Here, SalesHandy expertly introduces us to Sedin’s use case and the challenges that the business is facing.

After a lengthy context, the case study highlights Sedin’s core challenge in the words of its personnel.

This personable approach ropes readers in and lets them empathize with Sedin’s challenges.

With a single scroll in, SalesHandy lays out the solutions to Sedin’s core challenges and integrates its product.

This highly detailed case study covers all corners and includes the exceptional results achieved in record time. SalesHandy closes the study with a word from the character already introduced to the readers.

SalesHandy doesn’t shy away from giving a detailed account of its process, which is crucial for highly technical products and enterprise packages that involve multiple decision-makers.

B2B Case studies, first and foremost, should be written in a language that your ICP understands.

Playvox is a customer service platform that helps businesses streamline business operations.

This industry-specific case study of Sweaty Betty by Playvox addresses unique challenges within a niche industry, such as account assessment times for retail and online shops.

The case study starts with the results it achieved for Sweaty Betty.

The case study follows a straightforward, albeit impactful, challenges-solution-results format as we scroll down.

But instead of listing out solutions in bullet points, Playvox uses customer voice to present the transformation that Sweaty Betty went through.

With this formatting, Playvox doesn’t have to tout the platform’s usefulness. Sweaty Betty is doing it for them.

4. Base Search Marketing

We promised diverse case studies, and here is a stellar B2B case study example of a single deck case study of Shine Cosmetics by Base Search Marketing.

Base Search Marketing is a boutique link-building and SEO agency that works with startups and mid-level businesses.

This case study, which can be reviewed as a brochure, gives you an overview of the customer and lays out the challenges that the business is facing.

You’ll notice how the study uses the CEO’s quote to mention a pretty universal problem that most startups face: “limited resources.”

By highlighting the results in the left tab and laying out the process on the right side, this case study does a masterful job of covering all corners and telling a desirable customer success story.

Another approachable form of case study is slide decks, which you can present in boardrooms and meetings and act as a sales pitch.

Loganix nails it with its case study deck for rankings.io.

If you have a complicated product or service requiring an in-depth explanation, then using this format would be a great option.

The solution, stated in simple bullet points, drives the message home.

Fewer words. Cleaner decks.

Using this methodology lets the audience walk through the case study with visuals, bullet points, and concise text.

6. CoSchedule

CoSchedule is a SaaS leader in the social media space, and this Outcome-led Case Study proves just why it is so good at capturing the markets.

The study kicks off with a result-forward headline, piquing the interest of readers who are interested in getting similar outcomes.

coschedule outcome-led case study example

There’s much to appreciate in this succinctly written case study, but the headlines get our attention and hold it.

With every scroll, results are presented to you in the form of graphs, quotes, and visuals.

The study ends with a quote from the customer, which repeats the outcome stated in the headline.

Leading remote teams is a challenge that numerous teams will face moving forward. CoSchedule makes operations easy for these teams, and it doesn’t shy away from stating just how through its case study.

7. Wizehire

Case studies have evolved from lengthy blocks of text confined to PDFs to a new digital era emphasizing impact over verbosity.

Wizehire’s succinct case study is a prime example of this shift. It uses fewer words to create a powerful impression.

From the very first page, the case study introduces us to Kris, the customer and central figure of the story. Without the need for extensive scrolling, we quickly grasp vital details about Kris: his role, employee turnover, location, and industry.

In the second slide, we are immediately taken to the solution that Kris got by working with Wizehire.

The case study ends with a passionate testimonial from Kris, who deeply believes in Wizehire.

The case study has less than 300 words, enough for local entrepreneurs like Kris Morales, who want to hire talent but don’t have the resources for proper vetting and training. Until, of course, Wizehire comes along.

8. FreshBooks

When a reader can see themselves in a case study, it takes them one step closer to wanting to try the product.

This case study by Freshbooks uses a beautiful personal story of an emerging entrepreneur.

Using a deeply personal story, the study appeals to people who are just starting and aren’t accountants but suddenly have to deal with employee invoices and a dozen other bills.

The text progresses in an interview-style study, with the customer taking the mic and illustrating the challenges that startups and small businesses face.

freshbooks challenge statement in case study

This style works because readers crave insights directly from customers. Getting authentic testimonials is becoming increasingly challenging. Well-crafted case studies can be valuable substitutes, provided they seem realistic and from the heart.

Featuring quotes or testimonials from satisfied customers throughout the case study adds to its credibility and authenticity. Just like this testimonial Case Study by Slack .

Slack is a giant in the realm of digital communication, with more than 20 million active users worldwide. However, it is tough to break into the market of group communications. After all, Slack competes with both WhatsApp and Microsoft Team regarding market share.

To level the playing field, Slack features case studies from top entrepreneurs and market players who have been served well by it.

Its case studies are laden with personal stories about how the platform boosts productivity.

At the same time, the software also plugs in the “try for free” banner to make sure that customers are aware of the inexpensive nature of the software.

It’s not easy to get such detailed testimonies from the C-suite, but when you’re Slack, businesses tend to make an exception.

Some case studies are based on highly niche subjects, where nothing is at the top of the funnel. Kosli nails it with this highly technical case study of Firi.

Technical case studies are designed for niche audiences who are already aware of the problems that the software can solve. Case studies like these are clean and smart and come with solutions that have a counterpart solution.

There is absolutely no fluff and nothing that can be a reason for C-suite executives to bounce from.

It’s full of information-packed pages designed to hook the reader in and present the tool as a formidable solution to their problem.

You’ll notice how they weave Kosli through the entire case study, and the first-person report comes from the customer.

B2B Case Study Examples In Short

In the B2B SaaS industry, converting new leads and securing new business has become increasingly challenging. In this landscape, impactful content assets such as case studies and customer stories are sometimes the only things moving the needle.

Crafting a compelling customer story empowers brands to enable potential customers to engage directly .

🚀 Customer stories evoke empathy from buyers

🤝 Customer stories help build up your relationships with vocal brand advocates

⬇️ Customer stories lower your prospects’ information cost

Once you’ve determined the most effective way to convey information that resonates with your leads, you can collaborate with your content and design teams to create impactful case studies to generate new business and prove your expertise and experience in the market.

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16 B2B Marketing Case Studies

Insights from industry professionals, founders, CEOs, and marketing managers

Explore 16 real-life B2B Marketing case studies from actual businesses. We gathered insights from founders, CEOs, and marketing managers. Discover practical strategies beyond traditional advertising and paid media. Rather than reinventing the wheel, learn from the experiences of industry professionals.

See how these experts leveraged user reviews in Online Reputation Management (ORM) and adopted account-based marketing approaches. These practical B2B Marketing case studies provide valuable guidance.

Explore their practical insights and strategies and avoid costly trial-and-error approaches. Or find inspiration for your own B2B marketing campaigns.

Prepare to elevate your game with actionable B2B case studies from the field.

3 Article Highlights

15 highly relevant B2B marketing case studies
B2B case studies from founders, CEOs, and marketing managers
B2B marketing use cases from real-life companies

Table of Contents

B2B Marketing Case Study Overview

B2b content marketing use cases, strategic branding and positioning use cases, b2b marketing strategy use cases, digital and online b2b marketing use cases, offline b2b marketing use cases.

Subscribe and Learn B2B Marketing.

Learn from 16 Real-Life Use Cases

Creative Social Media Campaign Boosts Sales

Content marketing and seo strategy, embrace content marketing, leverage user reviews in orm, become a data source for industry, host thought leadership webinars, utilize brand ambassadors, forge strategic partnerships, utilize review sites, account-based marketing approach, integrate online and offline marketing, linkedin business page, collaborate with industry influencers, leverage linkedin for organic growth, harness social media power, trade shows and channel partnerships, gira use case, samson ag use case, implementing marketing automation what a ride.

Creative and Oustanding Content Marketing

Chapter Overview

Social-media campaigns should sometimes be more creative than purely emotional. For instance, the campaign launched, highlighting the 2D floor plan, 3D video walkthrough render, and 3D floor plan in a Barbie theme promoted the new 3D products launch much better than any generic posts.

The timing was crucial, as the interest and popularity of Barbie and pink peaked in July and August at the highest rates, resulting in significantly more orders. Having a team to execute bolder ideas can help stand out online from the competition. Be bold and audacious, even if it means using branded memes. Branding is everything, and being shy is not the way to conquer the US.

Link to the campaign:

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Anastasia Corjan , Senior Marketing Manager, CubiCasa

An impactful B2B marketing case study that steps beyond traditional advertising is the use of content marketing infused with SEO and thought leadership. This approach is crucial for growing brand awareness and generating leads for a company like ours, which specializes in fulfillment and logistics services.

Rush Order capitalizes on creating meaningful, SEO-driven content, including in-depth blog articles, white papers, toolkits, case studies, and guides, providing actionable insights into order fulfillment’s intricacies for potential clients.

This strategy drives organic traffic to our site and cultivates higher levels of engagement, ultimately building a community and a sense of trust around our brand. It’s a testament to the power and longevity of content marketing and thought leadership in B2B marketing. It demonstrates that significant growth and a strong brand reputation can be achieved without primary reliance on paid advertising.

Dana Madlem , Vice President, Services, Rush Order

Content marketing is a prime B2B case study of an effective digital B2B marketing approach that doesn’t rely on advertising or paid media. By creating valuable and informative content, businesses can attract and engage potential customers while also establishing themselves as thought leaders in their industry.

This can include creating blog posts, e-books, webinars, and other types of content that provide useful insights and solutions to common industry problems. By making this content easily accessible and shareable, businesses can increase their brand awareness and establish trust with potential customers.

Additionally, optimizing this content for search engines allows businesses to attract more inbound traffic and generate more leads.

Georgi Todorov , Founder, ThriveMyWay

One of the best use cases for digital B2B marketing is Online Reputation Management (ORM), specifically through the utilization of user reviews. ORM involves monitoring, influencing, and improving how a business is perceived online. User reviews play an integral role in this strategy.

In a B2B context, businesses often check reviews and testimonials of other companies before choosing to collaborate or purchase. Therefore, encouraging satisfied customers to share their positive experiences online can significantly enhance a company’s reputation. This can be done through emails after service delivery, prompting for reviews on the company’s website, or on relevant B2B review platforms like G2 or Trustpilot.

Joe Kevens , Founder and Director of Demand Gen, B2B SaaS Reviews

Use B2B Marketing for Thought Leadership, Branding and Strategic Positioning

For me, becoming a source of data points and information for industry publishers and journalists to utilize is often an incredibly overlooked strategy, especially in B2B markets.

You can get organic traffic and backlinks via publication references when creating stats and data points relevant to a given industry. This approach to content can provide passive link-building assets for your site over time.

Ashley Woodyatt , Marketing Manager, Woodyatt Curtains

One of our best digital B2B marketing case study is hosting thought leadership webinars. By organizing webinars featuring industry experts and thought leaders, we provide valuable insights and share expertise with our target B2B audience. These webinars position our company as a trusted authority in the B2B space, allowing us to build credibility and establish relationships with potential clients.

The webinars offer an interactive platform where participants can engage with the experts, ask questions, and gain valuable knowledge specific to their industry. The webinar format allows us to showcase our industry expertise, share relevant content, and address the pain points and challenges our target audience faces. It’s an effective way to generate leads, nurture relationships, and establish our brand as a go-to resource in the B2B sector.

Roy Lau , Co-founder, 28 Mortgage

Brand ambassadors are a major trend in helping small businesses increase brand awareness. This is an opportunity for influencers or loyal customers to rave about their favorite products online. As word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most successful strategies, it can help a small business improve its digital presence and connect with consumers worldwide.

Maegan Griffin , Founder, CEO, and Nurse Practitioner, Skin Pharm

Think and Act Strategically

One effective way to implement digital B2B marketing apart from ads is through content marketing and strategic partnerships. I have personally utilized this approach within my organization by creating valuable content that addresses the needs of my target audience. This includes social media posts, podcasts , videos, and blog articles that provide useful information and address SEO concerns.

To further improve our content’s caliber, I collaborated with B2B industry leaders such as CEOs and subject matter experts. This resulted in a successful video series highlighting our top B2B SEO strategies, featuring practical advice, real-life examples, and even heated debates. As a result, we generated a wealth of information that created a buzz throughout the entire B2B community.

Best of all, this strategy did not require any advertising expenses. Instead, it was all about producing high-quality content and establishing meaningful partnerships.

Maria Harutyunyan , Co-founder, Loopex Digital

Review sites like G2, Capterra, and Sourceforge have played critical roles in our marketing strategy. Our business is B2B software, and these sites are where knowledgeable buyers congregate. The specific review site will differ per industry, but the principle stays the same. Buyers want to see credible feedback from other buyers.

Trevor Ewen , COO, QBench

One of our top digital B2B marketing use cases is account-based marketing (ABM). By tailoring our marketing efforts to specific target accounts, we personalize content and messaging to address each account’s unique needs and pain points.

This approach allows us to create highly relevant and customized experiences for our B2B prospects, increasing engagement and building stronger relationships. With ABM, we focus on delivering value and solving the specific challenges of our target accounts, which leads to more meaningful interactions, higher conversion rates, and, ultimately, stronger business partnerships.

Jason Cheung , Operations Manager, Credit KO

Integrating online and offline marketing is the best digital B2B marketing case study. This is because you can make more informed marketing decisions using the same. Customers can consume information whenever they want and buy products wherever they want. Digital platforms make it easy for customers to purchase products in a few seconds.

If they want, they can go to your offline store and also buy from there. They can check the availability of products as well on the offline store. Many businesses follow this process but do not advertise for it. However, they must ensure their online and offline marketing strategies cater to customers’ wants and needs.

Many businesses don’t bother about advertising their offline stores. They follow offline marketing strategies for the same. But you can integrate both ways to sell products and increase sales exponentially.

Saikat Ghosh , Associate Director of HR and Business, Technource

Tactics and Strategies to Win Online

LinkedIn Company pages are dead. Unless you write it like a landing page.

The Penfriend.ai LinkedIn landing page example showcases how great copywriting breaks through the noise on LinkedIn.

Inge Von Aulock , CEO Top Apps, says: We launched the MVP for Penfriend.ai on December 1, 2023, with a waitlist. Here are the stats we they gathered:

Waitlist Duration: 28 days
Emails Sent: 13 emails, average 62% open rate, 12.7% click-through rate (CTR)
Conversion to Users: 25.6%
Conversion to Paid Users: 25.2%

Here’s the full story on how they did it:

LinkedIn Business Page 1 - B2B Marketing World

Penfriend LinkedIn Page © Penfriend

One of our best and unique B2B marketing use cases involved leveraging industry influencers. We collaborated with respected experts, co-created content, hosted joint events/webinars, and gained endorsements through their social platforms. This extended our reach, built credibility, and connected with our target audience authentically without relying on traditional advertising or paid media.

Through our partnership with industry influencers, we were able to tap into their established networks, which exposed us to a wider audience of potential customers. The influencer’s endorsement acted as a powerful social proof, boosting trust and accelerating the decision-making process for prospects.

By engaging in meaningful collaborations with influencers, we increased brand awareness and fostered long-term relationships that resulted in ongoing support and mutual growth. This unique approach allowed us to stand out in the B2B market and achieve remarkable results.

Casey Preston , CRO and Founder, Stratosphere

Creating organic content on your personal LinkedIn page is a great way to grow a B2B presence and hence a top B2B marketing case study. Many businesses underestimate the reach that a successful LinkedIn post can have. With consistency, you can easily garner thousands of extra views on your posts and profile each week without spending a dime.

The more reactions and comments a post receives, the greater the chance of your post reaching other people’s feeds. That can subconsciously lead to networking opportunities if you see someone commenting that can bring value to your company.

Lastly, as your LinkedIn posts gain more traction, there are higher possibilities of finding other businesses that can assist with your weak points and possibly be the start of a symbiotic B2B relationship.

Having a company page on LinkedIn is great, but remember the fruitful strategy of developing organic content and growing your personal brand.

Matt Parkin , Founder, Mornings With Matt Consulting

Social media platforms have become essential for B2B marketers to engage with their target audience and build brand awareness. One digital B2B marketing use case is leveraging social media to create an active online presence, share valuable content, and build relationships with prospects and customers.

According to a recent study, 73% of B2B marketers use social media as a primary channel for content marketing. For instance, a technology company, Cisco, uses LinkedIn to share thought leadership articles and engage with its target audience. This strategy has helped Cisco generate leads and increase website traffic, resulting in a 4x increase in revenue.

Social media platforms also offer various features, such as groups, polls, and live streaming, which provide opportunities for B2B marketers to interact with their target audience and create personalized experiences.

Himanshu Sharma , CEO and Founder, Academy of Digital Marketing

Classic, above the line, B2B Marketing

As a startup operator, founder, and advisor, I’ve had my fair share of B2B marketing experiences. One of the best non-advertising strategies changes depending on your product or service.

For enterprise solutions, trade shows are invaluable. Especially niche ones with high ticket prices, attended by senior executives and industry thought leaders. These venues foster personal relationships, which is critical when selling high-ticket or innovative solutions.

For small to mid-ticket transactions, channel partnerships work wonders. They build trust, key for purchase decisions, while keeping customer acquisition costs manageable.

Regardless of your offering, content that showcases your expertise is always beneficial. Write valuable insights and distribute them freely across your social handles, trade shows, etc. Avoid requiring email capture to access this content; senior leaders dislike unsolicited follow-ups after downloading a free resource.

Rafael Sarim Özdemir , Founder and CEO, Zendog Labs

Stephan Wenger

B2B Marketing Expert, Editor and Marketing Management Consultant

Stephan Wenger is a seasoned B2B Marketing Expert with more than 10 years of experience in leading global companies. His extensive expertise lies in the realms of B2B online marketing, content marketing, strategic marketing, and driving synergy between sales and marketing, including effective lead management.

Apollo Digital has worked with many SaaS and B2B companies to achieve huge results through SEO and content marketing .

Last year we catapulted a business process management software from zero to nearly 200,000 monthly organic traffic in just two short years. Here’s how we did it:

Revamped Content Strategy: Completely revamped their content strategy by identifying content suffering from keyword cannibalization and proposing improvements.
Fresh Keyword Research : Performed additional keyword research to pinpoint our client’s highest priority keywords and phrases.
Thorough Outlines: Created thorough and detailed content outlines to ensure writers were creating relevant and optimized content every time.
Prioritizing User Experience: Optimized all content not just for search engines, but for users as well. Easy-to-read content always wins.

You can find the full SEO case study here.

#4. Slack: 100,000,000 Website Visitors per Month

Slack Marketing Example: 100,000,000 Website Visitors per Month

Slack needs no introduction. They are one of the fastest-growing SaaS platforms of all time, thanks to some brilliant SaaS marketing strategies and tactics. Here’s how they did it:

Ranking on Review Sites: Instead of trying to rank for competitive terms like “collaboration software,” Slack earned high rankings on the sites that do dominate these keywords like G2 and Capterra.
Integrations: Much of Slack’s traffic is referral traffic from sites that integrate with Slack.
Powerful Landing Pages: Slack put heavy emphasis on their landing pages, using persuasive copy and social proof to convert visitors.

Check out the full case study on Slack’s growth here.

#5. Intercom: $50 Million Annual Recurring Revenue

Intercom is a massive software company dedicated to customer experience. It has grown rapidly over the last seven years and boasts more than $50 million in ARR. Not only that, but Intercom continues to grow without spending loads on sales and advertising.

Here’s how they do it:

Dynamic Landing Pages: Intercom thrives on personalized content catered incredibly well to the user. Their landing pages convert.
Competitor Analysis: Intercom relies heavily on digging into their competitors’ SEO rankings, strategies, and tactics.
Semantic SEO: Many of their pages and posts rank for loads of keyphrases rather than just a single target keyword. They achieve this through thorough, semantic B2B SEO efforts.

Check out the full Intercom case study here.

#6. Mailchimp: $400 Million in ARR

Mailchimp has been an email marketing leader for around ten years, but their growth hasn’t always been as rapid as some of our other examples. They spent years experimenting and testing different tactics and strategies.

Now they sit as a marketing automation leader with over $400,000,000 in revenue each year. Here’s how they did it:

Custom Audiences: A lot of Mailchimp’s traffic comes from Facebook advertising where they use well-targeted custom audiences and personalized funnels.
Creative Campaigns: A few years ago Mailchimp launched a campaign playing on their funny name. Their multichannel approach resulted in a ton of new brand awareness.
Effective Landing Pages: Their creative landing pages lead with curiosity and end with a low friction CTA.

View Mailchimp’s full case study here.

#7. GrooveHQ: $5M/Year Business in 3 Years With Content Marketing

GrooveHQ is a customer support and service platform helping businesses deliver standout customer experiences to their client base.

Over the last three years, Groove has become a $5 million per year business by investing exclusively in content marketing. Here’s how they did it:

Listening to Customers: Questions from customers and prospects is one of the only things that fueled their content calendar early on. They wrote content based on common questions and topics their customers wanted more information on.
Smart Outreach: Rather than generic link outreach, Groove asked well-known leaders in the space for feedback on their content. This proved extremely effective in earning links and shares.
Storytelling: Rather than jumping straight into the practicalities of each post, they learned their audience wanted a story. So they lengthened their intros which increased the average time on page by around 300%.

Check out the full case study on how GrooveHQ grew their business with content marketing.

#8. OptiMonk - How iSpionage Increased Blog Referral Traffic by 58% in 1 Month Using Onsite Retargeting

iSpionage is an awesome tool that allows you to download AdWords competitor keywords with the click of a button and monitor competitor PPC landing pages. With the help of Optimonk, they increased blog referral Traffic by 58% in one month using onsite retargeting.

Exit Intent Popups: They used an OptiMonk exit-intent popup to entice users to check out their main homepage.
Personalized Engagement: The popup only appeared for readers who had spent a minimum of ten seconds on the blog. And for a better visitor experience, they limited the popup to appear a maximum of five times for repeat visitors.

Check out the full iSpionage case study by OptiMonk here.

#9. G2: 50k to 1 Million Monthly Organic Visitors in a Year

Most people in the world of SaaS are familiar with G2, one of the leaders in the business software review space. Businesses all over the world use G2 to help them choose software for their business.

Starting in 2017, they began investing heavily in content generation, taking their blog traffic from around 50,000 sessions in March of 2018 to nearly 1 million sessions in March of 2019. Here’s how they did it:

Keyword Research: G2 dug deep into direct competitors’ ranking keywords as well as some non-competitors to get keyword insights (like Hubspot).
Everyone Does Outreach: Not only did their link building team distribute content, but their writers as well. All hands were on deck for building links.
A Sound Process: G2 produced a lot of content thanks to solid systems and processes that spanned across the SEO and writing teams.

Check out G2’s full case study here.

#10. SEMRush - 71 Upsells from a Game

SEMRush has been an SEO tool market leader for a few years now. One B2B marketing tactic that skyrocketed their growth was a not-so-standard one: games.

In 2017, they created an Easter-themed game that encouraged users to expand what SEMRush features they used, leading to 71 upsells. Here’s how they did it:

Familiar Design: The games they designed didn’t only look good, they were familiar. There was no learning curve to play them, which led to high engagement and shares.
Holiday-jacking: You may be familiar with newsjacking (creating content around big news stories). SEMRush created their game around the Easter season, increasing their chances of going viral.
Post-Campaign Nurturing: After the game launched, they created email sequences to follow-up with customers who played the game. This led to further engagement and some conversions.

View SEMRush’s full case study .

#11. Stanley Black and Decker - 30% reduction in sales cycle length

Stanley Black and Decker Marketing Example

Stanley Black & Decker is an 11-billion dollar global provider of diversified tools, storage, and security. In addition to selling tools directly to customers, they also sell franchises. But unlike the B2C side of their company, they lacked customer data and strategy to engage with their end-users.

Implementing Pardot (a B2B marketing automation platform) helped them grow their market share and reduce the length of their sales cycle by 30% within one year. Here’s how they did it:

List Segmentation: Stanley Black & Decker had a lot of customer email addresses. But instead of sending out generic mass emails, they segmented their lists for personalized messaging.
Dynamic Content: They used dynamic content on their landing pages to extend the personalization of their email workflows.
Blending Sales and Marketing: A single platform for sales and marketing automation allowed them to align their teams for better collaboration and more closed deals.

Read Stanley Black and Decker’s full case study .

#12. BrightEdge - 994% Organic Lead Growth for Payroll Software

Paycor, a payroll and human resources software, needed help scaling their SEO efforts. Their small team didn’t have the resources to make the huge leaps they wanted.

During a big site migration, Paycor got help from Brightedge’s toolset to increase their site visits by 308% year-over-year. Here’s how they did it:

On-Page and Technical Optimization: The Paycor team started with foundational optimizations to set the stage for serious growth.
Updating Content: The team evaluated high performing content to identify new opportunities post-migration.
Focus on UX: Paycor used Brightedge’s Autopilot tool to assist in offering users an overall better UX when finding relevant content.

Read the full Paycor case study here.

#13. BuzzSumo: $2.5m Annual Revenue in its First Year

Buzzsumo is a platform that helps marketers discover content ideas, uncover platform insights, identify relevant influencers, and much more.

They launched in 2015 and posted $2.5 million in revenue that first year. Here’s how they did it:

The Freemium Model: BuzzSumo mastered the freemium model in its first year, ending it with over 160k free users.
First Class Influencers: They gained respect and publicity from some big marketing names (like Rand Fishkin, Larry Kim, and Neil Patel) very early on.
Unique Content: They generated a lot of compelling content in their first year. And it wasn’t just any type of content either, they shared industry-leading research and told compelling stories through data.

Check out BuzzSumo’s full case study .

#14. Document360: $20k MRR Through SEO

Document360 Marketing Example: $20k MRR Through SEO

Document360 is a knowledge base software that helps growing companies create support documentation for users.

The company was founded in 2017 and has already grown to $20k MRR. Here’s how they did it:

Sales-Focused Content: When you read Document360’s blog, you won’t find content with a few CTA’s here and there. They speak about their products’ features and benefits all throughout their blogs – even those that are more generic and top-of-funnel focused.
Seamless Onboarding: The product’s new user onboarding experience is incredibly smooth, which proves the product’s value immediately and increases the chances of converting free trial users.
An Authority Podcast: Document360 hosts a niche podcast on knowledge bases and regularly hosts other leaders in the field. This expands their reach and increases their brand authority.

Check out the complete case study here.

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#15. Buffer: 3x Reach and Engagement on Facebook

Buffer is one of the most popular social media scheduling and engagement tools on the market. In late 2016, their marketing team dramatically changed its Facebook posting strategy.

Their change resulted in tripling their monthly reach and engagement. Here’s what they did:

Less Posting: They began focusing less on frequency and more on quality, only posting entertaining or educational content.
Curated Content: Instead of constantly posting original content, Buffer found that curated content from other publishers can perform just as well.
Boosted Posts: It doesn’t cost a ton to give your posts a little bump and see huge increases in reach. Buffer spent around $40/day on boosting their posts.

Check out the full case study from Buffer.

#16. ActiveCampaign: How They Grew to Over 50,000 Customers

ActiveCampaign has emerged over the past few years as a market leader in the email and marketing automation space. But this hasn’t always been the case.

They grew rapidly in 2016 and 2017, taking them over 50,000 customers by early 2018. Here’s how they did it:

Clear Target Personas: ActiveCampaign is very clear on who they’re targeting. They have fantastic landing pages for each vertical they’re going after.
An Effective Conversion Funnel: Not only do they have a free trial to get users in the door, but the next step in the funnel after a free trial is a $9/month subscription. There’s no big jump to hundreds per month, allowing users to move through the conversion funnel with little friction.
Software Review Pages: Their pages on software review sites like G2 and Capterra rank really well thanks to loads of positive reviews – a reflection of their great product.

Check out the full case study here.

#17. MeetEdgar: $144k MRR After 11 Months in Business

MeetEdgar offers automated social media marketing solutions to businesses of all shapes and sizes. After only 11 months in business, they grew to $144k MRR.

Here’s how they did it:

Low Commitment CTA’s: Their primary CTA’s early on were built around free trials and used low commitment copy like “Get Your Invitation” as opposed to those that required a little more work like “Start Your Free Trial.”
Consistent Content: It’s not the sexiest tactic, but they’ve focused on publishing consistently, resulting in solid organic traffic.
Leading with Story: Much of MeetEdgar’s sales content focuses on their story, making their company more personable and relatable to prospects.

Read the full case study here.

#18. Zapier: Zero to 600,000+ Users in Just Three Years

Zapier is a major player in the automation world, allowing marketers to easily integrate apps and software without being familiar with APIs.

Zapier grew to over 600,000 users within three years of its launch. Here’s how they did it:

Paid Beta: To get their first users, Zapier charged $100 for access to their first beta. They didn’t necessarily need the money but wanted their users to commit to using the product.
App-to-App Landing Pages: Their marketing team created landing pages for every integration Zapier offered, capturing a ton of search traffic and often converting.
Co-Marketing: Zapier took advantage of their 100+ integration partners to get help promoting their product through their partners’ marketing channels.

Read the full Zapier case study here.

#19. ConvertKit: A Long Road to $1.7m MRR

ConvertKit is a SaaS web application helping creators build audiences and market to them. Founder Nathan Barry had a slow start in building his product, but it took off in 2016.

ConvertKit now boasts $1.7 million in MRR. Here’s how they got there:

A Narrow Niche: In the early days, the software was trying to do too much. In 2015, they narrowed their niche and began focusing primarily on bloggers.
Partner Webinars: ConvertKit reached out to many of their partners pitching co-marketed webinars. Many took them up on it, expanding their audience big time.
Adding a Freemium Model: They added a freemium model to their plans, not only to upsell these users but also to earn referrals and exposure through them.

#20. Drift: A Multi Million Dollar Brand Built on Content Strategy

Drift revolutionized B2B marketing with the invention of a new category: conversational marketing. Their vision is to end forms for lead generation and replace them with conversations through chatbots.

Since their founding in 2016, they’ve been trusted by over 50,000 businesses to help them align sales and marketing through their product. This is largely in part due to their content marketing strategy. Here’s how they did it:

6 Star Content: Many in the marketing world are familiar with “10x content,” but Drift’s marketing team went after 6 star content. They sought to create content significantly better than everyone else’s in the market.
Diverse Content Mix: Although most of their content is focused on top-of-funnel topics, they also have a healthy amount of case studies, product features, branded content, transcripted podcasts, and more.
Co-marketing: Drift regularly features other companies in their content, giving them a healthy boost of exposure and brand awareness thanks to the reach of their partner companies.

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#21. Bonjoro: How They Grew To Over 40,000 Users With Earned Media

Bonjoro is a platform dedicated to helping users improve customer engagement with personal videos.

Their focus on earned media helped them grow to over 40,000 users. Here’s how they did it:

Podcasts: Bonjoro pitched hundreds of podcast hosts on having members of Bonjoro’s team on, leading to being featured on over 100 podcasts.
PR Outreach: Bonjoro earned a ton of press through releases and pitching queries on Help a Reporter Out.
Webinars: Bonjoro’s CMO partnered with companies in similar niches and earned exposure through many co-marketed webinar events.

Read Bonjoro’s full case study here.

#22. Chris Von Wilpert - The Ski Slope Strategy for $100,000 Per Month

Chris Von Wilpert wanted to create a system of compounding traffic in order to scale a small startup. To achieve this, he used a tactic he coined himself called The Ski Slope Strategy.

This content marketing strategy helped him grow to over $100,000 in MRR fairly quickly. Here’s how he did it:

Build Topic Clusters: The first step to the ski slope strategy is to create topic clusters to capture new organic opportunities. Rather than one-off blog posts, he created clusters of related posts for each topic.
Marketing Promotion: Once he captured traffic with topic clusters, he ran promotions to convert his traffic and capture emails. These included giveaways, discount offers, courses, and tools.
Case Studies: Once he began driving traffic and capturing emails, he heavily pushed case studies in order to push leads over the edge and convert them to customers.

Read more about Chris Von Wilpert’s case study here.

Work with a B2B Marketing Agency

Hopefully these B2B marketing examples have inspired you to accelerate your own business’ growth!

But rest assured, most of these tactics and strategies are not quick fixes or easy hacks. They require time and effort.

And unless you’re a B2B digital marketing expert, it’s going to take you a while to get your growth marketing to work for you.

Want to partner with a company that’s been there, done that?

Apollo Digital is a full-service B2B digital marketing company. We’ve worked with over a dozen B2B companies spread through multiple industries, and we can help you too!

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7 B2B and B2C Case Study Examples to Model Your Content After

In the pantheon of content types, the case study takes a special place. While blog posts and white papers are often for consumer education purposes, the case study is one of the best ways to shine a spotlight on your brand, services, differentiators and successes for any potential client.

It’s one of the more direct content marketing assets, and ideal for leads who are further down the funnel. The case study is used to explain exactly how you helped solve a problem for a client or customer, and thus tell your story and demonstrate your value or return on investment.

But while writing a case study may seem like a breeze, a lot of strategy and effort goes into producing a great one – the type that can help convince potential customers to do business with you.

A general case study format: overview; challenge or opportunity; solution; and outcome.

For any readers interested in case study examples, the internet is filled with customer case studies and plenty of opinions on what the best case study format is — illustrating how to craft an effective asset. But we’re going to save you some time and present a few tips on writing and designing case studies, as well as 7 examples you can use as models for content marketing and beyond.

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What Is a Marketing Case Study?

A marketing case study is a narrative of how your business met a need, solved a problem or helped in a project. They act almost like customer reviews in that the case study relays what the product or service is, how it was used and what the impact was through methods like qualitative research and interviews. Case studies are effective in both B2B and B2C marketing.

The ultimate takeaway for readers should be an understanding of your business and the benefits you can deliver – and there’s no better source of that material than real-world wins. To start on the case study writing process, begin by:

Scouting for customer successes to share.
Reaching out to previous or existing clients.
Arranging a case study interview.
Tailoring interview questions with credible sources.
Identifying your target audience.
Thinking about case study design concepts.
Considering pairing other deliverables with relevant facts
Devising a case study distribution strategy.

When you sit down to write a case study, it’s important to know the general format. While there’s no hard-and-fast case study template, a commonly used format is: overview, challenge/opportunity, solution, outcome:

Overview : Paint the overall picture and explain what the scenario is, who is involved, what the parameters of a project were; provide any other needed contextual details.
Challenge/opportunity : Outline the key business challenge, consumer problem or market opportunity.
Solution : Talk about the product or service you provided and how you deployed tools or strategy.
Outcome : Describe the positive impact of your product or service, whether it was an improved customer experience or client return on investment.

Best practices include quotes from customers, client contacts or internal staff wherever possible so the real-world use case resonates with the reader, including any new potential customer.

The end result should be a polished asset that answers any remaining questions that potential customers might have. And to give you some insight as to what that looks like, here are 7 B2B and B2C case study examples.

1. Aware – The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing

Aware is a leading global provider of software products and solutions for biometric identification and authentication — all of which may be difficult to understand in practical applications. But the company’s case study “The World’s Largest Employer Uses a Web-Based Platform for Biometric Identity Proofing” is a primary study analysis example of what to do right when writing case studies

This case study follows the generally recommended template of overview-problem-solution-outcome, and conveys Aware’s story in clear terms that expertly explain the product and benefits. Of course, having the world’s largest employer (the U.S. Department of Defense) as a case study subject lends credibility to Aware, which can explain how it succeeded on one of the highest levels, thereby creating a persuasive asset to be implemented into any scale of a marketing campaign.

2. HubSpot – Studio Proper Cuts Sales Cycle in Half and Increases Revenue by 35%

Right off the bat, HubSpot lets readers know the main benefits with data. The title doesn’t mess around, basically pulling the conclusion all the way up. The case study itself follows closely along the overview-problem-solution-outcome format, creating a natural progression for the story and the reader to follow along with.

One of the best elements of this example is the case study design. The overview is set in a shaded box that draws the attention of the reader; functionally, this helps ensure they have context for what’s about to follow. From there, screenshots help add a visual touch that reinforces the product use case, and emphasis is added on tangible takeaways like “ saving up to 50 hours each quarter on manual processes .”

Another cue to take from HubSpot is building up a library of case studies. Armed with dozens of customer stories , HubSpot can share sector-specific content that plays well with a target audience.

3. Walmart Labs – Seamless Returns Experience

For an example from the B2C marketing world, we turn to Walmart Labs, a division of the retail multinational that incubates innovation. It also has quite a few handy case studies for how Walmart is using technology to drive better customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Its “Seamless Returns Experience” case study is a succinct examination of the issue at hand and what Walmart is doing to find a solution.

Something this case study does particularly well is highlight the most important takeaways. It makes for an easy read, but also a compelling case study. Readers come away with direct knowledge of what Walmart is doing to solve pain points in the returns process, and how successful its initiatives have been at making for a more streamlined experience for any prospective client.

4. Consero – How private equity-backed AppleCare leveraged Finance as a Service to accelerate growth

You’ve likely heard of Software-as-a-Service, but have you heard of Finance-as-a-Service? After reading this case study from Consero, you’ll get a clear picture of exactly how outsourced finance and accounting can help businesses grow or seize opportunity. The table of contents helps set the stage for the journey and what readers should expect.

The art in Consero’s case study is the narrative it creates using quotes from a client contact. They help bring personality to the piece, as well as authority. The design of the case study makes ample use of pull quotes, which pump up the effect even further. Combined with the linear progression of overview-challenge-solution-outcome, the artful storytelling provides insights as well as evidence.

5. Coca-Cola – Thirsty for More: Coca-Cola’s Shared Value Approach with Communities Across Brazil

Sometimes the case study challenge doesn’t have to be financial or operational; it can also be an exploration of a company’s efforts to advocate sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance.

That’s what Coca-Cola took the opportunity to do in producing this case study of the brand’s efforts to support and train workers in Brazil, as well as innovate solutions for underserved communities.

While this B2C marketing example is a bit more long form, the depth and knowledge it provides are key for the reader, whose understanding of the material is helped along by graphical elements. The technical explanations don’t come at the sacrifice of personality, however, as the stories of Brazilian youth are documented with quotes and anecdotes to help humanize the piece, which is, after all, a case study in how Coca-Cola is pursuing social and economic growth for foreign communities.

6. Brafton – How Brafton transformed Custom Vault Corporation’s UX

Well hey, look who made the list. If you’re looking for a sample case study to model a first draft off, this example can help provide the roadmap you need to get started. All the elements of strong construction are here: straightforward structure that outlines the four core pillars (overview, challenge, solution, outcome), punchy quotes and sleek design.

Don’t be afraid to add emphasis to what plays well for you. You want readers to come away with an impression that your business is knowledgeable, has a track record of success and can deliver solutions that align with their personal pain points.

7. Slow Clap – “ Built In Slack” facilitating impact for Mask for Docs and Frontline Foods

Video content and multimedia elements set themselves apart in this case study from Slow Clap.

A 2-minute, 30-second video – the ideal time length for the modern online reader – positioned at the top of the content is the perfect companion to the text. Prospects are beginning to engage with video content at seismic proportions .

What to Remember When Writing a Case Study

Each of these examples demonstrates the value of a case study as well as an asset’s value once it’s used. Once you get in a rhythm of case study research and further iteration, you’ll find yourself with a content marketing and sales collateral arsenal that’s highly effective at driving leads and potential customers further toward a purchase decision.

Use these tips on what makes great case studies to power your content ideation and production:

The exact structure doesn’t matter as long as the four cornerstones of overview, challenge, solution, outcome are addressed in some way.
Quotes are great if you can get them. When conducting a case study interview, ask questions that get to the heart of the problem and the impact the product or solution played.
Have a social media strategy for the rollout of the case study, as well as a follow-up plan for recirculation and repurposing. Ask participating partners to share the case study when it’s finished, too.
Use creative formatting so the case study design has clear takeaways and emphasizes key quotes.

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Editor’s Note: Updated August 2022.

Dominic Tortorice

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Dom, an English major and journalism enthusiast, was just happy to get a job out of college writing and editing professionally. That it turned out to be in the burgeoning content marketing industry with Brafton was all the better.

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Case Studies: 4 Examples of Great B2B Marketing

The case studies we’ve included show how personal branding , online promotions, and cultivating social and real-world communities can yield significant B2B marketing success. You can expect to leave with some original ideas to add into your B2B marketing strategy.

Social Chain – The Power of Personality

Founded just three years ago, this meme factory has risen to become one of the biggest B2B brands in social marketing, offering clients the opportunity to appear on immensely popular channels like Love Food (Instagram, 6.8m followers), BeFitMotivation (Twitter, 1.78m followers) and Hogwarts Logic (561,000k followers).

Social Chain’s achievements are clearly sufficient to warrant a great deal of attention in their own right – but another key factor in the brand’s visibility has been the careful cultivation of its founder, Steve Bartlett, into a prominent influencer.

If you ever want to gauge the breadth of somebody’s appeal, just take a look at the “People also search for” entries on their Google card. On Steve Bartlett’s, the celebrated misogynist Dapper Laughs sits snugly alongside Paul Mason, the economist.

Building Brand Bartlett is a constant endeavour, resulting in daily YouTube videos showing the 24-year-old espousing worldly wisdom, acting altruistically and – in one memorable instalment – having a football kicked at his testicles.

We’ve been a little flippant about Mr Bartlett, but make no bones about it: his online personal branding campaign is a roaring success.

With 258k likes on Facebook, 81k followers on Instagram and 72k followers on Twitter, Bartlett draws a huge amount of attention to the Social Chain brand. All that attention will inevitably translate into B2B leads – whether through direct exposure or as a product of the enhancement to Social Chain’s reputation.

By contrast, Social Chain itself has 12k Facebook likes, and 7k Instagram followers and 24k Twitter followers.

The making of an influencer Becoming an influencer is an attainable goal for just about anyone, given the right tactics. Let’s pick out just a handful of the many ideas and techniques Social Chain have used to build a buzz around their founder:

Communicating success Online influencers differ from most online celebrities in that the people who follow them generally expect to learn something , with a vision to emulating their success.

This would suggest you’ll have a far better chance of finding a following if you can present yourself as successful.

Steve Bartlett is no shrinking violet in this regard. His Twitter background photo shows him speaking to a packed auditorium; his wealth is regularly made conspicuous in social posts (“I’LL GIVE MY ROLEX TO CHARITY IF I DON’T DO IT,” yells one video title); and his newspaper appearances invariably mention how he founded Social Chain at the tender age of 21.

You don’t have to give away your watch to convince people you’re successful – but you do need to consistently communicate success to your audience.

Becoming a regular fixture Steve Bartlett’s vlogs go out every evening at 8 o’clock sharp, providing a regular fixture for his audience. Publishing content regularly breeds habitual consumption, and thereby, loyalty.

Be reassured that weekly updates can work just as well as daily ones. So long as you can get your audience to look forward to consuming your content every day/Wednesday/start of the month/at any other regular interval, you’re in business.

Mixing entertainment with advice You’ll only keep your audience engaged if you can ensure your output is multi-faceted. Just as Steven Bartlett’s combines honest advice with lighter or more colourful moments, so too should your content demonstrate the breadth of your character.

Google AdWords – a high-value, low-cost giveaway If you’ve ever Googled anything to do with digital marketing (and we’re guessing you have), you will have probably at some point have been served an ad offering you £75 free ad credit when you sign up to Google AdWords. If not, you probably had AdWords already.

Example of Google Adwords Voucher Promotion

AdWords’ £75 ad credit voucher campaign and its international equivalents have been around for years, and they keep on attracting new sign-ups for the service. Here are the reasons why we think this campaign has become something of a B2B marketing stalwart:

Impressive numbers £75 free credit! Doesn’t that sound generous? Even when you’re taken into account the fact you have to first spend £25 to activate the promotion, it’s effectively 300% extra, free.

Of course, AdWords has it easier than most brands when it comes to offering its generous promotions – the cost of facilitating its ad service must be relatively low compared with the price account holders pay per-click. What’s to stop them giving away a chunk of Ad credit with a high price tag to a hearty share of their new customers, when that ad credit costs them, the service provider, very little indeed?

If, like AdWords, you can boast impressive numbers in a B2B promotion, you’ll stand a good chance of getting noticed. So if you’re a software provider whose digital toolkit costs £159/month to use, why not rebrand your 1 month’s free trial as a £159 voucher? Or if you’re trying to promote a gamified product, why not offer 100 free in-game tokens, as opposed to a free play? Impressive numbers turn heads.

Time and scope for success The ultimate goal of a promotion like this one is to turn leads into long-term clients. To succeed in this aim, it will need to offer sufficient time and scope for the client to see that the product works successfully. That’s exactly what this promotion does.

Let’s first consider the timescale involved. If the client starts off with a campaign budget of £10/day for their AdWords ads, they’ll have a whole ten days to burn through their initial £100 and gain a basic grasp of the platform. They can bet their bottom dollar they’ll hear from some helpful AdWords reps during this time too.

What’s more important, however, is the scope allowed by that £100 ad credit.

AdWords ads have an average conversion rate of barely over 2%, and with ad bids often costing $1-$2 per-click, an initial credit injection is required to give users a fighting chance of seeing one of their new ads convert. It’s safe to assume this must have been a consideration for AdWords bosses when they designed this promotion.

Last Minute Musicians – building and tapping into a community

Have you ever considered creating a Facebook group to promote your business?

You may not have because branded Facebook groups all-too-often end up reflecting badly on the brand through dearth of members.

However, the function musicians network Last Minute Musicians has proven this approach can work with their thriving group, Dep Musicians in the UK – Needed and Available .

The group doesn’t have much to do with the LMM’s services – rather, it’s a dedicated noticeboard where people can post when they need a musician to perform at an event, to join a band that’s missing a member, and so on.

LMM know that whilst they’re barely using the group to directly market services to members, it does provide an opportunity for them to get their name out to its exact target audience: professional musicians looking for gigs. The group is an asset, which they exploit by including the following:

Branding – cover photo shows the brand’s logo
Direct promotion – LMM have boldly included a link to their registration page in group’s pinned post. They get away with this, one suspects, because the rest of the post goes on to spell out a ream of group rules aimed at protecting musicians’ rights. The inclusion of brand and service details in the group’s “About” content can also be construed as promotional.
Links to LMM’s website and Facebook page

At the time of writing, these marketing elements are being communicated to 38,879 group members. In the act of joining, every last one of these people has identified themselves as the target audience. Not too shabby.

Should you set up a Facebook group? If you can link your organisation to some kind of interest group or professional niche, there’s good reason to believe this tactic could work for you.

Try to establish your group as a facilitator of its members’ professional advancement, perhaps by encouraging job-related posts or the sharing of resources. To get the ball rolling, be sure to choose a suitably descriptive name. And moving forward, you can use devices like daily themes, prompts and topical content shares to keep the conversation alive. Remember to be sensitive in your approach to self-promoting via the group – yes, you need to make a return on your hard work in running the group, but a high volume and intensity of marketing will likely alienate users.

You should also be aware that running a Facebook group is a long-term commitment, with a volume of work that only grows with group engagement.

HubSpot – playing the host It’s surely every brand’s dream to be part of the furniture of society – not to settle for being a provider of goods or services, but instead to become a pillar of its community.

One way to achieve this goal is to play the host.

Inbound marketing and sales software providers HubSpot have been striving to do exactly that by organising – or lending its name as a partner – to a globe-straddling programme of digital marketing and e-commerce related events.

From a social media camp in British Columbia and a UX conference in Cape Town to partner events in Leeds, Milan and Tel Aviv, Hub Spot are radiating their brand to their target audience by ploughing time and marketing budget into putting on events. From where we’re standing, it shows them in a good light.

Making your brand the focal point Not many of us have quite the same level of brand recognition or marketing budget as HubSpot, but we can all take lessons from the way they’ve used events to make their brand a focal point within their field:

Inclusivity pays Some of the events offered by HubSpot and its partners carry a ticket price – but most of these are priced very reasonably, and others are free.

This tells us that HubSpot’s events – and by extension its services – are open and affordable to everyone in the business community. You can’t establish yourself as the focal point if you’re not inclusive.

Events targeting different niches Take a look at HubSpot’s events listings and you’ll notice the events tend to target very particular digital niches – UX, social media, and so on. Targeting niches separately in this manner will often prove more effective than holding a broad-tent event. Occasional digital marketing summits work well enough, but on a weekly or even a monthly basis, it’s better to provide deep engagement with a particular field.

Tap into local networks HubSpot’s events have relied to some degree on the support of local partners to drum up interest. This is a mutually beneficial relationship: HubSpot gets to tap into a local network and resources, and the local partner gets to roll itself in a little bit of the larger brand’s glory.

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B2B Case Study Examples: 17 Ideas to Share Your Customer Stories

When you think about the typical case study, I’m sure you think of a boring, blah PDF version that isn’t terribly inspired. While I don’t want to pick on the trusty PDF case study, the reality is that in 2022, there are countless ways to share your customer stories. In this blog post, we’re sharing 17 outstanding B2B case study examples, including video, graphics, personal stories, Q&As and so much more.

Below you’ll find a wide variety of options to help take your B2B case studies from boring to brilliant by using one (or more) of these examples.

One of the biggest challenges with case studies is the level of detail communicated and that can quickly overwhelm readers.

Oracle’s case study on Payscout is a great example of how to present information in a visual, bite-sized format. By creating a page that is broken up in sections and calls out the key points, readers get the main takeaways quickly.

#2. LinkedIn

Let’s face it, case studies can be very tedious for people to read, so you need to find innovative ways to capture the reader’s attention in a matter of seconds.

LinkedIn’s case study featuring ADP uses a compelling feature box on the right-hand sidebar, allowing the reader to skim for the salient points and then decide if they want to read on for further details. Even if they don’t read anything else, they walk away with a clear understanding of how ADP was able to use LinkedIn to raise their profile and reach.

#3. DocuSign

There’s nothing as powerful as a headline that depicts an urgent or time-sensitive situation. DocuSign’s case study for customer On Second Thought shares an issue that most businesses can relate to — making it even more compelling.

Google being Google, it’s not a surprise that they showcase their case studies in a very efficient way. Google uses video case studies which are short and to the point, which is accompanied by a transcript for those who prefer to read the information.

Check out their case study on Sprint to see this format in action.

#5. AccessAlly

AccessAlly is an excellent example of a tech company using personal stories to bring case studies to life.

The company’s case study on how Denise Duffield-Thomas used their tools to support her business shares both a compelling use case for their products, along with some valuable lessons for fellow business owners.

This personalized approach — along with convenient formatting like jump links that take readers to the part of the story that’s most interesting to them — helps engage readers and quickly create trust in the company.

#6. Precision Marketing Group

Precision Marketing Group showcases their case studies as individual pages on their website. With each case study they make good use of color to accentuate important facts which helps potential customers decide if they are the right company for their needs.

They also have a strong call to action at the bottom that leads the reader to the next step in the inquiry process.

#7. Deadline Funnel

Deadline Funnel provides its readers with multiple ways to consume their case studies: video, audio-only, and transcript. This strategy is a must for case studies as it helps to ensure that the content is provided in the format that’s most useful for your potential customer.

Plus, Deadline Funnel’s use of an interview format versus a more formal case study helps make the company approachable and highlights the relationship they have with their customers. As a customer, you can easily see why you’d say yes to participating in a case study that shares your company’s successes.

#8. Help Scout

Help Scout helps bring case studies to life by using photos of their clients throughout the case study. In their case study with Paystack, they put a customer quote front and center so you instantly get a sneak peek into their results and want to read further.

Plus, we really like Help Scout’s use of the “favorite features” with a strong call to action at the end of the case study as this summarizes why you’d choose their solution and guides you to the next step towards working with Help Scout.

#9. SEMrush

SEMrush uses it to create a killer headline in their case study featuring travel company Booking.com. In a single sentence, they nail the client’s results and make you incredibly curious about how they were able to get that #1 result on Google.

SEMrush keeps things simple by sharing this case study on a page on their site and using minimal graphics, as the results speak for themselves.

#10. Leadpages

Leadpages’ case study on yoga instructor Jody uses a case study format that combines a personal story with more traditional case study details and a video. The end result is a case study that other professionals in Jody’s industry can identify with, as well as a valuable use case of Leadpages in action.

Plus, the case study uses engaging photos throughout the page and a casual Q&A format that make this content approachable and easy to consume.

#11. 2Checkout

Brevity can sometimes be a good thing as is the case with 2Checkout’s case studies. As you can see with their case study on Advisera , they keep it short and to the point.

They also give you the ability to download a PDF of the case study, making it easy for readers to save it for later or print and share with a colleague.

#12. CJ.com

Sometimes with a case study, there’s just too much information, and that can make it a major challenge to figure out how to present the pertinent details. CJ’s case study on lifestyle blogger Jo-Lynne Shane takes what could be relatively dry content and brings it to life. We like this format as they don’t waste space with unnecessary words or graphics and you can easily get the big takeaways from Jo-Lynne’s story.

They also share campaign results in a way that any potential customer can get excited about, helping to position their solution as the right choice.

In Slack’s case study with HelloFresh, they carefully illustrates how their solution fits seamlessly into the customer’s existing workflow as well as the benefits to the HelloFresh team.

Also, for Slack customers, integrations are key, so on the left sidebar, the specific integrations used by HelloFresh are highlighted. This case study is also worth a look as it’s incredibly to the point but includes the key challenges and results experienced at HelloFresh by using Slack.

#14. Upwork

When you have multiple audiences, it can be a challenge to present case studies as each audience has different needs. This is the exact challenge Upwork has as it serves both businesses and freelancers and they need to share stories for both audiences. You can here how they organized the stories by audience:

Upwork exclusively uses video case studies which helps to communicate the information quickly while creating trust as you’re seeing first-hand how using the platform has helped businesses and freelancers.

#15. Harvest

Time tracking and invoicing provider Harvest wins at case studies by including a company at-a-glance summary and strong subtitles to drive their point home. This approach — combined with the customer’s story and pull quotes — make it easy to read and see how Harvest can help your business. (Plus, team Scoop uses Harvest so we’re already big fans!)

#16. Honeybook

While it’s not a case study per se, Honeybook uses a “member spotlight” to regularly highlight their customers. This interview-style story helps give you a look behind-the-scenes of the featured customer’s business while seeing how they use Honeybook.

This is a fresh and fun approach to case studies that entirely fits Honeybook’s target customer base of creatives, such as photographers and designers.

#17. Qualys.com

Many times, when it comes to technology, it can be a challenge to present case study details in a way that doesn’t put potential customers to sleep. In Qualsys’ case study on their work with Capital One , the company makes great use of graphics to convey the story in a way that’s suitable for their potential customers.

Plus, this case study also features a section that shows why Capital One selected Qualsys which supports the decision-making process for potential customers.

The bottom line is that your B2B case studies don’t have to be boring or blah because there are so many unique ways to share your customer stories. Use these B2B case study examples to get started, and if you need help getting started, you can click here to learn more about our case study services.

Image Credits: All screenshots taken by the author May 2019.

B2B Marketing Case Study

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B2B, which is, business to business marketing refers to the business and trade that takes place between one business to the other. B2B marketing is very different from B2C marketing because this does not sell its products or service to direct consumers but to other businesses. The basic principles of marketing for both B2B and B2C are the same but they are implemented differs.

What is Vertical B2B and Horizontal B2B?

Horizontal b2b, vertical b2b, how to strategize b2b marketing, step 1: decide the goals.

Set some objectives that you would like to achieve at the closing of the marketing session. Once you specify your objectives it is easy to layout your B2B marketing strategy framework to achieve them.

Step 2: Define Buyer’s Persona

For the advantage of a limited and known prospect or audience defining and studying the persona of the buyers is easy to know in B2B trading. You can even directly engage with them and offer a deal that might seem like to attract them towards your offer.

Step 3: Prepare B2B Marketing Tactics and Channels

The previous strategizing steps might have accumulated some intel to you that you can determine how and where to reach out to the customers. You might require to prepare tactics to get ideas on what interests your customers more on the net, what is their need, which social media they more prefer for these. You might also need to think about the tactics that can fill the gap between you and them.

Step Four: Create Assets and Run Campaigns

In B2B marketing and business creating and increasing the number of assets you have is important. As more assets you have and as more effectively you use it you might be able to generate more revenue. And you must send messages of motivation to your stakeholders to keep them in a direct and correct direction with a creative approach, insights, etc.

Step Five: Measure and Improve

Keep tracking the system and operation you have and run and take suitable measures to improve whatever and wherever you find loose ends for the marketing.

5+ B2B Marketing Case Study Examples & Templates

1. sample b2b marketing case study example.

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Sales marketing , when done between two business firms, needs to prepare some specific tactics and channels for better results. You can understand the fact by referring to this sample on the b2b marketing strategy case study example template. The template has shed light on the different aspects that b2b marketing deals with. Studying this template you might derive better ideas for your marketing plan . So, have a look at this template today!

2. B2B Social Media Marketing Case Studies Example

B2B marketing case study refers to the detail descriptive compilation of the several facts about business to the business marketing process. The way such descriptions are compiled in one file is called the patterns or formats they choose to form the data. If you too have to compile such a study, refer to this template on digital marketing b2b case study . The template minutely discusses all the details that you might need to specify in your marketing case study. So, check the template out today!

3. Basic B2B Marketing Case Study Example

If you want to understand the process of framing a b2b marketing case study choosing this template might not be a wrong decision. Indeed, the template is framed in a way that may save your time and effort and might help you to increase the pace of your study. If you want to know more about it have a look at this template and decide if it can help you or not.

4. Formal B2B Marketing Case Studies Example

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A b2b marketing case study refers to that detailed documented file that accommodates different descriptions on different aspects of the marketing process. The frame of such studies adds different details of different aspects of the b2b marketing process. You can grab this template to understand the process or you can also choose our other examples on business development case study .

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How to Write a Case Study in 9 Steps [+ 34 Examples]

Updated April 2024: Knowing how to write a case study is one of those crucial skills every B2B marketing team needs to nail.

Why? Because SaaS case studies are still the #1 marketing tactic to increase sales—ahead of general website content, SEO, blog posts, social media and other tested tactics—according to a survey we did of 115 SaaS marketers for our 2024 Customer Story Trends & Insights Report .

How effective are case studies for increasing sales?

Case studies are important because they’re an opportunity for you to share your customers’ success with your prospects, and as a result, demonstrate the value of your service.

Think of it like writing a story, not a report—although it does need to be factual and should include numbers, it also needs a compelling narrative and lots of quotes.

A B2B case study is a tool you can use throughout your marketing mix. It’s an extension of your brand and should be written in your brand’s voice. And it’s a chance to position your company as a trusted leader and a clear choice for your prospects’ business.

Learn how to write a case study in 9 steps

Follow these 9 steps to learn how to write a case study that keeps readers engaged, leaves them informed and gets them interested in hearing more from you:

Include 8 important case study components
Hook readers with your title
Keep your executive summary short
Focus on your customer, not your company
Use quotes to add Voice of the Customer
Include metrics
Guide your reader with a call to action
Get inspired by other case study examples
Drive more views of your case studies

1 . Include 8 important case study components

How to write a case study: Find out the 8 essential components of a case study.

Every case study needs a story arc that captures the reader’s attention. To master how to write a case study, be sure to begin with a compelling executive summary that illustrates how your reader will benefit from what they’re about to learn.

Next, the piece should outline the challenges your customer faced that led them to seek out your B2B SaaS solution (and dive into that process). Spend some time on the solution and how it enabled your customers to level up their business while positioning them as the hero in the story.

Wrap it up with a results section that shows off hard numbers, then close with a call to action to guide your reader where you want them to go next.

See examples for each of the 9 case study components you absolutely need to include .

2. Hook readers with your title

How to write a case study: Your case study title needs 3 elements for it to be successful.

Keep three elements in mind when writing your B2B SaaS case study headline. Include your customer’s company name. This helps show readers that your case study is a real-life example of how your service helped someone.

Reference the product or service your customer used. This gives readers an idea of whether the case study is relevant to them.

Finally, if you have one, highlight a statistic that references the results your customer got from working with you.

See examples of compelling case study titles from leading SaaS companies .

3. Keep your executive summary short

How to write a case study: Keep your executive summary short and sweet.

The executive summary of your B2B SaaS case study should be short (a few sentences) but impactful, and should provide a clear understanding of your service.

First, introduce your customers and the challenges they were facing when they hired you. Next, explain what your company did to help.

To finish strong—don’t skip this crucial step—outline a few results backed up with statistics that reinforce your main message.

Check out 4 examples of executive summaries in SaaS case studies .

4. Focus on your customer, not your company

How to write a case study: Find out how to portray your customer as the hero of the case study.

Readers don’t want to hear about how great you are—that’s NOT how to write a case study. They expect a B2B SaaS case study to provide insight into your customer’s opinion of your service.

Include details like what industry your customer is in, the size of their company and the name of the person you interviewed. Incorporate direct quotes to tell the story from your customer’s point of view. Explain why they chose your solution and how it impacted their business, but keep the focus on them and their success.

Learn how to make your customer the hero of your case study—and see examples .

5. Use quotes to add Voice of the Customer

How to write a case study: Add credibility and personality with quotes

There’s a time to paraphrase when you’re writing, but sometimes, no one can sing your praises better than your customer. If you want to master how to write a case study that’s engaging and honest, using quotes as Voice of the Customer is a go-to B2B tactic.

Readers want to hear from your customers whether they recommend your service, and why. The quotes you highlight should be specific and resonant, with detail that brings them to life. Feature testimonials as pull quotes in your design, and include a headshot of your customer to make it personal—and trustworthy.

Get tips on how to choose testimonials for your case study—and what not to do .

6. Include metrics

How to write a case study: Use concrete stats.

Metrics are a surefire way to measure success in a B2B SaaS case study. Hard numbers are objective, reliable and convincing. But, you may not always have metrics to tell your story. We’ll walk you through how to write a case study without them.

First, lead with your best quote. Social proof can be just as powerful as numbers in B2B. Describe a clear before and after the experience—for example, time or money saved. Have your customers explain what your service has meant to their business. List a few benefits (infographics come in handy here).

Check out an example from a case study with no metrics .

7. Guide your reader with a call to action

How to write a case study: Every case study should have a call to action.

Your reader has stuck with you until the end of your case study. Don’t leave them hanging—guide them where you want them to go next with a call to action. This should be a specific statement that speaks directly to your target audience.

Use design to make your call to action stand out. It should be obvious and clear what you want your reader to do. Tip: you can have more than one call to action in your B2B SaaS case study, and you can intersperse them throughout.

See 8 case study CTA examples from other B2B SaaS companies .

8. Get inspired by other case study examples

How to write a B2B case study: Get inspired by your competitors case studies.

When you’re looking to sharpen your company’s B2B SaaS case studies, reviewing your competitors’ content is an excellent way to gather inspiration.

Critique their case studies for what worked well and what could be improved, such as titles, imagery and use of testimonials and statistics. We’ve done some of the legwork and reviewed 8 case studies from ServiceChannel, Zenefits, AppDirect, Expensify, GitLab, ServiceNow, Splunk and Zendesk so you can take notes on the hits and misses.

See 8 case study examples .

9. Drive more views of your case studies

How to write a case study: Squeeze the most value from your case studies by promoting them.

You already know why the B2B SaaS case study is a powerful marketing tool. Now that you know how to write a case study, you can likely imagine it’s a time-consuming effort.

To leverage your case studies to their full potential, create a section on your website for them and promote them from your home page as well as from relevant landing pages for your services.

Create B2B case studies in various formats including video, and promote them on social media as well as in your e-newsletter. Get your case studies into your sales team’s hands, and use them at any presentations or conference talks you give.

See the 8 ways to squeeze the most value from your case studies .

Now that you know how to write a case study, what’s next?

With these tips on how to write a case study, you’ve got a great overview of the elements you need to pay attention to when writing a B2B SaaS case study. Now you’ll want to dive a bit deeper into each of these tips to round out your knowledge and learn actionable steps you can start taking towards better case studies today.

First up is to dive into our post on how to format your B2B SaaS case study so it reads like a natural story narrative. This will help you keep your prospect’s attention and allow them to imagine themselves as the central character—your next customer!

Need a hand with your B2B SaaS case studies?

As a SaaS content marketing agency , we specialize in working with high-growth companies like ClickUp, Calendly and WalkMe. With our case study writing service, you can:

drive more leads and sales with case studies that resonate
grab back more time to work on other high-value tasks like strategy and planning
impress your bosses, colleagues and the sales team with the excellent results you’re getting from the content you’re responsible for creating

Check out our case study writing service for details on how we can help.

As the founder of Uplift Content, Emily leads her team in creating done-for-you case studies, ebooks and blog posts for high-growth SaaS companies like ClickUp, Calendly and WalkMe. Connect with Emily on Linkedin

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Case studies in B2B marketing: why case studies are good to have

Case studies stand for authentic, genuine user examples – an important aspect in B2B. Read here what you need to keep in mind for a case study, which goals you can achieve and what successful examples look like.

What are case studies?

A case study uses concrete examples to show how an external company has solved a problem with the help of a product or a service from one’s own company. It does not focus on the products or services which contributed to solving the problem, but instead focuses on the customer . After all, other companies who read the case study should be able to identify with the example. In other words, a case study is a concrete user report from the viewpoint of a customer who has already successfully leveraged the product or service of a company.

Why a case studies make a difference in B2B

In principle, case studies can be used by nearly all companies whose products or services are successful and who cannot describe what they do in a single sentence. The effort invested in a case study is particularly worthwhile for companies whose offering requires a high level of explanation due to its complexity – and this is often the case in the B2B segment. Such tailored and practice-centric information reinforce a potential customer’s trust in the competence of a company and the way it works.

Increase your visibility to your target audience and showcase your product offering online by creating a free profile on wlw.

„ No other measure – except for in-person events – is so well suited for generating leads. “

All in all, 69 per cent of companies which leverage content marketing fall back on case studies, according to the B2B Content Marketing Report 2020 from the Content Marketing Institute. And no other measure – except for in-person events to which potential interested customers have been directly invited – is so well suited for generating leads ; in other words, closing a business deal.

The main reason: case studies stand for authenticity. The example customer is believed more than the conventional showcase of product benefits on the part of the company. The problems solved in the end may have certainly posed difficulties – which makes the case study even more credible, compared to if everything ran smoothly. Case studies as stories of success also have a high potential for going viral in the B2B scene, as they are often shared among colleagues or as press releases. Journalistically written case studies are also happily published by specialist media on top of this.

How to correctly structure a case study

Please consider the following points which aim to help you prepare and generate a case study:

Don’t go over the top with your case study. As noted in the Content Preferences Survey Report 2019 from Demand Gen, 68 per cent of the B2B decision-makers questioned spend 20 minutes at the most reading a case study, with half of the survey’s participants spending just a maximum of 10 minutes.
When generating a case study, consider in which the phase of the customer journey you want the customer to read it. In the awareness phase, case studies serve as orientation. They provide an insight into the technology and the latest trends in its application. In the decision-making and purchasing phases, case studies can be used to show which benefits were actually achieved by a solution.
Take a step back and let your customers speak. To achieve this, make an interview appointment with an employee who has intensively worked with your product or service. Since that which he sees as being important is something other potential customers may also find as being relevant to them. Save the product perspective for the conclusion, where a call to action leads to your solution.
When it comes to your case study, don’t include too many specialist details concerning the concrete application, as only a few experts may understand them. Instead, concentrate first and foremost on the strategic use of your offering which can convince the decision-maker.
Begin your case study with an overview containing the most important facts. Then, introduce the example customer and his problem, one which can ideally be transferred to many other companies. Afterwards, describe how your product or service precisely helped him from the customer’s point of view. And, finally, the customer should illustrate which concrete benefits his company gained by the collaboration.
The success at the end of the case study is ideally underscored with figures. What did the customer precisely gain by using your product or service? The percentage of the increased number of leads , sales or cost savings is a rounded-out closing to a case study. Above all, technically-affine target group s expect concrete results in the form of hard facts.

Case studies: three examples of success

1. novexx solutions.

The industrial systems provider NOVEXX Solutions generated a case study on the topic of “Identification of roll cages”. This case study highlighted how one of the Netherland’s largest retailers profited from an innovative labelling solution for identifying roll cages in distribution centres. The solution used by the customer up to that time was very time-consuming and required cleaning chemicals. Thanks to the new labelling, the labels could be easily removed from the roll cages without leaving any traces, which also resulted in a significantly longer lifespan of the roll cages without any repairs. With this case study, NOVEXX Solutions won the AIM Case Study Award 2017.

2. BlackBerry

The hardware and software provider BlackBerry has already published dozens of case studies, including one for the contractor Max Bögl . The case study, in cooperation with Pioneer Communications, shows how the company faced challenges with the BlackBerry solution in the areas of safety, data protection and productivity. A telephone interview served as the basis, with a contact person from the area “IT Collaboration – Mobile Device Management”. In addition to its placement on the BlackBerry website, the case study particularly appeared in specialist media for the construction industry. This publication contributed to achieving a high reach.

3. Lindner Hotels

Another approach was chosen by Lindner-Hotels AG with their case study on the topic of “Digital Recruiting ”. In this case study, new paths to searching for suitable talents was recorded based on the company personally, such as video applications, recruiting castings or a portal for career-changers. The goal: to highlight the hotel group as an attractive employer. Another means are statistics which emphasise a high employee satisfaction rate as well as low fluctuation and apprenticeship dropout rates.

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How to Write a B2B Case Study: Templates and Examples

When you need to write a b2b case study to introduce your product to potential clients, use our guide to plan, structure, and publish a great client success story..

Steve Norall • February 23, 2024

B2B case studies — when they’re done right — take your audience through a detailed success story that shows what your business can do in practical, relatable terms. Essentially, you’re combining concrete evidence and convincing social proof, helping potential customers see why your service is right for them too.

But for plenty of people working in B2B marketing, the process of creating case study content is actually overwhelming.

You might have to work with an internal team that’s dealing with a backlog of projects they see as more urgent.
You might have to outsource the case study to an agency, which can be incredibly expensive.
You might try to write the case study yourself, which means you’re the one scheduling an interview with the client, analyzing the data, and trying to combine your sources into a coherent story.

In this post, we show you how to easily write your own B2B case study. It involves a combination of writing and video, which you can easily capture with our asynchronous video testimonial tool, Vocal Video .

We recommend using videos in your case study for two reasons. First, letting customers speak in their words helps make your case study more convincing. Second, using video expedites the writing process, as you don’t need to take interview notes and then write out a narrative around them. You can instead use the interviews themselves in your case study.

Before we walk you through how to use Vocal Video to create B2B case studies for your website and marketing channels, let’s cover some high-level tips to help you plan a fantastic case study.

How to Plan a Case Study That Converts

To get a case study that highlights your company’s key value propositions, you’ll need to do some preparation. Whether your goal is to create new pages for your website, showcase your big-name clients, or build authority and brand awareness in your niche, effective case studies start with a clear understanding of the value proposition you want to convey. Knowing your goal will help you choose which clients to interview, decide the questions you want to ask them, structure the finished case study, and identify areas where you can track down data or statistics to make your case study more compelling.

Ideally, you’d think these tips over before you interview your client about their experience. But if you’re building your case study from a recorded review or a written testimonial, don’t worry. This process will still help you to pinpoint the most effective quotes to use.

Start with the Pain Points Your Product Aims to Solve

Case studies are an excellent way to attract prospective clients because they show you understand — and have a proven track record of solving — the same problems they’re facing today.

Understanding your customers’ pain points will help you make some important decisions early on in the process, including…

Deciding which customer success stories most effectively show how you solve those pain points.
Choosing which of your value propositions to highlight in the case study.

For example, look at this case study from FreshBooks :

This written case study is based on how the company solved a problem that many business owners have (disorganized and inefficient invoices, estimates, and payments). In fact, showing the company understands this relatable pain point is so central to the success of this case study that it’s highlighted in the first paragraphs of the text and the scannable executive summary.

Identifying a problem that’s truly frustrating your customers, or even holding them back from success, can make them feel seen and understood. This creates a connection early on in the case study and keeps them reading to find out if the solution you’re offering would work for them too.

Plus, when you clearly understand the problem and solution, you can write a concise, focused case study that leaves the reader with a deeper understanding of what you have to offer. For example, writing a collection of case studies, each speaking to one of your company’s key value props, might convert more potential customers than one long winded, disorganized case study where you try to speak about four different features of your product in detail.

Understand the Three-Act Structure of a Great Case Study

With case studies, you have the chance to create a piece of content that’s longer than the rest of your B2B marketing copy. In contrast to the bullet points and short paragraphs you might use on a landing page , for example, case studies can tell a compelling story that wins the reader (hopefully a B2B buyer) over. Here, you have the chance to write about a client’s unique experience and include anecdotes alongside official statistics. Because the decision-making process is emotional as well as logical — even in B2B — the storytelling aspect of case studies can be a huge advantage.

Many of the most successful case studies follow what’s called a three-act structure. This presents your client as the hero and your company as the tool that helped them reach their goals.

A three-act case study:

Explains the ways they were being held back before they started working with your company.
Describes how they discovered your company and what it was like during the process of working with you.
Explains the results they saw immediately after working with you, and ideally the long-term benefits or growth they’re still seeing today.

For example, Vocal Video customer Optimizely made this video for our case study series :

After an introductory section that describes the product, Optimizely’s marketing manager MacKenna Anovick answers questions that cover all three of the bases we talked about above.

Before: What challenges did you have creating video testimonials before Vocal Video?
During: How is Optimizely using testimonial videos?
After: What’s the ROI of video testimonials for Optimizely, and would you recommend others try Vocal Video?

The result is a case study that showcases the customer’s journey, engaging the viewer and helping them imagine themselves enjoying the same success.

You can read Optimizely’s full customer story here .

Choose Questions That Get Compelling Answers

Engaging case studies can bring your company’s value propositions down to earth. This is especially important in B2B and SaaS marketing, where services can sometimes seem quite abstract or difficult to explain without industry jargon. In contrast, a case study explains why what you’re offering matters, showing real-world applications and real results.

The key to getting case studies that do this confidently is to pay attention to the phrasing of the questions in your client interview. The best case study questions are…

Open , so the reader or viewer never has the feeling that you’re leading the respondent or they’re reading from a script.
Specific , so the respondent gives more detail about their experience than a simple yes or no.
Detail-oriented , so the respondent also backs up what they’re saying with evidence.

For example, Moki publishes video clips from their customers on their case study page. They ask the schools that work with them about the impact of the product — a fairly neutral question. The respondents can then talk about any of the different positive effects they’ve seen. Every speaker has their own story to back up the claims about how effective the product is, and they can cite the data that Moki collects as concrete evidence.

Plan to Collect Video Case Studies

Traditionally, B2B case studies have been presented as longer written content on a company’s website, but video case studies like the ones above are also an effective way to show what makes your company unique and prove the results you’ve brought in for your clients.

In comparison to written case studies, video is…

Engaging, making a deeper connection with the viewer than text alone.
Memorable, presenting the information in a way that’s easier to digest.
Versatile, which makes it easier to repurpose your customer and client stories for social media, landing pages, and product pages.

With Vocal Video, it’s also fast, convenient, and affordable to create high-quality case study videos to share with your audience. Just create an asynchronous video interview collector to share with your clients, edit their responses, and publish the video to any of your channels. You can even use a template to speed up the process.

Vocal Video: The Easiest Way to Make an Impactful Video Cast Study

Almost ready to start creating video case studies? Here’s a quick guide to the Vocal Video process.

Make a Case Study Video Collector

Every Vocal Video case study starts with a video collector. This is what you’ll send to your customers so they can record their interview remotely whenever they have time.

You can write your collector welcome message, interview questions, and thank you from scratch, or customize our specially designed B2B Case Studies collector template to get started even faster.

The B2B Case Study Video Template asks the respondent three questions:

What problem was your organization dealing with before [your company]?
How did [your company] help resolve this challenge?
What results did you get with [your company]?

You can also add up to two more questions to ask for more details. For example, you might want your client to speak about the onboarding process, or to speak about the immediate results and the long-term benefits in separate answers. Simply select the template and customize the questions in the collector dashboard.

Find out about 3 more video case study templates here .

Send the Collector Link to Your Top Clients

You might already have a specific client in mind for a case study. In this case, the easiest way to collect customer quotes from them is to generate a link to your video collector and send it by email. You can even customize the URL and send them a personalized collector link with their details pre-filled.

If you want to collect more case study videos, you can also invite more of your past clients to take part with our three-touch email sequence, which is proven to get more responses. In this case, you send a “pre-ask” email to your client list, saying you’d like to gather more case studies for your marketing efforts and explaining how Vocal Video works. Then, send an “invitation” with the collector link to the clients who say they’d be happy to take part. Finally, send a “reminder” message to the clients who haven’t found time to record yet.

Read more about how to ask for customer stories — including suggested texts for all three emails.

In every interaction with a potential interviewee, you can remind them of how easy it is to take part and how much you value their thoughts. Remember, with Vocal Video, they’ll be able to record their responses wherever they are, in as little as 5-10 minutes, and they can open the link to the video collector without downloading an app or setting up an account.

Get Automatically Edited Case Study Videos and Transcripts Sent to Your Library

Whenever a client records a response, our unique automatic editing process creates a seamless, high-quality video for your case study library. We’ll add…

Attribution overlays with the speaker’s name and company name to add credibility to your case study.
Subtitles to make your video more accessible to people watching without sound.
Royalty-free music to set the tone.
Eye-catching animated transitions between slides.
Branded question cards showing the prompts your interviewee was responding to.

Automatic testimonial editing makes this highly-effective form of video marketing open to everyone. Even if you’ve never been involved in video production before, you’ll be able to create an attention-grabbing, professional, compelling case study to share as part of your content marketing strategy. And, if you need to make any tweaks, our suite of intuitive, drag-and-drop editing tools makes it easy to…

Change the order of the slides in the video.
Trim the respondent’s answers.
Edit the subtitles, for example, to remove pauses or correct the spelling of a product name.
Include a call to action (CTA) inviting viewers to book a consultation, get a demo, or find out more about your company.
Add additional slides to give more detail or context — such as a slide showing data that proves the results, screenshots showing the tools the respondent is talking about, infographics, an introductory message from your company, or responses from more people on your client’s team.

You can see our editing features in action in the video below from the marketing company Demandbase . Jon Leiberman, VP of Content, explains how they use Vocal Video for employee stories and thought leadership:

Your case study transcript — which we’ll automatically generate for every video you publish — is also invaluable when you want to use case studies in digital marketing. For example, if your goal is to populate a section of your website with multiple case study pages, just copy and paste the transcript to act as the text for each page. We call this “ two-for-one testimonial writing .” Just go to any published video in your Vocal Video library to copy or download the transcript.

Find out more about the benefits of testimonial transcripts for SEO.

Publish Your Case Studies Online

When you’re ready to share your client’s success story with people at an earlier stage of the buyer’s journey, just go to “Share” to see the options for sharing a published video.

Share this video on your website or social media.

A B2B marketing team might be particularly interested in embedding the video on a case study webpage. To do this, just click “Embed it on your site.” We’ll take you through the steps to design and preview your embed, including…

Choosing the shape of the embedded video.
Picking a featured quote for an attention-grabbing video card .
Changing the fonts and colors used in the video thumbnail.
Previewing all the changes to your embed in real-time.

Then, just click “Copy embed code” to pick up the code snippet you need to add to your site. In site builders like WordPress , this is as simple as adding a new HTML block, pasting the code, and saving the changes.

Remember, video testimonials and transcripts are an extremely versatile resource for B2B content marketing. Unlike whitepapers or old-fashioned case study articles, case study videos — either alone or to support the written content — are extremely sharable. They’re just as at home on social media as in the testimonials section of your website, which makes them an invaluable resource when you want to touch base with your target audience on multiple channels.

3 Case Study Examples from Real Businesses

Now, let’s look at 3 examples of how Vocal Video customers publish B2B case studies to convert more potential customers.

SecurEnds: Video Case Studies and Testimonials Combined

SecurEnds dedicates a webpage to case studies and testimonials to help people find out more about their product.

These custom opening slides/thumbnails in this gallery are particularly strong. It creates content that sits comfortably with SecurEnds’ branding, but also puts their customers front and center. In the caption, they highlight the name and position of the respondent for authority, and explain how that customer used SecurEnds. This makes it easy for new customers to find the case study to address the pain points they’re also facing.

SecurEnds customer testimonials and case studies

Securends used YouTube embeds for this case study gallery. Find out more about how to build a testimonial gallery within Vocal Video — including interactive examples of five different gallery formats — here .

Atlas Cloud: Case Study Transcripts as Articles

Atlas Cloud uses video transcripts for case studies.

Atlas Cloud creates more content for the case study page of their website by publishing the video and the transcript together. In the articles, they include the video and the transcript, so they can appeal to people who can stop and watch a video during their research, and people who need to scan the text for the key information. Plus, by formatting the questions from the interview as headings, they’ve also continued to use their brand colors throughout the article.

The Product Led Alliance: Sharing Case Studies on LinkedIn and Twitter

Product-led alliance case study on LinkedIn

The Product Led Alliance recognizes that LinkedIn is an important platform for attracting new B2B customers. They use their profile (and their Vocal Video interviews) to talk about common challenges in their industry and present their solutions. Plus, because video is more shareable than a traditional written case study, their followers are more likely to repost the content and put it in front of more potential clients.

Create Case Studies the Easy Way, with Vocal Video

There are no rules about the structure or format your content has to follow to be considered an “official” case study. As long as you understand the customer’s pain point, present your solution, and prove the results your company can get, you’ll have a B2B marketing resource that shows the real-world benefits of working with you.

Plus, when you use Vocal Video to collect video interviews from your clients, you get dynamic, shareable, relatable content to supplement your written case studies or act as the basis for a whole case study page on your website.

Steve Norall

Product strategy, marketing, customer success (oh, and CEO too).

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10 best b2b case study examples for your sales and marketing team .

Case studies build a perfect, not to say persuasive narrative that features real-world experiences of a product or any marketing or sales endeavour by a company. Apart from demonstrating the value of the product, some case studies help you draw some marketing and sales lessons from real-time experiences.

Table of Contents

What is the real purpose of case studies?

For one, it makes your product stand out amid the competition.
You can look at other case studies and try to emulate their marketing or sales technique.

That’s why we put together various B2B Case Study Examples For Your Sales And Marketing Team. Have a close look and see different styles of marketing and get inspired.

Top 10 Case Study Examples For Your Sales And Marketing Team

1. salesforce – content marketing .

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is the noisiest channel on the web, probably in a good way. However, one cannot refute that the competition is rampant. Now, amid this competition, Sales Force has emerged as one of the world’s largest vendor of CRM applications.

That said, even the Salesforce had some issues maintaining steady traffic and customer base to their channel. Salesforce decided to change their content marketing strategy to achieve business growth in search and paid traffic in the UK.

Thus, they deployed their content marketing campaign to entertain and engage their target audience in the UK to achieve growth in the region.

How did Sales Force go about making their content marketing strategy a success? They leveraged and thrived using these methods and strategies:

Video on sales and marketing which was highly entertaining and fun.
World’s first stop-motion slide share.
A presentation to showcase a customer success story.

As a result of this campaign, their website witnessed a dramatic rise in their audience base from the UK region. They enjoyed 80% increase in web traffic, over 10000 downloads of their customized ebook, approximately 6500 email-newsletter signups and a staggering 2500% rise in traffic from social media sites.

2. HubSpot – leveraging inclusivity

HubSpot is now a pillar in their domain, which is actually every organisation’s dream. To not just become a part of the horde, but someone who is seen as a benchmark for everything in the industry. And that is HubSpot for you.

One way to achieve this goal is by leveraging the power of inclusivity. That is, by playing a host.

This is how HubSpot – an Inbound marketing and sales software provider – made its name in the industry. They lent their name as a partner to various organisation and digital marketing and e-commerce related events.

From a social media camp in British Columbia and a UX conference in Cape Town to partner events in Leeds, Milan and Tel Aviv, HubSpot left no stone unturned by being featured and partnering in various events globally. However, it is a given that to make their brand a focal point they had to shell out a huge chunk of the budget.

That said, even if you lack a huge budget, you can still partner or play host to events that do not require heavy budget and start by inviting people in our region.

Inclusivity paid off

Some of the events offered by HubSpot and its partners carry a ticket price – but most of these are priced very reasonably, and others are free.

By making their events affordable and free to everyone in their business community, they established themselves as a focal point in the industry.

3. Google AdWords – high-value giveaway

If you are a salesperson or a marketer, you have probably come across this high-value, but low-cost give-away by Google. This is an ad offering you £75 free ad credit when you sign up to Google AdWords. However, if have not been offered this giveaway then chances are that you probably had AdWords already.

The fact that this £75 ad credit voucher campaign has been around for years is not a hidden fact. And they keep attracting customers and sign-ups owing to this campaign, even to this day.

Why is this campaign such a massive hit?

Generosity – £75 free credit! Doesn’t that sound generous? And you only have to pay £ 25 to avail this package. This makes it, 300% extra value when compared to just spending £ 25. Of course, Google can afford to be this generous. Plus, they eventually incur more than they are giving away. Customers who sign-up for this program, end up purchasing services like pay-per-click accounts.

4. Social Chain – engaging social media followers

Social Chain is a meme factory that has carved its niche and risen to become one of the biggest B2B brands in social marketing within a few years of starting out. They offered their clients the opportunity to appear on immensely popular channels like Love Food (Instagram, 6.8m followers), BeFitMotivation (Twitter, 1.78m followers) and Hogwarts Logic (561,000k followers).

Apart from this, this plot of digital marketing strategy turned Social Chain’s founder, Steve Bartlett, into a prominent influencer. However, becoming a social influencer, in turn, worked out in favour of his brand.

How did their brand acquire so many followers?

Becoming an influencer – People genuinely look up to influencers, sometimes even more than the A-list celebrities. For one, they are more relatable and secondly, they are easily approachable.
Regularly engaging your audience – Consistency is the key! Steve Bartlett’s vlogs go out every evening at 8 o’clock sharp, providing a regular fixture for his audience. This way, his audience knows beforehand when the next vlog is going to come up, thus they wait for it turning this consumption into a habit. This, in turn, also gave rise to loyalty in their audience.
Humour & Wit paid off – You cannot bind your audience with straight-laced and bland content. That’s a fact. Thus, the best way to go about it is by taking a more multifaceted approach. That’s what Steve Bartlett of Social Chain did. He combined honest advice with lighter and more colourful moments. This gave a much-needed character to his content, hence the success and legions of followers.

5. AeroLeads – when a soft-launch made them acquire IBM as a paying customer

By the time AeroLeads got IBM as their paying customer , they already had a couple of other Fortune 500 companies as their signups. Before going all the way, Aeroleads sought feedback and validation by launching a beta version. This resulted in proving their mettle in the market and they got umpteen reviews, some suggesting changes and some reviews served as validation.

First of all, for AeroLeads it was an Inbound Inquiry. Though they indulged in email marketing, they still avoided sending emails to bigger companies because of their complex hierarchy. It is decidedly a bit difficult to reach the right person not to mention, they already have a set of tools and process in use.

It was the salespeople of IBM who found AeroLeads through Google while searching for prospecting software and lead generation software as they rank for such keywords.

How did AeroLeads get IBM, Their First Fortune 500 Client?

The key is not to go out and mail big companies. Instead, focus on startups and build your company strength by strength by seeking validation. That’s how AeroLeads acquired IBM without even pitching their product.

6. Scripted – consistent blogging & producing podcasts

Scripted operates a marketplace of writers, who could help businesses with content creation. They are basically a virtual platform to connect writers who have the skills to write in different niches to the businesses who require freelance writers. Scripted wanted to offer differentiated services. They contended that scripted was not just a marketplace but offered the best subject-specific writers.

Using their content marketing strategy, which entailed consistent blogging and churning out informative and helpful podcasts, they witnesses that 46% of their visitors went to the next stage of their signup process. Plus, their bounce rate was 3 times lower than other sources.

What methods did they use and how they executed their campaign to enjoy such a massive success?

In the initial stage, Scripted created engaging and informative blogs that generated massive traffic to their website. Plus, they created podcasts to explain the common problems faced by those looking for content writers. They gave strong emphasis to customer feedback and actually improved and fine-tuned their content in accordance with the feedback.
Now, in the middle stage, they asked their visitors to sign-up for their email newsletters, white-papers and asked them to participate in webinars. The idea was to guide users on the specific solution they needed and how they could go about it.
Now, in their final stage, Scripted leveraged vase studies to show their customers different content requirement and how they boost the sales and visibility of a business. Apart from case studies, customers were also familiarized with offers by Scripted and how each of its services fulfilled specific needs.

7. JMF International Trade Group – LinkedIn Marketing

JMF International Trade Group is a business consultancy and contract manufacturer run by James Filbird. What they did was something that seems so ordinary, but most of us don’t do it. The company used LinkedIn, the most populated professional social media platform on the Internet today, to generate revenue. And today, the founder claims that the credit of building a company that accounts for $5,000,000 in revenue largely goes to LinkedIn.

What did the JMF International Trade Group to generate massive revenue?

For starters, the company always kept its profile up-to-date without ever slacking.
Then, they joined 50 LinkedIn groups in their niche and consistently engaged with the audience.
Filtered group digests and constantly connected with the relevant and targeted audience in their group.
From there, they moved the conversation offline, mostly through Skype
Constantly re-evaluated their groups and contacts.

8. AXWAY – Leveraged LinkedIn Ads

AXWAY is a software service that manages, runs, secures, and monitors all your business interactions – emails, files, messages, services, events, and processes.

At first, AXWAY leveraged Google Adwords which was working fairly well for them. However, according to the company, they saw better potential in LinkedIn Ads. First and foremost, the competition with Google Ads is fierce, not to say the cost was also not incurring appropriate results, at least, not as much as it should have.

Thus AXWAY used LinkedIn Ads to specifically target job titles, their niche industries and productive leads in their domain. They tested over 30 ads with custom landing pages. As a result, their LinkedIn ad campaigns generated more than 25% conversion rate with the lowest cost per conversion ever achieved.

9. DELL – Using Social Media Outreach

DELL directly went where their customers are, that is on social media channels. Rather than expecting their customers to come to them, DELL offered technical support directly through their social media pages by responding to customer concerns and building business digitally.

They launched a social media campaign going by the name @DellCares, a program that used social media platforms and online communities to address their customer concerns & questions. They also replied directly to customers through tweets and other response methods.

According to Amy Marquez Bivin, Social Media Outreach Manager, “ 98 per cent of customer issues responded to through @DellCares are resolved without customers needing to work with an agent and 85 per cent of social-media-assisted customers with negative initial opinions of Dell reported a positive opinion following the support experience.”

This program articulated that the company cares about their customers, hence as a result, the program is also generating an average of $265,000 in additional weekly revenue.

10. Lloyd’s Register – articulated dangerous implications using virtual reality

Lloyd’s Register Group Limited is a technical and business services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and engineering.

The company witnesses huge revenue deterioration when the gas prices started to fell, which resulted in many of their clients beginning to withdraw their decreasing budgets from the company’s training services. Now, it was up to the marketing team at Lloyd Register to present their company in a more valuable light and demonstrating why it was crucial that clients dedicate some part of their budget to Lloyd Register’s training.

So, how did the company succeed in convincing people to avail Lloyd Register’s training?

They simply tried to present the Health and safety sector, otherwise considered to be boring, into an interesting light by introducing and integrating it with virtual reality (VR). They demonstrated the real-life accidents using real-life examples using the exceptional experience of virtual reality (VR). It was actually a very different approach than the usual blog posts and videos.

The VR simulator aimed to inform rather than scare prospects into business, and mindful of the project’s sensitivity, the marketing team used crash test dummies in place of victims.

According to Luis De La Fuente, head of training, Lloyd’s Register Houston, “ Due to the downturn in the oil and gas sector, we’d been looking at ways in which we could drive interest in our training portfolio in a rapid and effective way. What we’ve done with the LR training simulator is illustrate to the industry that we’re using the latest technology to help keep safety training engagement at a level we just haven’t seen before.”

What were the benefits of this new approach of conflating Lloyd Register’s training program with Virtual Reality?

It seems that the majority of their prospects were impressed by this new approach. So much so, that it created a 23% increase in bookings, which kick-started a number of one-day workshops, won three key accounts, and garnered considerable press attention.

Summing it all up

So, this was it! One thing that all these case studies have in common is – engagement and connecting with your audience. There’s another similarity between all these case studies – that is, you have to adopt the practices that are best suited for your audience, thus, whatever you start or produce, do it with your targeted audience in mind.

Whether it is launching an ad campaign or carrying our content marketing or launching a free beta product, the social point in all this is your audience.

Furthermore, these case studies not only tell you success stories but also provide for great user experience. You can also write down your case studies to attract customers as well as to inspire your rivals and contemporaries.

Did you find one relevant to your business? Which one of them are you most likely to emulate for your own B2B campaign?

Startup Story: How We Got 5000+ B2B Users in One Year
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LinkedIn Marketing: 20 Ways To Use LinkedIn To Grow Your Business

Tags b2b Case studies Case study example Marketere marketing Marketing case study Sales sales example sales guide

About Deepti Jain

Deepti is a senior content writer with AeroLeads. She spends a lot of time brainstorming ideas and writing marketing and sales content. She also has a knack for writing and reading about politics and prevalent social issues and regularly pens letters to the Editor of The Hindu newspaper. When she is not working, you’ll find her socializing with friends or binge-watching Netflix. (And devouring sushi).

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How to Write a B2B Case Study: A Step-by-Step Guide

B2B case studies are incredible conversion assets. They help marketers provide insights about the capability of their product and serve as sales enablement content for salespeople to close deals.

Mariah Parker, Head of Growth at Trustworthy :

In a previous role, I increased our sales call conversion rate to 50% by providing case studies for our sales team. The case studies help buyers to set expectations and see how companies like theirs had performed on our platform.

Beyond Mariah, many marketing teams are winning customers with B2B case studies and y ears of Content Marketing Institute research proves it.

In 2018, 40% of B2B marketers said customer case studies were the most effective asset for turning potential clients into buyers.

40% of marketers say saas case studies are most effective for demand generation.

In 2022, 39% of B2B marketers said customer case studies are still the most effective for demand generation.

39% of marketers say saas case studies are most effective for demand generation

Clearly, how B2B buyers choose to evaluate your product has changed by only 1% in four years.

So whether you are a founder or marketer, you need case studies in your marketing mix.

Besides showing the value of your product in the words of your customers, case studies back bold claims you make about your product. Rooted in cold, hard facts, B2B case studies are a must-have for eliminating all traces of buyer objection.

But how do you create an excellent one that drives revenue?

That’s what we’ll be unpacking in this post.

I’ll show you my process for creating a traditional B2B case study, which have led to feedback like this:

how to write a b2b case study: my customer feedback

In this post, you’ll learn:

Why you should care about writing B2B case studies
B2B case study pre-work
Why it’s best to conduct video interviews
How to write an interesting B2B case study

Why Care About Writing B2B Case Studies?

1. create content your competitors can’t copy.

It doesn’t take long for your competitors to rip off your assets like blog posts. Worst-case scenario, they’ll do it once your content hits page 1 of the SERP.

Competitors can also steal your product design, sections of your website copy, and duplicate most things you do.

What they can’t steal? Your case studies.

Case studies are unique content marketing resources that spotlight the experiences of your customers.

Since your customers control the story, every case study will be different and no competitor will dare copy the words of your customers.

2. Add credibility to your top of the funnel (TOFU) content

The timeline for turning prospects into customers should be short. Traditionally, some content marketing funnels look like this:

👊 Prospects read your TOFU blog post.
📥 Prospects enter your email list.
💻 Prospects read your case studies.
🔥 You do retargeting with ads.
💵 You win the sale.

You can shorten this process by including case studies in your TOFU content. This will add credibility to your content, instantly prove the value of your product, and you could win the sale faster.

As Lizzie Davey explains, “Case studies give your prospects something to visualize.”

A really simple way to add credibility to your posts? Case studies! 🙌 Show how you've done something in the past. Show how someone else has done something in the past. Just show whatever it is you're writing about in action! Give people something to visualise. — Lizzie Davey (@lizziedavey) January 24, 2022

3. Build social proof

“People don’t trust anyone or anything anymore. We don’t trust our institutions, we don’t trust our companies, we don’t trust our social networks. There’s this crisis of trust going on,” says Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

Trust is scarce today because several companies have burned many customers in the past. This is where case studies shine by allaying your prospects’ fears through the relatable evidence from your customers.

As Sam Brenner, Senior Product Marketer at Close notes:

“Case studies show your prospects how them + your product = real success.”

When you create case studies, you also arm your salespeople with an asset for demolishing buyer objections.

This is how Jordan Ross puts it:

Have case studies and stats ready for your sales team Send them at least one case study and story a week for 1- social proof for THEIR confidence 2- ammo for the sales call — Jordan Ross (@jordan_ross_8F) August 23, 2022

B2B Case Study Pre-work

Before writing your case study, there are some steps to take.

You need to find the right customers for your case study, contact them, prepare interview questions, interview the customer, and transcribe the interview.

Let’s go over each step.

Step 1: Find the right customers to interview

Once you have the right customers for your case study, you’ll get a brilliant case study. It’s that simple.

To find the right customers for your case study, use these tips.

Recency of customer story

It sounds logical to feature a customer who has used your product for several years. Undoubtedly, this will increase the credibility of your story.

But w hat if this customer can’t remember why they chose your product over others?

This piece of information may be crucial to your story.

So when deciding on customers to interview, find those who started using your products in recent years. This ensures they can recollect their challenges with previous solutions before they found yours.

Positive customer experience

Customers who you choose to feature in your case study should be loyal fans of your brand.

They should have experienced impressive results while using your product or have a decent ROI.

Align with one of your core ICPs

Prospects want to see how your product solved the challenges of those who look like them. A founder’s pain points differ from those of a content manager. Same goes for two different companies earning $5 million and $500 million in ARR.

If you want to attract founders with your case study, feature the stories of founders who overcame their challenges by using your product.

Ashley Howe, content marketer at Tapfiliate , says:

“Marketers should tailor each case study to a specific customer. An ecommerce customer will differ from a SaaS customer, so they will look for case studies about their company type.”

Step 2: Contact your customer

How you choose to contact your customer is entirely up to you.

To get your customer’s nod for your case study, contact them where they are most active. This may be Twitter, LinkedIn, or Slack. But to keep your request formal, you’ll want to email customers you choose to feature.

Need an email template to contact customers for your case study? I got you. Just ensure you tweak the template so it aligns with your relationship with the customer.

Here’s my email template, which you can remix:

Hi [customer name],

I am (your name), (your role) at (your company). I’m thrilled that you’ve had outstanding successes using our product. Our team deeply appreciates the positive feedback we’ve been getting. We’d like to amplify your feedback by featuring your story in our case study. Agreeing to work with us would put a big smile on our faces. That’s why we’ll send a backlink to your site to say a huge thanks to you.

Our case study writing process is pretty simple. First, we’d do one 30 to 45 minute video interview with you. Next, we will write the case study. Finally, we will send you the final draft for your review.

After you give the case study a thumbs up, we’ll publish it on our website, distribute it on our social accounts, and use it in our marketing materials.

If you’re open to working with us on this case study, please schedule a video interview with us or reply to this email with your calendar link and we will be more than happy to schedule a time that works for you.

We can’t wait to share your story.

Your Email Signature.

Step 3: Write your case study questions

Brilliant case study questions will uncover your customer’s situation before, during, and after using your product.

A simple way to think of this is to ask questions about:

Your customers’ challenges
Unfit solutions they tried
How your product came to the rescue
Results from using your product

When your questions fit the above criteria, you’ll unlock powerful stories, quotes, and stats. This will help you create an interesting case study for your ICP.

Here are some typical questions I ask when interviewing customers:

Conducting the Video Interview

You can do customer interviews using email, phone, in-person, or video. However, I prefer doing video interviews. Here’s why:

I can probe deeper

Video interviews allow me to unlock more insights from a customer. For instance, I once wrote two case studies for an accounting project management software. During one of the customer interviews, I asked, “What were your top challenges before using my client’s product?” The customer responded, mentioning a previous product that wasn’t a fit. I asked further, “ Did you use any other project management software besides the software you mentioned?” The customer responded. I wanted more insights, so I asked, “Did you use spreadsheets as well?” Asking these followup questions would be impossible if I used email.

Plus, there’ll be many back and forth when asking the customer to clarify some details. This can wean off the customer’s appetite to continue with the case study. You don’t want that to happen.

Get insights from different people at once

It’s not uncommon for two people from the same company to show up for an interview. I’ve had this experience where two people provided useful insights that I used as quotes. The chance of having two persons respond to an email, phone, and in-person interview is slim.

Ease of reviewing customer responses

Doing video interviews allow you to review customer responses easily.

Now, if you conducting customer interviews using video, note these:

Do the interview in a quiet place.
Use a stable internet connection to prevent loss of valuable information and asking customers to repeat themselves.
Request the customer’s permission to record the interview.
Use a real-time transcription software like Otter AI to take meeting notes.
Don’t interrupt the customer when they are speaking.
Stick to time. 30 minutes should be 30 minutes.

How to Write an Interesting B2B Case Study

Now that you’ve gathered all the information you need from your customer, the next step is to write your case study. Here are the steps that’ll help you go from customer interview to your first draft:

1. Write a memorable headline

I can wager that you’ve watched many movies.

How many titles do you remember? If you’re like me, the answer is, “Few.” You only remember those that are memorable.

It’s the same with case studies. Case study headlines need to be memorable and show an obvious benefit for prospects.

Traditionally, your headlines can include:

Your company name (not compulsory)
An outstanding result
Name of your customer
Specific figures like number, percentages, or ROI

Take this case study headline in Brandfolder’s B2B case study example , for instance. It shows an outstanding result, the customer’s name, and a specific number of saved hours.

saas case study headline example by brandfolder

Here’s another example from ClickCease , a click fraud and ad fraud prevention platform.

saas case study headline example by clickcease

2. Introduce your customer

Use the first two or three sentences of your case study to summarize what your customer does. Discuss the mission of your customer, how your customer achieves its mission, and the effect of achieving the mission.

You can also briefly state some information about your customer. This may include the year of founding the company, industry, number of employees, results achieved, and favorite features, etc.

See how the FreeAgent CRM team puts this in action:

saas case study introduction by freeagentcrm

3. Discuss your customer’s challenges

There are no hard and fast rules here. You can choose to tell a detailed story or highlight your customer’s challenges in a few sentences.

For instance, this ClickUp case study highlights the customer’s challenge in two sentences.

Whereas, the case study by ClickCease , which I mentioned previously, tells a detailed story.

saas case study customer challenge clickcease

What’s important isn’t the amount of white space you cover when discussing your customer’s challenges. It’s your ability to convey the challenges adequately and paint a picture of how they negatively affected your customer’s processes, growth, revenue, etc.

4. Solutions

Having read your case study to this point, your prospects can see their own challenges staring them in the face.

Source: Giphy (https://tinyurl.com/ucc343ew)

Use your solution section to show how your product tackled the customer’s challenge head-on. Discuss why your customer ditched the competition and mention your product features, which the customer frequently uses.

Customer quotes should also take center stage here.

And where relevant, include screenshots of your product in action. This will make your case study interesting and it’ll also improve readability.

Your case study results section should discuss percentages, year-on-year increases, number of new clients for your customer, number of increased leads, etc.

This is where you show off what you can do for prospective customers who are reading the case study.

6. Call to Action (CTA)

Prospects should have a reason to reach out to you. Avoid using boring CTAs like “contact us” or “schedule a meeting.”

Give them a “why.”

A simple way I do this is to use CTAs that relate to my headlines.

For instance, after writing a case study with this headline, “How [customer name] Improves Capacity Management with [my client], ” my CTA was this:

“Want to Better Manage Your Firm’s Capacity and Hit Client Deadlines?”

Try [my client’s product]

The Cost of Outsourcing a B2B Case study

Marketers who have many tasks on their plate choose to outsource the entire case study creation process. This covers communication with your customer, interview, and writing the case study.

Typical rate for outsourcing all of these is $1,000 to $2,000.

You can also expect to pay up to $4,000 if your project is complex or if you need a video case study.

If you’re interested in a traditional case study, which I’ve discussed in this post, then check out my case study packages . You’ll love the result and will probably return for more case studies to power your revenue goals.

my customer requesting to block time on my calendar for two case studies

Got questions or contributions to this topic, drop a comment below or contact me on LinkedIn . I’d love to hear from you.

Precious Oboidhe is a B2B SaaS content strategist and writer for hire. If you need help with strategizing and creating assets for the different stages of your content marketing funnel, get in touch .

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As a content writer, I have been contemplating creating a case study, because those who filled the role before me didn’t see the need to. But now, I am sure it is needed. Thank you for this insight-packed blog post. You are a jewel, Precious.

You’re welcome.

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A B2B Case Study Example: How Stripe Is Paying It Forward

A good B2B case study example isn’t always easy to find. So when I saw Stripe sharing their customer success stories online, I was impressed.

I was immediately struck by how Stripe consistently positions their customers as the hero of their customer success stories. It’s a thread that runs through all—and every part of—their stories, from the challenges section of their written case studies to their video testimonials to their social media posts.

Stripe also puts these success stories to work across their sales and marketing funnel, which isn’t just good for Stripe but also shows respect for those customers who gave up their time to participate.

Not incidentally, casting their customers in the best possible light also encourages other customers to participate and gives Stripe’s sales team the confidence to offer up their best accounts as potential case study candidates.

It’s a win-win all around.

By making their customers look good, Stripe encourages other customers to participate—and emboldens their sales team to offer up their best accounts as case study candidates.

If you’d like to see how Stipe pays their success forward by making their customers look like superheroes, join me for a deep dive into this great B2B case study example.

I. what is stripe, ii. how stripe makes their customers look great, b2b case studies on the stripe website, the case study challenges section, the customer success story overview page, video case studies and testimonials, iii. how stripe makes their partners look good (and vice versa), iv. repurposing customer success stories to show respect, creating multiple written case studies from one success story, repurposing video case studies, deploying success stories as newsroom articles, sharing case studies on social media, using case studies in email marketing.

Using B2B case studies for sales

V. Stripe demonstrates the power of paying it forward

As most of you probably know, Stripe is a payment platform that businesses—from new startups to public companies—use to accept payments and manage their businesses online.

Stripe was founded by brothers John and Patrick Collision in 2009 with seed funding from Y Combinator accelerator. ( This Wired article tells the story of Stripe in compelling detail. It’s well worth the read.)

Stripe’s current internal valuation is $62 billion. Dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Dublin, Stripe has offices in London, Paris, Singapore, and Tokyo, among other parts of the world.

In both their written and video case studies, Stripe consistently takes a back seat and puts their customers in the driver’s seat to make them the heroes of their stories.

They also show respect to their customers by maintaining high-quality levels in both the content and design of their written and video case studies—from copy to layout to production.

Making customers look good in these ways might sound like a given. But it’s shockingly common for companies to throw their customers under the bus as they scramble to take credit for solving customer challenges.

Let’s take a look at some B2B case study examples from Stripe by examining an individual case study, Stripe’s case study overview page , and then a video case study .

When looking at the Stripe website, it’s quickly apparent that Stripe understands the value of customer success stories. And not just a few stories. Lots of stories!

By my rough count, Stripe has 186 written case studies on their website —a number well above the average of 132 that we calculated for the top 50 SaaS companies (as detailed in our report, The State of SaaS Customer Success Stories ).

Stripe’s case studies are well laid out online, with a nice synopsis on top and sidebar with key metrics.

Looks good, right?

The pull quote at the bottom (screenshot below) is also a nice touch. However, an accompanying headshot of the customer providing the quote would have amplified the impact.

A few more ideas to make this page stronger:

Use more descriptive subheadings to accompany the “challenge,” “solutions,” and “results” main headings.
Add the option to download a nicely designed PDF.
Embed or link to a video case study or testimonial if one exists. (Stripe does, in fact, have embedded video on some of their case study pages, such as this case study from Lightspeed .)

But all in all, this is a very nice example of a customer success story, well presented for the online reader. Well done!

So far, so good. But where many B2Bs trip up is in the challenges section of their written case studies.

If they’re not careful, they can make their customers look like idiots for getting themselves into a challenging situation that only the B2B could get them out of.

In the challenges section of the Postmates case study shown above, for example, we can see how Stripe positions the customer as the hero (bolding added):

Most importantly, Postmates recognized the value in having excellent authorization rates. Samantha Philips, Payments Product Lead, said, “Postmates is in the on-demand service industry. To provide the best customer experience possible, our product teams are dedicated to optimizing each step of the journey for our customers. At checkout, that means selecting a payment processor with the highest success rates to ensure the best customer experience. In a competitive industry with high customer-acquisition costs, even a small percentage increase in authorization rates would increase revenue while maintaining high customer satisfaction.

Stripe makes the case that Postmates’ commitment to excellent customer experience was the driving force behind their decision to move to Stripe—not some failure on their part.

Instead of writing something like: “Postmates’ current payment processing was abysmal. How could they let that happen?” Stripe states: “…even a small percentage increase in authorization rates would increase revenue.”

In other words, authorization rates were already good. Postmates wanted to make them even better.

Stripe also shows respect to their customers through the care they take in organizing their case studies on their customer success overview page.

Right off the bat, Stripe makes the customer stories page easy to find, right from their home page. They put a link to the page in the top navigation bar, under Resources (circled in red):

Stripe - link to case studies in navigation bar

When you click on this link, you’re taken to an interim page that highlights a few select stories. This isn’t something I’ve seen a lot. It’s a nice way to throw light on particular stories, although it does force viewers to click through to get a complete list of case studies. It’s something to test.

Stripe also uses this interim page to feature their biggest, most recognizable customer logos. They also pull together some of their most impressive metrics from different case studies:

Stripe case study overview page success metrics

From this page, you can click through to see all of Stripe’s customer success stories (or, at least, the ones they’ve put online—there may be more behind the scenes).

Case study overview page with list of case studies

I love the inclusion of logos for every case study. The background images also communicate a little something about the nature of the customer, which is great. The short, concise headlines are also good.

The filters that Stripe provides to help prospective customers find case studies relevant to them (i.e. company size, use cases, solution, and region) are well thought out.

Everything is clear and organized. It’s a page where most companies would be happy to put their logo. Respect!

Next, let’s take a look at Stripe’s video case studies and testimonials to see how they treat their customers in video format.

The “Customer” playlist on Stripe’s YouTube channel only consists of 20 videos, but I suspect they have many more based on what I found through search and on their social media platforms.

Here’s a beautiful example :

I’m a total sucker for this type of customer success story. The gorgeous footage, stirring music, and lovely voiceover with a charming Irish lilt are guaranteed to make me weepy and long for the green, rolling hills of Ireland. (And I’ve never even been!)

Note that Stripe isn’t even mentioned until the 1:50 mark—past the halfway point. They give the customer plenty of space to tell their own story. It all seems chivalrous—in the best possible way.

So far, I’ve shown how Stripe makes their customers look like rockstars in their success stories. A bit more digging shows that Stripe does the same with their partners.

Take Stripe’s partnership with Amazon, for example. The two companies are long-standing partners that just recently signed an expanded global agreement .

Under this agreement, Stripe will expand its use of Amazon Web Services to provide crucial infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Amazon will expand its use of Stripe’s core payments platform.

It’s instructive to see how both companies tell the joint story of their success in their marketing.

To pick a few examples, Stripe has a couple of AWS “customer success stories” on its website (I put “customer success stories” in quotes because they don’t exactly fit the usual case study format). This one is an interview with Rich Geraffo , VP of AWS North America. Note that the role of Stripe at AWS is a topic they cover (reference circled in red):

This one describes how Stripe helped Amazon simplify international payments .

Meanwhile, AWS invited Stripe’s Manager of Infrastructure, Jorge Ortiz, to give a keynote presentation at their 2015 Invent conference . In this presentation, Jorge describes how Stripe built its infrastructure on AWS—and AWS posted it to their YouTube channel.

Again, both sides come off looking good—something the marketing teams of both companies capture and celebrate in a number of ways, including case studies.

(I only wish AWS had selected a more flattering thumbnail!)

So we’ve seen how Stripe makes their customers the hero of their success stories, whether in written or video format.

But there’s another way that Stripe demonstrates their respect for their customers—and honors the leap of faith (and not to mention the time and effort) that customers took to participate in these case studies.

Stripe shows respect for their customers by NOT letting these stories live only on Stripe’s website and YouTube channel.

Stripe shows respect for their customers by NOT letting these stories live ONLY on Stripe’s website and YouTube channel.

In fact, Stripe wrings every ounce of value out of their customer success stories by repurposing and redeploying them in multiple ways. Which, if you put yourself in the shoes of the customer, is something you’d want to see—especially when the case study makes you look so darned good!

One strategy Stripe uses to get more value out of every customer success story is to create MULTIPLE stories from each one when possible. They recognize that the same story can be told in different ways, with a different focus, to appeal to different audiences to get more mileage.

For example, Stripe tells the story of Blockchain.com in two ways.

In the first story , Stripe emphasizes how they helped Blockchain.com remove payment friction from the crypto onboarding process:

Stripe-Blockchain case study example - removing payment friction

In the second story , Stripe focuses on how their professional services team helped Blockchain.com build a tailored solution:

Stripe-Blockchain case study example - professional services

Stripe could have easily put everything into one story but didn’t. They tailored the same story to two different audiences, doubling the value.

By the way, the Postmates case study referenced earlier also has a twin—this time with the focus on saving on card network fees .

Stripe also gets maximum leverage from its video case studies by breaking the mold of telling only one customer success story per video.

In the example below , Stripe brings together five businesses to announce Stripe’s expansion into Mexico and the Latin American market.

I strongly suspect that Stripe has individual videos for each of these customer success stories and repurposed them for this promotional piece.

Stripe is also repurposing their customer success stories as news articles —something I haven’t seen much from other B2B companies, but it’s a good idea.

The Postmates customer success story, for example, is found on Stripe’s newsroom page :

Strike-Postmates - case study as a newsroom example

As you can see, this newsroom item brings both Postmates case studies together, highlighting the $70 million in revenue ( from case study number one ) and the $3 million saved ( from case study number two).

Not only has Stripe created diverse case study assets, they’re also doing a good job of deploying these assets on their social media accounts .

Remember the emotionally stirring Merry Mill case study video? Stripe shared it to their LinkedIn account , garnering 252 reactions:

Stripe’s customers are also sharing THEIR Stripe success stories from THEIR social media accounts. In this example, Sean Geoghegan, Cofounder and CTO at Sendle, shared the case study they did for Stripe to LinkedIn. Stripe later reposted it to their account:

Naturally, Stripe is also sharing their customer success stories on Twitter , tagging customers to see if they can get some engagement, as they did here with Shopify:

How @Shopify is building Shopify Balance with Stripe: https://t.co/tsbGiv9aLO — Stripe (@stripe) August 10, 2022

Remember those Postmates case studies that were turned into a newsroom article? Patrick Collison, one of the founders of Stripe, tweeted the case-study-turned-news-article out to his 406,600+ followers:

$70M of incremental revenue: @postmates + @stripe . https://t.co/PSoZ6j1Vb7 https://t.co/pJmwpLaX2H pic.twitter.com/dkZCh1UMhD — Patrick Collison (@patrickc) March 10, 2021

One more example: Stripe is also deploying their customer success stories in their email marketing .

Here’s an excerpt of an email we recently received from Stripe (with links to the case study circled in red):

Stripe-GlossGenius case study in email marketing example

Click on the link, and you’re taken to the full GlossGenius-Stripe case study :

Just as in the previous examples, the customer is positioned as the hero:

The company wanted to avoid cobbling together a set of disparate solutions, which can cause development pain and frustrating, disconnected experiences for merchants.

In other words, GlossGenius was determined to prioritize the needs of their customers and wouldn’t settle for anything subpar. So they turned to Stripe.

Using B2B case study examples for sales

Given what we’ve seen so far, it’s reasonable to think that Stripe’s sales team is also using these case studies to help close deals.

I’d be shocked if they weren’t referencing them in pitch decks, including them in sales presentations, handing them out at trade shows, or using them in many other ways .

Again, this is a show of respect for customers who agreed to participate in Stripe’s written or video case studies. In my opinion, it would be kinda rude to bring customers through your case study production process —and then not put those assets in the hands of your sales team.

When you make the customer look good in EVERY customer success story you tell, you knock down resistance you might encounter from customers you’d like to feature in future case studies.

And you demonstrate to your sales team, over and over, that they can trust you to treat their most valued customers with the care and respect that they deserve.

And that, my friends, is a vital ingredient in the fuel that fires up successful B2B case study programs.

Want us to help you fire up your case study program?

Head of Writing and Interviewing

Based in Vancouver, Canada, Holly is pumped to tell stories of companies succeeding and doing good in the world.

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Proven Approaches for B2B Case Studies (With Examples)

April 10, 2024

An image of a smiling woman represents the good impression that B2B case studies can make on buyers.

B2B case studies are among the most valuable forms of marketing for buyers. When researching prospective purchases, they want to know what problems your business solved for other customers and the positive results. Case studies show them that they can achieve similar outcomes.

Trust is key in B2B buyers’ decision-making . If they don’t perceive your business as trustworthy, they’re not going to buy from you. Seeing the successes others have had in using your products and services shows they can trust your solutions. As a result, your company will be primed to attract new business and upsell current customers.

This post covers:

What to include in B2B case studies

Results buyers care about, case study formats, how to create b2b case studies in 12 steps.

Identify your case study candidates.
Select your format(s).
Contact customers to ask if they’ll participate.

What if my customers want anonymity?

Some customers still don’t want me to identify them. what now, my customers aren’t all in. how can i get them to commit.

Gather basic information about your customers.
Send customers your case study questions before you interview them.
Schedule your interviews.
Conduct your interviews.
Create your B2B case studies.
Manage reviews and approvals.
Promote your case studies.
Start working on the next round.

5 B2B case study examples and why they’re effective

Accenture: AXA
Salesforce: Ponce Bank
Dell Technologies: ATN International
SAP: Nestlé S.A.

Bonus case study tip

Building trust builds business.

Case studies have four parts:

The customer’s problem
Your company’s solution
Your customer’s results
A call to action (CTA)

Your prospective customers want to know “what’s in it for me?” if they choose your products and services. Case studies should make the benefits clear through your customers’ eyes. By sharing their stories and positive outcomes, buyers can have confidence in your offer.

Being specific is key in case study content. The more positive data you can share, the better. Buyers always want to increase revenue and reduce costs, so focus on those results. Other positive outcomes include:

Business growth
Market growth
Time savings
Efficiency improvements
Quality improvements

When thinking about the benefits that buyers care about, put yourself in their shoes. Let’s say you’re shopping for a new product or service, what do you look for in a company? Do you care that the business is “award-winning,” or do you want to boost revenue? Always make the story about them – not your company. In other words, make your customers the heroes of your stories.

You can create and share B2B case studies in many formats. Go as big as possible so that your marketing and sales teams will have a variety of assets they can share across channels and platforms. Here are the formats and how you can use them:

Video case studies: Videos increase engagement because buyers want to see and hear your customers talk about using your products and services. You can share them on your website and social media channels and in blogs, email campaigns and e-newsletters. They should be short – no more than 1-2 minutes each.
Website case studies: This format offers the greatest flexibility. Website case studies are usually short and focus on customer challenges, your solutions and the outcomes. You can package these with complementary assets that include:
Eye-catching graphics
Video case studies
Video or written customer testimonials
Graphics, including infographics
Articles about your products and services
White papers

As with video case studies, you can promote these on your social media channels and in blogs, email campaigns and e-newsletters.

Standalone PDF case studies: These are long-form versions of website case studies, without the videos, of course. Salespeople can use them as leave-behinds or email them to prospects. In addition, you can add these to your website for buyers to download.
Sales deck slides: Punch up sales presentations with case study snapshots. Use the most impressive customer results and quotes to get buyers’ attention.

Next, let’s look at how to create your case studies. Follow the steps below and get answers to common questions.

1. Identify your case study candidates.

Not all customers make great case studies. Even the best writers can’t turn an underwhelming customer experience into a mind-blowing story. Case studies should feature your most impressive results.

Here’s how to do it:

Start by making a list of the biggest challenges you helped customers overcome. Don’t worry about fine-tuning. List as many notable examples as you can. Check with your sales and customer service teams. Since they’re on the front lines, they can offer valuable suggestions.
Once you’ve got a list, see if any names stand out. Are there any notable brands? Marquee names carry more weight than lesser-known companies. Focus on those first. One caveat: Large brands can be difficult to pin down. They may have policies that prohibit endorsements, which is what case studies are. Others may require you to get approvals from legal and marketing departments. Don’t worry about that yet, however.
If you don’t have big-name success stories, focus on smaller customers. Think of convincing examples that show your value and great customer outcomes.
Refine your list to 10-15 customers. These are the customers you’ll contact for permission to feature them. Some will say no, and others won’t get back to you. For this reason, you’ll want to have a few extra candidates. You can add success stories later once you complete the initial batch.

2. Select your format(s).

Before you contact your list of 10-15 customers, think about how to present their stories in ways that align with your marketing strategy and business goals. Consider your customers as well. Are they nervous behind a camera? Do they have limited time to speak with you? Maybe they’ll only give you a quick quote or two.

If there’s a chance your customers will agree to video case studies, I’d choose that format. It allows you to repurpose the content in multiple ways, including:

Video and written testimonials
Written case studies
Email campaigns
Social media posts
Sales presentations

For those customers who aren’t video-ready, you can still do a lot with written case studies. You can create:

Long-form, standalone PDFs
Short-form website content
Testimonials for your website and sales presentations

3. Contact customers to ask if they’ll participate.

Now that you’ve identified your case study candidates and the format(s) you’d like to use, it’s time to contact your customers and get their buy-in. Be prepared to provide the following information:

The products/solutions you want to feature
Your deadline
Who you plan to interview
Your preferred format
How you’ll use the case study and where you’ll publish it
How you’ll promote it

4. Set expectations and explain the process.

Once they agree to participate, customers will want to know your case study process. As a result, plan to explain the steps in detail. Most importantly, confirm:

What you need from them
How much time it will take
What you’ll do to help them prepare
How you’ll handle reviews and approvals
Next steps if they agree to participate

A list of 6 B2B case study tips represents best practices for customer stories.

Companies may want you to refrain from naming their businesses or attributing quotes to their employees. Before you agree to these requests, try to identify their underlying concerns. Perhaps no one asked them for attribution in the past, and they’re not familiar with other approaches. Or they fear competitors could benefit by reading details about their products and services.

Once you learn why, you may be able to change their minds. In weighing how comfortable you are with these discussions, consider:

Whether their companies are big-name brands
How important they are to your business
The length and strength of your relationships with them
The significance of the challenges you solved for them
How impressive the outcomes are that they achieved from your products and services

For example, if a national brand doubled its revenue and market share with your solutions, you’d want to press for attribution. On the other hand, if you’re working with a small business that increased sales by 2% after using your products, the effort wouldn’t be worth it.

Whatever the case may be, it’s best practice to include business names, and names and titles of those you quote. Why? Attribution improves your company’s credibility. Buyers want to know who you’re solving problems for and how. Above all, they want to read or hear it in your customers’ words rather than through the filter of your marketing team. As a result, cases studies are more believable when you cite names than when you don’t.

Don’t be surprised if some of your customers who had outstanding results insist on anonymity. In these situations, ask them if you can reference their brands broadly. For example, “a prominent Midwest real estate developer” or a “global financial firm.” This might be your best option versus having no case studies.

If your customers leave you no choice but to go the anonymous route, be sure those case studies feature remarkable results. Make them the best stories they can possibly be. However, if you’re dealing with average customer results and businesses that don’t want to be identified, don’t move forward. Instead, focus on building future successes that you can promote.

Some brands may be reluctant to participate for reasons that have nothing to do with being identified. They may not have time, or they may worry about revealing sensitive information. Meanwhile, others may not see any benefit to helping you create case studies. If they hedge, tell them their businesses will receive publicity and exposure.

Similarly, the content can create awareness for their brands. They’ll get a boost if you share the case studies on your website and social media channels. Furthermore, when you @mention them, it will increase their visibility even more. If they still decline to participate, contact the next customer on your list.

While you might be tempted to offer an incentive, such as a discounted or free service, to get them to cooperate, don’t do it. Enticements create the perception of bias and make your company look desperate. It’s similar to paying customers to participate in a survey. You’ve worked hard to build up your brand; don’t destroy it with freebies.

5. Gather basic information about your customers.

Now, if you’ve got a solid list of customers who’ve committed to help you, it’s time to prepare for your interviews with them.

First, you’ll need to pull background about your customers to include in your case studies. Most, if not all, of the information should be on their websites. If you don’t know the answers and can’t find them, ask your customers to fill in any holes over email or when you interview them.

Here’s the background you’ll need:

The year their companies were founded
Their annual revenue or sales
How many employees they have
Where they’re headquartered

If you’re shy about requesting their revenue/sales, it’s easily available for public companies. Look for the investor relations sections on their websites. This is usually where they keep financial reports, including profit and loss statements. Public companies must post the information by law.

In contrast, you’ll have a tougher time finding revenue/sales for private companies. They’re not required to disclose financial information to the public. Financial websites, including Bloomberg , Reuters and Forbes , publish financial data for select privately held businesses.

If you can’t find the information and you’re not comfortable asking your customers for it, omit this detail from your case studies. It’s nice to have – particularly for large companies – but it won’t affect your content quality.

6. Send customers your case study questions before you interview them.

After your customers agree to participate, email them your interview questions. They’ll appreciate being able to think about their answers before you speak with them. You’ll need to tailor your questions to each customer’s situation, but here’s a general list to get you started:

What problems were you facing when you chose our products/services?
Did you consider/try other solutions before working with us? What happened?
Why did you choose our products/services?
Describe how you implemented our solutions, whether you encountered any challenges along the way, and how we helped resolve them.
How are you benefiting from our products/services? Please provide specific results and success metrics.
Would you recommend our products/services to others? Why?

7. Schedule your interviews.

For each case study, schedule 30- to 60-minute interviews. During each interview, you’ll want to get detailed answers to the questions you emailed. Most importantly, don’t rely on emailed responses. You won’t be able to get the information and quotes you need to create high-quality content. Remember, if you start with full video interviews, you’ll be able to repackage them into other assets.

8. Conduct your interviews.

If you’re creating video case studies, you’ll want to be sure you and your customers have good lighting and professional-looking backgrounds. In particular, poor lighting can ruin your best efforts. Take advantage of free, natural lighting. If you have the budget for it, you can hire a videographer for half- or full-day shoots. But those costs can add up quickly, especially if you’re interviewing multiple customers.

As an alternative, you can use a video editor and maker and save a bundle. Many apps are free for basic features. Most have built-in artificial intelligence that makes it easy and quick to create great video content. Examples include:

Whether you hire a pro or shoot videos yourself, you can upload the files to a speech-to-text tool, such as Otter.ai or Transcribe . These tools generate written interview transcripts quickly. With the transcripts in hand, you’ll be able to create short- and long-form stories, blog posts, social media posts, customer testimonials and sales materials.

If you’re not going to create video case studies, you’ll still want to record your customer interviews. That way, you’ll be able to capture everything they say. You can use Microsoft Teams , Zoom or other videoconferencing software to record and transcribe your conversations.

When you finish your interviews, be sure to thank your customers for their time. Then, tell them you’ll send drafts to them for their feedback and edits. Let them know when they can expect those, whether they’re videos, written content or both.

9. Create your B2B case studies.

Whether you create case studies as videos or written content, keep in touch with your customers so they know where you stand. Follow the schedules you gave them. If the process takes longer than you anticipated, share appropriate updates and new deadlines. Your customers went out of their way to help you, so don’t leave them hanging.

No matter what format(s) you use:

Focus on impressive outcomes your products/solutions provided
Be concise – no one will watch a five-minute video or read 1,000 words
Engage buyers with eye-catching graphics and images
Include a call to action

10. Manage reviews and approvals.

The review and approval process for B2B case studies can be labor- and time-intensive, so plan ahead. If possible, hand it over to one person on your team, who can be the liaison for your business and your customers. Your customers need to see and approve the content before you publish anything, including videos and written material.

Don’t accept verbal approvals from your customers – get them in writing. This will protect all parties if any questions arise about who approved what and when. And keep the edited versions in case you need to refer back to them.

11. Promote your case studies.

When you publish your B2B case studies on your website, assign a unique link for each story. Then, send the links to your customers. Ask them to share your content on their sites so that you can get more mileage from your marketing efforts. High-quality back links will increase your ranking on search engines and improve your site’s visibility in search.

Furthermore, make it easy for your customers to share your case studies on their social channels by sending them suggested social post copy. Remember to promote your case studies in your company’s e-newsletter, email campaigns, social media posts and blog posts. Include quotes, compelling statistics and images or graphics to increase engagement.

12. Start working on the next round.

Keep adding customer success stories to your pipeline so that you have a steady flow of content for your marketing and sales teams. Buyers tend to look for case studies in their niches. If you can personalize your case studies for specific industries, you’ll inspire buyer confidence that you’re the right brand for their needs.

The B2B case studies below are excellent examples to review for inspiration. Learn why they stand out and get effective strategies that you can use in your case studies:

1. Accenture: AXA

The AXA case study is powerful because it gets to the point quickly. Accenture summarizes the customer challenge and solution in the first paragraph. Readers learn more about the solution and results without a wall of words. In addition, the dark screen makes the copy and graphics pop.

A screen capture from an Accenture case study shows the impact short paragraphs make.

Finally, the case study calls out the results to show that Accenture’s solution helped AXA achieve its goals.

A screen capture from an Accenture case study underscores the importance of including measurable success metrics.

What you can learn from this and do:

Tell a strong story concisely.
Appeal to skim readers with subheads and short paragraphs.
Provide specific success metrics.
Humanize your brand with people photos.

What they could have done better:

Include a CTA: After the results, buyers are left hanging with the website footer menu. This would have been the place to tell them what to do next. Be sure to encourage buyers to take action, such as downloading a white paper or contacting you to learn more.
Include at least one customer testimonial: Testimonials are essential proof that brands deliver on their promises and meet customers’ expectations. Always aim to quote decision-makers because their feedback is more persuasive than that of low-level stakeholders.

2. Salesforce: Ponce Bank

Brands must work hard to get people to read beyond headlines and bullet points. Salesforce succeeds in doing that with its Ponce Bank case study .

A screen capture from a Salesforce case study underscores how including a benefit-driven headline and teaser, and a client video work together to make a compelling statement.

In particular, the customer video engages buyers immediately. In less than two minutes, the bank’s professionals explain their challenges and how Salesforce helped them. Those who’d rather read the story can get the details in two paragraphs: “What you need to know” and “Why it matters.” The customer testimonial reinforces the results, as does the three bullet points in the “What the difference looks like” section below the quote.

A screen capture from a Salesforce case study shows how effective it is to back up results with a client testimonial.

But even if buyers only look at the headline and subhead, “See how unifying data from 54+ systems .. builds smarter, deeper, trusted relationships,” they learn the customer benefit. And notice how these elements are up top to avoid scrolling? It’s a smart, effective strategy. No matter what devices buyers use to access the case study, they see these two points.

Condense each customer problem and strongest result into a short headline or teaser that you place at the top of your case study.
Structure your content with the most compelling, high-level information first. Provide more details in subsequent sections.
Appeal to buyers in the ways they prefer to consume content by having a mix of video, copy and graphics.
Improve trust in your solutions by including a written testimonial if video isn’t an option for you.
Include a CTA: The Ponce Bank case study doesn’t have a direct CTA, but it includes links to the relevant Salesforce products.

3. Dell Technologies: ATN International

Dell Technologies makes the most of its full-width ATN International case study by putting the customer need, Dell’s solution and the No. 1 result at the top.

A screen capture from a Dell Technologies case study underscores the importance of short problem, solution and results content.

To increase engagement, the company included a customer testimonial, a button to download a PDF for the full story and a video of the chief information officer at ATN International talking about Dell Technologies’ solution.

A screen capture from a Dell Technologies case study represents how video and PDF assets work together to help attract buyers.

Next, the case study highlights other results ATN achieved in the “Business Results” section. Having three to four customer outcomes per case study is ideal. Finally, Dell includes CTAs for its relevant solutions. Another nice touch: The company invites buyers to get answers to their questions in multiple ways.

Make it easy for buyers to find your customers’ challenges, your relevant solutions and the outcomes.
Give buyers the option to read a full-length PDF for each case study should they want to delve into the details.
Increase engagement and SEO benefits with strong CTAs that drive buyers further into your website.
Avoid redundancy: Stating that you reduced a customer’s costs by 20% is great, but it’s overkill to include it three times. An easy fix would be to feature a different testimonial.

4. SAP: Nestlé S.A.

SAP immediately targets buyers who prefer to see and hear customer results by putting a link to its Nestlé S.A. video case study in the header image. With such a recognizable brand win, SAP is banking on the power of video to sell the story. As a result, the company features two additional videos on the page.

The header image from an SAP case study represents video's importance for engagement.

But SAP knows it can’t rely on video alone. It expands the story with big results, three written testimonials and a full-length challenge, solutions, results narrative. Those who don’t want to read that much content will find the list of customer benefits and relevant SAP solutions at the end. Yes, this is a lot to wade through, but it’s a marquee customer, and SAP wants to make the most of it.

A screen capture from an SAP case study shows how video and client testimonials add interest.

If your customers include enterprise brands, approach them for case studies first. Getting commitments often takes longer than with lesser-known businesses. And if they agree to participate, create as many assets as you can for your marketing and sales efforts.
Break up long copy blocks with subheads, bulleted lists, infographics, testimonials and images.
Include a clear CTA: While SAP might consider the links to its solutions/services to be sufficient, they’re buried at the bottom in a long list. In addition, when you give buyers so many choices for next steps, it can overwhelm them.

5. Sendoso: PatientPop

In its PatientPop case study , Sendoso makes it clear what it wants prospects to do: book a demo. The CTA appears at the top and bottom of the page. Some marketers might object to putting a CTA before the “meat” – meaning social proof that the platform works. But the first reference appears immediately under the benefit-driven headline and teaser, so I don’t think it’s an issue.

A screen capture from a Sendoso case study underscores how a book demo call to action works at the top of the page.

Sendoso gets to the challenge, solution and results quickly. The story is an easy read, with short paragraphs of one or two sentences each, mixed in with customer quotes. It ends with a ringing endorsement for Sendoso. The CTA that follows is a natural request after such a positive narrative.

A screen capture for a Sendoso case study represents how to make a big statement with minimal text.

Asking buyers to complete one activity will get you a better response rate than if you bombard them with multiple requests. If you use a case study to ask them to contact you, register for a webinar, read your latest blog post and check out your user guides, you’ll overwhelm them.
Include a video synopsis or video testimonial: B2B marketers are increasingly shifting their focus to video because it attracts a broader audience than copy-only case studies.

If you can develop case studies for all of your audience segments, you’ll be able to target and attract more buyers than if you generalize. Prospective customers want content that speaks to their individual industries and needs. In short, add strong sorting capabilities on your site so that buyers can find what they’re looking for quickly.

For example, buyers can search for SAP customer stories by industry, product, country and company size. And they can enter a keyword or phrase in the search field. These options make it easy to home in on precise results.

A screen capture for SAP's B2B case studies represents how the company uses filters to help people home in on specific categories.

Meanwhile, Dell Technologies uses a similar approach, with filters for industries, topics, location, products, solutions and services.

A screen capture from Dell Technologies represents how the company uses filters for its B2B case studies.

For the last example, Sendoso takes a different approach for its case studies. Buyers can select a specific topic from the “jump to” menu at the top to access the content within those categories.

A screen capture of Sendoso's case study search page represents how the company allows people to find case studies by topic.

Case studies are an important part of the customer journey. They help convince prospective customers that you deliver on your promises. B2B buyers want to know that your products and services will provide real benefits and results. By sharing concrete examples and strong outcomes, you’ll earn buyers’ trust – and their business.

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Digital Transformation

8 Examples of Innovative Digital Transformation Case Studies (2024)

January 19, 2022

With the rapid pace of technological advancement, every organization needs to undergo digital transformation and, most likely, transform multiple times to stay relevant and competitive.

However, before you can reap the benefits of new technology, you must first get your customers and employees to adapt to this change successfully—and here lies a significant digital transformation challenge.

Organizations thriving in this digital-first era have developed digital innovation strategies prioritizing the change management mindset. This paradigm shift implies that organizations should continuously explore improving business processes .

8 Best Examples of Digital Transformation Case Studies in 2024

Amazon Business
Under Armour
Internet Brands®
Michelin Solutions

8 Examples of Inspiring Digital Transformation Case Studies

While digital transformation presents unique opportunities for organizations to innovate and grow, it also presents significant digital transformation challenges . Also, digital maturity and levels of digital transformation by sector vary widely.

If you have the budget, you can consider hiring a digital transformation consulting company to help you plan your digitization. However, the best way to develop an effective digital transformation strategy is to learn by example.

Here are the 8 inspiring digital transformation case studies to consider when undertaking transformation projects in 2024:

1. Amazon extended the B2C model to embrace B2B transactions with a vision to improve the customer experience.

Overview of the digital transformation initiative

Amazon Business is an example of how a consumer giant transitions to the B2B space to keep up with the digital customer expectations. It provides a marketplace for businesses to purchase from Amazon and third parties. Individuals can also make purchases on behalf of their organizations and integrate order approval workflows and reporting.

The approach

Amazon created a holistic marketplace for B2B vendors by offering over 250 million products ranging from cleaning supplies to industrial equipment.
It introduced free two-day shipping on orders worth $49 or more and exclusive price discounts. It further offered purchase system integration, tax-exemption on purchases from select qualified customers, shared payment methods, order approval workflows, and enhanced order reporting.
Amazon allowed manufacturers to connect with buyers & answer questions about products in a live expert program.
Amazon could tap the B2B wholesale market valued between $7.2 and $8.2 trillion in the U.S. alone.
It began earning revenue by charging sales commissions ranging from 6-15% from third-party sellers, depending on the product category and the order size.
It could offer more personalized products for an improved customer experience.

2. Netflix transformed the entertainment industry by offering on-demand subscription-based video services to its customers.

Like the video rental company Blockbuster, Netflix also had a pay-per-rental model, which included DVD sales and rent-by-mail services. However, Netflix anticipated a change in customer demand with rising digitalization and provided online entertainment, thereby wiping out Blockbuster – and the movie rental industry – entirely.

In 2007, Netflix launched a video-on-demand streaming service to supplement their DVD rental service without any additional cost to their subscriber base.
It implemented a simple and scalable business model and infused 10% of its budget in R&D consistently.
The company has an unparalleled recommendation engine to provide a personalized and relevant customer experience.
Netflix is the most popular digital video content provider, leading other streaming giants such as Amazon, Hulu, and Youtube with over 85% market share.
Netflix added a record 36 million subscribers directly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

3. Tesla uses connected car technology and over-the-air software updates to enhance customer experience, enable cost savings, and reduce carbon emissions.

No digital transformation discussion is complete without acknowledging the unconventional ideas implemented by Elon Musk. Tesla was a huge manifestation of digital transformation as the core motive was to prove that electric cars are better than their gasoline counterparts both in looks and performance.

Over the years, Tesla has innovated continuously to improve its product, make itself more economical, and reduce its carbon footprint.

Tesla is the only auto manufacturer globally, providing automatic over-the-air firmware updates that allow its cars to remotely improve their safety, performance, and infotainment capabilities. For example, the OTA update could fix Tesla’soverheating issues due to power fluctuation.
Tesla launched an autopilot feature to control the speed and position of the car when on highways to avoid potential accidents. However, the user still has to hold the wheel; the vehicle controls everything else. This connected car technology has created an intelligent data platform and smart autonomous driving experience.
Tesla further ventured into a data-driven future, and it uses analytics to obtain actionable insights from demand trends and common complaints. A noteworthy fact is that the company has been collecting driving data from all of its first and second-generation vehicles. So far, Tesla has collected driving data on 8 billion miles while Google’s autonomous car project, Waymo , has accumulated data on 10 million miles.
Tesla’s over-the-air updates reduce carbon emissions by saving users’ dealer visits. Additionally, these updates save consumers time and money.
Tesla delivered a record 936,172 vehicles in 2021, an 87 % increase over the 499,550 vehicle deliveries made in 2020.

4. Glassdoor revolutionized the recruitment industry by allowing employees to make informed decisions.

Glassdoor is responsible for increasing transparency in the workplace and helping people find the right job by allowing them to see millions of peer-to-peer reviews on employers, including overall company culture, their CEOs, benefits, salaries, and more.

Glassdoor gathers and analyzes employee reviews on employers to provide accurate job recommendations to candidates and vice-versa. It also allows recruitment agencies and organizations to download valuable data points for in-depth analysis & reporting.
It further introduced enhanced profiles as a paid program, allowing companies to customize their content on the Glassdoor profiles, including job listings, “Why is it the Best Place to Work” tabs, social media properties, and more. This gives companies a new, innovative way to attract and recruit top talent.
Glassdoor created the largest pool of interview questions, salary insights, CEO ratings, and organizational culture via a peer-to-peer network, making it one of the most trustworthy, extensive jobs search and recruiting platforms – and one of the most well-recognized review sites
Glassdoor leverages its collected data for labor market research in the US. Its portfolio of Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For” companies outperformed the S&P 500 by 84.2%, while the “Best Places to Work” portfolio outperformed the overall market by 115.6%.

5. Under Armour diversified from an athletic apparel company to a new data-driven digital business stream to transform the fitness industry.

Under Armour introduced the concept of “Connected Fitness” by providing a platform to track, analyze and share personal health data directly to its customers’ phones.

Under Armour acquired several technology-based fitness organizations such as MapMyFitness, MyFitnessPal, and European fitness app Endomondo for a combined $715 million to obtain the required technology and an extensive customer database to get its fitness app up and running. The application provides a stream of information to Under Armour, identifying fitness and health trends. For example, Under Armour (Baltimore) immediately recognized a walking trend that started in Australia, allowing them to deploy localized marketing and distribution efforts way before their competitors knew about it.
Under Armour merged its physical and digital offerings to provide an immersive customer experience via products such as Armourbox. The company urged its customers to go online and share their training schedule, favorite shoe style, and fitness goals. It used advanced analytics to send customers new shoes or apparel on a subscription basis, offering customers a more significant value over their lifetime.
It additionally moved to an agile development model and data center footprint with the ERP SAP HANA .
Under Armour additionally leveraged Dell EMC’s Data Protection and Dell Technologies to help fuel digital innovation and find peak value from its data.
Under Armour created a digital brand with a strong consumer focus, agility, and change culture.
With the Connected Fitness app, it provided a customer experience tailored to each consumer.

6. Internet Brands® subsidiary Baystone Media leverages Whatfix DAP to drive product adoption of its healthcare businesses.

Baystone Media provides end-to-end marketing solutions for healthcare companies by providing a low-cost, high-value subscription offering of Internet Brands® to promote their practices digitally. Baystone Media empowers its customers by offering a codeless creation of personalized websites. However, as its userbase is less tech-savvy, customers were unable to make the most of their solution.

The idea was to implement a solution for Baystone Media & its sister companies to enable its clients to navigate its platforms easily. In addition to PDFs and specific training videos, the search was on for a real-time interactive walkthrough solution, culminating with Whatfix .

Baystone media saw a 10% decrease in inbound calls and a 4.17% decrease in support tickets, giving them the runway to spend more time enhancing its service for the clients.

7. Sophos implemented Salesforce to streamline its business and manage customer relations more effectively.

Sophos went live with Salesforce to accelerate its sales process , enhance sales productivity , and increase the number of accounts won. However, the complex interface and regular updates of Salesforce resulted in a decreased ROI.

Sophos implemented Whatfix to provide interactive, on-demand training that helped users learn in the flow of work. The 24*7 availability of on-demand self-support, contextual guidance, and smart tips allowed Sophos to manage its new CRM implementation effectively.
It unified internal communications using Whatfix content. First, they created walkthroughs for the basic functionality of Salesforce such as lead management, opportunities, etc. Next, they moved to slightly more complex features that their users were uncomfortable with and created guided walkthroughs and smart pop-ups. Sophos also used Whatfix to align the sales and product management teams by embedding videos and other media to unify product communication instead of relying on various communication tools.
Sophos experienced a reduction in sales operations support tickets globally by 15% (~12,000 tickets). It saved 1070 man-hours and achieved an ROI of 342%.

8. Michelin Solutions uses IoT & AI to provide customers with a more holistic mobility experience.

The digital strategy of Michelin Solutions has essentially centered around three priorities:

Creating a personalized relationship with customers and end-users
Developing new business models
Improving their existing business processes
AI is extensively used in R&D, enabling the digital supply chain driven through digital manufacturing and predictive maintenance. For example, connected bracelets assist machine operators with the manufacturing process.
It deployed sophisticated robots to take over the clerical tasks and leveraged advanced analytics to become a data-driven organization.
Offerings such as Effifuel & Effitires resulted in significant cost savings and improved overall vehicle efficiency.
Michelin Solutions carefully enforced cultural change and launched small pilots before the change implementation .

Effifuel led to extra savings for organizations and doubled per-vehicle profits.
A reduction in fuel consumption by 2.5 L per 100km was observed which translates into annual savings of €3,200 for long-haul transport (at least 2.1% reduction in the total cost of ownership & 8 tonnes in CO2 emissions).
Michelin Solutions shifted its business model from selling tires to a service guaranteeing performance, helping it achieve higher customer satisfaction, increased loyalty, and raised EBITDA margins.

Each industry & organization faces unique challenges while driving digital transformation initiatives. Each organization must find a personalized solution and the right digital transformation model when implementing new technology. Their challenges can prepare you better for the potential roadblocks, but the specific solutions will need to be personalized according to your business requirements.

Open communication with your customers and employees will help you spot potential issues early on, and you can use case studies like these as a starting point.

If you would like to learn how you can achieve these results by using a digital adoption platform , then schedule a conversation with our experts today.

Request a demo to see how Whatfix empowers organizations to improve end-user adoption and provide on-demand customer support

HR & Digital Transformation: How to Drive HR Change (2024)

B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2024 [Research]

by Stephanie Stahl
| Published: October 18, 2023
| Trends and Research

Creating standards, guidelines, processes, and workflows for content marketing is not the sexiest job.

But setting standards is the only way to know if you can improve anything (with AI or anything else).

Here’s the good news: All that non-sexy work frees time and resources (human and tech) you can apply to bring your brand’s strategies and plans to life.

But in many organizations, content still isn’t treated as a coordinated business function. That’s one of the big takeaways from our latest research, B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Outlook for 2024, conducted with MarketingProfs and sponsored by Brightspot .

A few symptoms of that reality showed up in the research:

Marketers cite a lack of resources as a top situational challenge, the same as they did the previous year.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) say they use generative AI, but 61% say their organization lacks guidelines for its use.
The most frequently cited challenges include creating the right content, creating content consistently, and differentiating content.

I’ll walk you through the findings and share some advice from CMI Chief Strategy Advisor Robert Rose and other industry voices to shed light on what it all means for B2B marketers. There’s a lot to work through, so feel free to use the table of contents to navigate to the sections that most interest you.

Note: These numbers come from a July 2023 survey of marketers around the globe. We received 1,080 responses. This article focuses on answers from the 894 B2B respondents.

Team structure
Content marketing challenges

Content types, distribution channels, and paid channels

Social media

Content management and operations

Measurement and goals
Overall success
Budgets and spending
Top content-related priorities for 2024
Content marketing trends for 2024

Action steps

Methodology, ai: 3 out of 4 b2b marketers use generative tools.

Of course, we asked respondents how they use generative AI in content and marketing. As it turns out, most experiment with it: 72% of respondents say they use generative AI tools.

But a lack of standards can get in the way.

“Generative AI is the new, disruptive capability entering the realm of content marketing in 2024,” Robert says. “It’s just another way to make our content process more efficient and effective. But it can’t do either until you establish a standard to define its value. Until then, it’s yet just another technology that may or may not make you better at what you do.”

So, how do content marketers use the tools today? About half (51%) use generative AI to brainstorm new topics. Many use the tools to research headlines and keywords (45%) and write drafts (45%). Fewer say they use AI to outline assignments (23%), proofread (20%), generate graphics (11%), and create audio (5%) and video (5%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: B2B marketers use generative AI for various content tasks.

Some marketers say they use AI to do things like generate email headlines and email copy, extract social media posts from long-form content, condense long-form copy into short form, etc.

Only 28% say they don’t use generative AI tools.

Most don’t pay for generative AI tools (yet)

Among those who use generative AI tools, 91% use free tools (e.g., ChatGPT ). Thirty-eight percent use tools embedded in their content creation/management systems, and 27% pay for tools such as Writer and Jasper.

AI in content remains mostly ungoverned

Asked if their organizations have guidelines for using generative AI tools, 31% say yes, 61% say no, and 8% are unsure.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Many B2B organizations lack guidelines for generative AI tools.

We asked Ann Handley , chief content officer of MarketingProfs, for her perspective. “It feels crazy … 61% have no guidelines? But is it actually shocking and crazy? No. It is not. Most of us are just getting going with generative AI. That means there is a clear and rich opportunity to lead from where you sit,” she says.

“Ignite the conversation internally. Press upon your colleagues and your leadership that this isn’t a technology opportunity. It’s also a people and operational challenge in need of thoughtful and intelligent response. You can be the AI leader your organization needs,” Ann says.

Why some marketers don’t use generative AI tools

While a lack of guidelines may deter some B2B marketers from using generative AI tools, other reasons include accuracy concerns (36%), lack of training (27%), and lack of understanding (27%). Twenty-two percent cite copyright concerns, and 19% have corporate mandates not to use them.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Reasons why B2B marketers don't use generative AI tools.

How AI is changing SEO

We also wondered how AI’s integration in search engines shifts content marketers’ SEO strategy. Here’s what we found:

31% are sharpening their focus on user intent/answering questions.
27% are creating more thought leadership content.
22% are creating more conversational content.

Over one-fourth (28%) say they’re not doing any of those things, while 26% say they’re unsure.

AI may heighten the need to rethink your SEO strategy. But it’s not the only reason to do so, as Orbit Media Studios co-founder and chief marketing officer Andy Crestodina points out: “Featured snippets and people-also-ask boxes have chipped away at click-through rates for years,” he says. “AI will make that even worse … but only for information intent queries . Searchers who want quick answers really don’t want to visit websites.

“Focus your SEO efforts on those big questions with big answers – and on the commercial intent queries,” Andy continues. “Those phrases still have ‘visit website intent’ … and will for years to come.”

Will the AI obsession ever end?

Many B2B marketers surveyed predict AI will dominate the discussions of content marketing trends in 2024. As one respondent says: “AI will continue to be the shiny thing through 2024 until marketers realize the dedication required to develop prompts, go through the iterative process, and fact-check output . AI can help you sharpen your skills, but it isn’t a replacement solution for B2B marketing.”

Back to table of contents

Team structure: How does the work get done?

Generative AI isn’t the only issue affecting content marketing these days. We also asked marketers about how they organize their teams .

Among larger companies (100-plus employees), half say content requests go through a centralized content team. Others say each department/brand produces its own content (23%), and the departments/brand/products share responsibility (21%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: In large organizations, requests for B2B content often go through a central team.

Content strategies integrate with marketing, comms, and sales

Seventy percent say their organizations integrate content strategy into the overall marketing sales/communication/strategy, and 2% say it’s integrated into another strategy. Eleven percent say content is a stand-alone strategy for content used for marketing, and 6% say it’s a stand-alone strategy for all content produced by the company. Only 9% say they don’t have a content strategy. The remaining 2% say other or are unsure.

Employee churn means new teammates; content teams experience enlightened leadership

Twenty-eight percent of B2B marketers say team members resigned in the last year, 20% say team members were laid off, and about half (49%) say they had new team members acclimating to their ways of working.

While team members come and go, the understanding of content doesn’t. Over half (54%) strongly agree, and 30% somewhat agree the leader to whom their content team reports understands the work they do. Only 11% disagree. The remaining 5% neither agree nor disagree.

And remote work seems well-tolerated: Only 20% say collaboration was challenging due to remote or hybrid work.

Content marketing challenges: Focus shifts to creating the right content

We asked B2B marketers about both content creation and non-creation challenges.

Content creation

Most marketers (57%) cite creating the right content for their audience as a challenge. This is a change from many years when “creating enough content” was the most frequently cited challenge.

One respondent points out why understanding what audiences want is more important than ever: “As the internet gets noisier and AI makes it incredibly easy to create listicles and content that copy each other, there will be a need for companies to stand out. At the same time, as … millennials and Gen Z [grow in the workforce], we’ll begin to see B2B become more entertaining and less boring. We were never only competing with other B2B content. We’ve always been competing for attention.”

Other content creation challenges include creating it consistently (54%) and differentiating it (54%). Close to half (45%) cite optimizing for search and creating quality content (44%). About a third (34%) cite creating enough content to keep up with internal demand, 30% say creating enough content to keep up with external demand, and 30% say creating content that requires technical skills.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: B2B marketers' content creation challenges.

Other hurdles

The most frequently cited non-creation challenge, by far, is a lack of resources (58%), followed by aligning content with the buyer’s journey (48%) and aligning content efforts across sales and marketing (45%). Forty-one percent say they have issues with workflow/content approval, and 39% say they have difficulty accessing subject matter experts. Thirty-four percent say it is difficult to keep up with new technologies/tools (e.g., AI). Only 25% cite a lack of strategy as a challenge, 19% say keeping up with privacy rules, and 15% point to tech integration issues.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Situational challenges B2B content creation teams face.

We asked content marketers about the types of content they produce, their distribution channels , and paid content promotion. We also asked which formats and channels produce the best results.

Effective content types and formats

Which formats are most effective? Fifty-three percent say case studies/customer stories and videos deliver some of their best results. Almost as many (51%) names thought leadership e-books or white papers, 47% short articles, and 43% research reports.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Types of content that produce the best results for B2B marketers.

Effective content distribution channels

Which channels perform the best? Most marketers in the survey point to in-person events (56%) and webinars (51%) as producing better results. Email (44%), organic social media platforms (44%), blogs (40%) and email newsletters (39%) round out the list.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Distributions channels that produce the best results for B2B marketers.

Effective paid content channels

SEM/pay-per-click produces good results, according to 62% of those surveyed. Half of those who use paid channels say social media advertising/promoted posts produce good results, followed by sponsorships (49%), partner emails (36%), and digital display advertising (34%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Paid channels that produce the best results for B2B marketers.

Social media use: One platform rises way above

When asked which organic social media platforms deliver the best value for their organization, B2B marketers picked LinkedIn by far (84%). Only 29% cite Facebook as a top performer, 22% say YouTube, and 21% say Instagram. Twitter and TikTok see 8% and 3%, respectively.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: LinkedIn delivers the best value for B2B marketers.

So it makes sense that 72% say they increased their use of LinkedIn over the last 12 months, while only 32% boosted their YouTube presence, 31% increased Instagram use, 22% grew their Facebook presence, and 10% increased X and TikTok use.

Which platforms are marketers giving up? Did you guess X? You’re right – 32% of marketers say they decreased their X use last year. Twenty percent decreased their use of Facebook, with 10% decreasing on Instagram, 9% pulling back on YouTube, and only 2% decreasing their use of LinkedIn.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: B2B marketers' use of organic social media platforms in the last 12 months.

Interestingly, we saw a significant rise in B2B marketers who use TikTok: 19% say they use the platform – more than double from last year.

To explore how teams manage content, we asked marketers about their technology use and investments and the challenges they face when scaling their content .

Content management technology

When asked which technologies they use to manage content, marketers point to:

Analytics tools (81%)
Social media publishing/analytics (72%)
Email marketing software (69%)
Content creation/calendaring/collaboration/workflow (64%)
Content management system (50%)
Customer relationship management system (48%)

But having technology doesn’t mean it’s the right technology (or that its capabilities are used). So, we asked if they felt their organization had the right technology to manage content across the organization.

Only 31% say yes. Thirty percent say they have the technology but aren’t using its potential, and 29% say they haven’t acquired the right technology. Ten percent are unsure.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Many B2B marketers lack the right content management technology.

Content tech spending will likely rise

Even so, investment in content management technology seems likely in 2024: 45% say their organization is likely to invest in new technology, whereas 32% say their organization is unlikely to do so. Twenty-three percent say their organization is neither likely nor unlikely to invest.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Nearly half of B2B marketers expect investment in additional content management technology in 2024.

Scaling content production

We introduced a new question this year to understand what challenges B2B marketers face while scaling content production .

Almost half (48%) say it’s “not enough content repurposing.” Lack of communication across organizational silos is a problem for 40%. Thirty-one percent say they have no structured content production process, and 29% say they lack an editorial calendar with clear deadlines. Ten percent say scaling is not a current focus.

Among the other hurdles – difficulty locating digital content assets (16%), technology issues (15%), translation/localization issues (12%), and no style guide (11%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Challenges B2B marketers face while scaling content production.

For those struggling with content repurposing, content standardization is critical. “Content reuse is the only way to deliver content at scale. There’s just no other way,” says Regina Lynn Preciado , senior director of content strategy solutions at Content Rules Inc.

“Even if you’re not trying to provide the most personalized experience ever or dominate the metaverse with your omnichannel presence, you absolutely must reuse content if you are going to deliver content effectively,” she says.

“How to achieve content reuse ? You’ve probably heard that you need to move to modular, structured content. However, just chunking your content into smaller components doesn’t go far enough. For content to flow together seamlessly wherever you reuse it, you’ve got to standardize your content. That’s the personalization paradox right there. To personalize, you must standardize.

“Once you have your content standards in place and everyone is creating content in alignment with those standards, there is no limit to what you can do with the content,” Regina explains.

Why do content marketers – who are skilled communicators – struggle with cross-silo communication? Standards and alignment come into play.

“I think in the rush to all the things, we run out of time to address scalable processes that will fix those painful silos, including taking time to align on goals, roles and responsibilities, workflows, and measurement,” says Ali Orlando Wert , senior director of content strategy at Appfire. “It takes time, but the payoffs are worth it. You have to learn how to crawl before you can walk – and walk before you can run.”

Measurement and goals: Generating sales and revenue rises

Almost half (46%) of B2B marketers agree their organization measures content performance effectively. Thirty-six percent disagree, and 15% neither agree nor disagree. Only 3% say they don’t measure content performance.

The five most frequently used metrics to assess content performance are conversions (73%), email engagement (71%), website traffic (71%), website engagement (69%), and social media analytics (65%).

About half (52%) mention the quality of leads, 45% say they rely on search rankings, 41% use quantity of leads, 32% track email subscribers, and 29% track the cost to acquire a lead, subscriber, or customer.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Metrics B2B marketers rely on most to evaluate content performance.

The most common challenge B2B marketers have while measuring content performance is integrating/correlating data across multiple platforms (84%), followed by extracting insights from data (77%), tying performance data to goals (76%), organizational goal setting (70%), and lack of training (66%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: B2B marketers' challenges with measuring content performance.

Regarding goals, 84% of B2B marketers say content marketing helped create brand awareness in the last 12 months. Seventy-six percent say it helped generate demand/leads; 63% say it helped nurture subscribers/audiences/leads, and 58% say it helped generate sales/revenue (up from 42% the previous year).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Goals B2B marketers achieved by using content marketing in the last 12 months.

Success factors: Know your audience

To separate top performers from the pack, we asked the B2B marketers to assess the success of their content marketing approach.

Twenty-eight percent rate the success of their organization’s content marketing approach as extremely or very successful. Another 57% report moderate success and 15% feel minimally or not at all successful.

The most popular factor for successful marketers is knowing their audience (79%).

This makes sense, considering that “creating the right content for our audience” is the top challenge. The logic? Top-performing content marketers prioritize knowing their audiences to create the right content for those audiences.

Top performers also set goals that align with their organization’s objectives (68%), effectively measure and demonstrate content performance (61%), and show thought leadership (60%). Collaboration with other teams (55%) and a documented strategy (53%) also help top performers reach high levels of content marketing success.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Top performers often attribute their B2B content marketing success to knowing their audience.

We looked at several other dimensions to identify how top performers differ from their peers. Of note, top performers:

Are backed by leaders who understand the work they do.
Are more likely to have the right content management technologies.
Have better communication across organizational silos.
Do a better job of measuring content effectiveness.
Are more likely to use content marketing successfully to generate demand/leads, nurture subscribers/audiences/leads, generate sales/revenue, and grow a subscribed audience.

Little difference exists between top performers and their less successful peers when it comes to the adoption of generative AI tools and related guidelines. It will be interesting to see if and how that changes next year.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Key areas where B2 top-performing content marketers differ from their peers.

Budgets and spending: Holding steady

To explore budget plans for 2024, we asked respondents if they have knowledge of their organization’s budget/budgeting process for content marketing. Then, we asked follow-up questions to the 55% who say they do have budget knowledge.

Content marketing as a percentage of total marketing spend

Here’s what they say about the total marketing budget (excluding salaries):

About a quarter (24%) say content marketing takes up one-fourth or more of the total marketing budget.
Nearly one in three (29%) indicate that 10% to 24% of the marketing budget goes to content marketing.
Just under half (48%) say less than 10% of the marketing budget goes to content marketing.

Content marketing budget outlook for 2024

Next, we asked about their 2024 content marketing budget. Forty-five percent think their content marketing budget will increase compared with 2023, whereas 42% think it will stay the same. Only 6% think it will decrease.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: How B2B content marketing budgets will change in 2024.

Where will the budget go?

We also asked where respondents plan to increase their spending.

Sixty-nine percent of B2B marketers say they would increase their investment in video, followed by thought leadership content (53%), in-person events (47%), paid advertising (43%), online community building (33%), webinars (33%), audio content (25%), digital events (21%), and hybrid events (11%).

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: Percentage of B2B marketers who think their organization will increase in the following areas in 2024.

The increased investment in video isn’t surprising. The focus on thought leadership content might surprise, but it shouldn’t, says Stephanie Losee , director of executive and ABM content at Autodesk.

“As measurement becomes more sophisticated, companies are finding they’re better able to quantify the return from upper-funnel activities like thought leadership content ,” she says. “At the same time, companies recognize the impact of shifting their status from vendor to true partner with their customers’ businesses.

“Autodesk recently launched its first global, longitudinal State of Design & Make report (registration required), and we’re finding that its insights are of such value to our customers that it’s enabling conversations we’ve never been able to have before. These conversations are worth gold to both sides, and I would imagine other B2B companies are finding the same thing,” Stephanie says.

Content marketing predictions for 2024: AI is top of mind

In another open-ended question, we asked B2B marketers, “What content marketing trends do you predict for 2024?” You probably guessed the most popular trend: AI.

Here are some of the marketers’ comments about how AI will affect content marketing next year:

“We’ll see generative AI everywhere, all the time.”
“There will be struggles to determine the best use of generative AI in content marketing.”
“AI will likely result in a flood of poor-quality, machine-written content. Winners will use AI for automating the processes that support content creation while continuing to create high-quality human-generated content.”
“AI has made creating content so easy that there are and will be too many long articles on similar subjects; most will never be read or viewed. A sea of too many words. I predict short-form content will have to be the driver for eyeballs.”

Other trends include:

Greater demand for high-quality content as consumers grow weary of AI-generated content
Importance of video content
Increasing use of short video and audio content
Impact of AI on SEO

Among the related comments:

“Event marketing (webinars and video thought leadership) will become more necessary as teams rely on AI-generated written content.”
“AI will be an industry sea change and strongly impact the meaning of SEO. Marketers need to be ready to ride the wave or get left behind.”
“Excitement around AI-generated content will rise before flattening out when people realize it’s hard to differentiate, validate, verify, attribute, and authenticate. New tools, processes, and roles will emerge to tackle this challenge.”
“Long-form reports could start to see a decline. If that is the case, we will need a replacement. Logically, that could be a webinar or video series that digs deeper into the takeaways.”

What does this year’s research suggest B2B content marketers do to move forward?

I asked CMI’s Robert Rose for some insights. He says the steps are clear: Develop standards, guidelines, and playbooks for how to operate – just like every other function in business does.

“Imagine if everyone in your organization had a different idea of how to define ‘revenue’ or ‘profit margin,’” Robert says. “Imagine if each salesperson had their own version of your company’s customer agreements and tried to figure out how to write them for every new deal. The legal team would be apoplectic. You’d start to hear from sales how they were frustrated that they couldn’t figure out how to make the ‘right agreement,’ or how to create agreements ‘consistently,’ or that there was a complete ‘lack of resources’ for creating agreements.”

Just remember: Standards can change along with your team, audiences, and business priorities. “Setting standards doesn’t mean casting policies and templates in stone,” Robert says. “Standards only exist so that we can always question the standard and make sure that there’s improvement available to use in setting new standards.”

He offers these five steps to take to solidify your content marketing strategy and execution:

Direct. Create an initiative that will define the scope of the most important standards for your content marketing. Prioritize the areas that hurt the most. Work with leadership to decide where to start. Maybe it’s persona development. Maybe you need a new standardized content process. Maybe you need a solid taxonomy. Build the list and make it a real initiative.
Define . Create a common understanding of all the things associated with the standards. Don’t assume that everybody knows. They don’t. What is a white paper? What is an e-book? What is a campaign vs. an initiative? What is a blog post vs. an article? Getting to a common language is one of the most powerful things you can do to coordinate better.
Develop . You need both policies and playbooks. Policies are the formal documentation of your definitions and standards. Playbooks are how you communicate combinations of policies so that different people can not just understand them but are ready, willing, and able to follow them.
Distribute . If no one follows the standards, they’re not standards. So, you need to develop a plan for how your new playbooks fit into the larger, cross-functional approach to the content strategy. You need to deepen the integration into each department – even if that is just four other people in your company.
Distill . Evolve your standards. Make them living documents. Deploy technology to enforce and scale the standards. Test. If a standard isn’t working, change it. Sometimes, more organic processes are OK. Sometimes, it’s OK to acknowledge two definitions for something. The key is acknowledging a change to an existing standard so you know whether it improves things.

For their 14 th annual content marketing survey, CMI and MarketingProfs surveyed 1,080 recipients around the globe – representing a range of industries, functional areas, and company sizes — in July 2023. The online survey was emailed to a sample of marketers using lists from CMI and MarketingProfs.

This article presents the findings from the 894 respondents, mostly from North America, who indicated their organization is primarily B2B and that they are either content marketers or work in marketing, communications, or other roles involving content.

Content Marketing Trends for 2024: B2B industry classification, and size of B2B company by employees.

Thanks to the survey participants, who made this research possible, and to everyone who helps disseminate these findings throughout the content marketing industry.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

About Content Marketing Institute

Content Marketing Institute (CMI) exists to do one thing: advance the practice of content marketing through online education and in-person and digital events. We create and curate content experiences that teach marketers and creators from enterprise brands, small businesses, and agencies how to attract and retain customers through compelling, multichannel storytelling. Global brands turn to CMI for strategic consultation, training, and research. Organizations from around the world send teams to Content Marketing World, the largest content marketing-focused event, the Marketing Analytics & Data Science (MADS) conference, and CMI virtual events, including ContentTECH Summit. Our community of 215,000+ content marketers shares camaraderie and conversation. CMI is organized by Informa Connect. To learn more, visit www.contentmarketinginstitute.com .

About MarketingProfs

Marketingprofs is your quickest path to b2b marketing mastery.

More than 600,000 marketing professionals worldwide rely on MarketingProfs for B2B Marketing training and education backed by data science, psychology, and real-world experience. Access free B2B marketing publications, virtual conferences, podcasts, daily newsletters (and more), and check out the MarketingProfs B2B Forum–the flagship in-person event for B2B Marketing training and education at MarketingProfs.com.

About Brightspot

Brightspot , the content management system to boost your business.

Why Brightspot? Align your technology approach and content strategy with Brightspot, the leading Content Management System for delivering exceptional digital experiences. Brightspot helps global organizations meet the business needs of today and scale to capitalize on the opportunities of tomorrow. Our Enterprise CMS and world-class team solves your unique business challenges at scale. Fast, flexible, and fully customizable, Brightspot perfectly harmonizes your technology approach with your content strategy and grows with you as your business evolves. Our customer-obsessed teams walk with you every step of the way with an unwavering commitment to your long-term success. To learn more, visit www.brightspot.com .

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Change Management Case Study Examples: Lessons from Industry Giants

Explore some transformative journeys with efficient Change Management Case Study examples. Delve into case studies from Coca-Cola, Heinz, Intuit, and many more. Dive in to unearth the strategic wisdom and pivotal lessons gleaned from the experiences of these titans in the industry. Read to learn about and grasp the Change Management art!

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Managing Organisational Change Effectively

In the fast-paced world of business, staying ahead means being able to adapt. Have you ever wondered how some brands manage to thrive despite huge challenges? This blog dives into a collection of Change Management Case Studies, sharing wisdom from top companies that have faced and conquered adversity. These aren’t just stories; they’re success strategies.

Each Change Management Case Study reveals the smart choices and creative fixes that helped companies navigate rough waters. How did they turn crises into chances to grow? What can we take away from their successes and mistakes? Keep reading to discover these inspiring stories and learn how they can reshape your approach to change in your own business.

Table of Contents

1) What is Change Management in Business?

2) Top Examples of Case Studies on Change Management

a) Coca-Cola

b) Adobe

c) Heinz

d) Intuit

e) Kodak

f) Barclays Bank

3) Conclusion

What is Change Management in Business?

Change management in business refers to the structured process of planning, implementing, and managing changes within an organisation. It involves anticipating, navigating, and adapting to shifts in strategy, technology, processes, or culture to achieve desired outcomes and sustain competitiveness.

Effective Change Management entails identifying the need for change, engaging stakeholders, communicating effectively, and mitigating resistance to ensure smooth transitions. By embracing Change Management principles, businesses can enhance agility, resilience, and innovation, driving growth and success in dynamic environments.

Top Examples of Case Studies on Change Management

Let's explore some transformative journeys of industry leaders through compelling case studies on Change Management:

1) Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola, the beverage titan, acknowledged the necessity to evolve with consumer tastes, market shifts, and regulatory changes. The rise of health-conscious consumers prompted Coca-Cola to revamp its offerings and business approach. The company’s proactive Change Management centred on innovation and diversification, leading to the launch of healthier options like Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.

Strategic alliances and acquisitions broadened Coca-Cola’s market reach and variety. Notably, Coca-Cola introduced eco-friendly packaging like the PlantBottle and championed sustainability in its marketing, bolstering its brand image.

Acquire the expertise to facilitate smooth changes and propel your success forward – join our Change Management Practitioner Course now!

2) Adobe

Adobe, with its global workforce and significant revenue, faced a shift due to technological advancements and competitive pressures. In 2011, Adobe transitioned from physical software sales to cloud-based services, offering free downloads or subscriptions.

This shift necessitated a transformation in Adobe’s HR practices, moving from traditional roles to a more human-centric approach, aligning with the company’s innovative and millennial-driven culture.

3) Heinz

Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital’s acquisition of Heinz led to immediate, sweeping changes. The new management implemented cost-cutting measures and altered executive perks.

Additionally, it introduced a more insular leadership style, contrasting with 3G’s young, mobile, and bonus-driven executive team.

Commence on a journey of transformative leadership and achieve measurable outcomes by joining our Change Management Foundation Course today!

4) Intuit

Steve Bennett’s leadership at Intuit marked a significant shift. Adopting the McKinsey 7S Model, he restructured the organisation to enhance decision-making, align rewards with strategy, and foster a performance-driven culture. His changes resulted in a notable increase in operating profits.

5) Kodak

Kodak, the pioneer of the first digital and megapixel cameras in 1975 and 1986, faced bankruptcy in 2012. Initially, digital technology was costly and had subpar image quality, leading Kodak to predict a decade before it threatened their traditional business. Despite this accurate forecast, Kodak focused on enhancing film quality rather than digital innovation.

Dominating the market in 1976 and peaking with £12,52,16 billion in sales in 1999, Kodak’s reluctance to adopt new technology led to a decline, with revenues falling to £4,85,11,90 billion in 2011.

Get ready for your interview with our top Change Management Interview Questions .

In contrast, Fuji, Kodak’s competitor, embraced digital transformation and diversified into new ventures.

Empower your team to manage change effectively through our Managing Change With Agile Methodology Training – sign up now!

6) Barclays Bank

The financial sector, particularly hit by the 2008 mortgage crisis, saw Barclays Capital aiming for global leadership under Bob Diamond. However, the London Inter-bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) scandal led to fines and resignations, prompting a strategic overhaul by new CEO Antony Jenkins in 2012.

Changes included rebranding, refocusing on core markets, altering the business model away from high-risk lending, fostering a customer-centric culture, downsizing, and embracing technology for efficiency. These reforms aimed to strengthen Barclays, improve shareholder returns, and restore trust.

Dive into the detailed Case Study on Change Management

Conclusion

The discussed Change Management Case Study examples serve as a testament to the transformative power of adept Change Management. Let these insights from industry leaders motivate and direct you as you navigate your organisation towards a path of continuous innovation and enduring prosperity.

Enhance your team’s ability to manage uncertainty and achieve impactful results – sign up for our comprehensive Risk Management For Change Training now!

Frequently Asked Questions

The five key elements of Change Management typically include communication, leadership, stakeholder engagement, training and development, and measurement and evaluation. These elements form the foundation for successfully navigating organisational change and ensuring its effectiveness.

The seven steps of Change Management involve identifying the need for change, developing a Change Management plan, communicating the change vision, empowering employees, implementing change initiatives, celebrating milestones, and sustaining change through ongoing evaluation and adaptation.

The Knowledge Academy takes global learning to new heights, offering over 30,000 online courses across 490+ locations in 220 countries. This expansive reach ensures accessibility and convenience for learners worldwide.

Alongside our diverse Online Course Catalogue, encompassing 17 major categories, we go the extra mile by providing a plethora of free educational Online Resources like News updates, Blogs , videos, webinars, and interview questions. Tailoring learning experiences further, professionals can maximise value with customisable Course Bundles of TKA .

The Knowledge Academy’s Knowledge Pass , a prepaid voucher, adds another layer of flexibility, allowing course bookings over a 12-month period. Join us on a journey where education knows no bounds.

The Knowledge Academy offers various Change Management Courses , including the Change Management Practitioner Course, Change Management Foundation Training, and Risk Management for Change Training. These courses cater to different skill levels, providing comprehensive insights into Change Management Metrics .

Our Project Management Blogs cover a range of topics related to Change Management, offering valuable resources, best practices, and industry insights. Whether you are a beginner or looking to advance your Project Management skills, The Knowledge Academy's diverse courses and informative blogs have got you covered.

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What Is B2B Sales? Strategies & Best Practices

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Learn the principles of business-to-business (B2B) sales strategy, and start boosting your revenue.

Kevin Thiele

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About $3 trillion — that’s Forrester’s estimate for B2B sales by 2027, almost double what it was in 2021. And B2B salespeople are a big reason why it’s growing.

But before you start dreaming of the commission that comes with big-ticket business sales, there’s a lot you need to know about connecting with buyers and influencing their decision to purchase products or services for their companies.

If you want to be successful in B2B sales, you need to understand the difference between B2B and B2C sales strategies. You must also understand the B2B sales process and how companies think about these big decisions.

What you’ll learn:

What is b2b sales, b2b sales vs. b2c sales: what’s the difference.

What is the B2B sales process?
How do you measure performance in B2B sales?

B2B sales best practices

Examples of b2b sales.

B2B sales tools

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In B2B (business-to-business) sales, one business sells goods or services to another. Because businesses typically require chains of approval, closing a B2B sales deal usually involves detailed touchpoints, presentations, product demos, and negotiations with decision-makers, leading to a long sales cycle.

Common traits of B2B sales

High-cost and/or recurring contract pricing. B2B sales transactions can run into the millions of dollars. Businesses also tend to invest in products/services for longer periods, owing to the cost/time investment involved in changing to a different solution.
Multiple stakeholders. Decision makers will have different agendas, requirements, and needs for the transaction. They stretch from mid-level managers all the way up to the C-suite.
Longer close time. Given the above, B2B sales are more involved and take longer to close.

B2B sales is when a business sells a product or service to another business. B2C sales is when a business sells a product or service directly to a consumer. Because the buyer in these situations has different intent, needs, and requirements, the sales process and deal timeframe are also different:

B2B sales focuses on long-term relationships. These sales are often complex, with large deal sizes and multiple stakeholders to navigate. B2B buyers need to understand the potential return on investment (ROI) and how a product or service will ultimately benefit their business before they move forward with a purchase. For example, a B2B deal might involve purchasing and onboarding new AI software for hundreds of employees. This likely costs thousands of dollars and touches multiple teams, so they’re are many stakeholders who need to review and approve the deal.
B2C sales target short-term transactions. These are typically simpler and lower-cost products or services, so individual customers can make quicker decisions. Because of this, the path to purchase is also shorter. For example, you might impulse-buy a sweatshirt from an Instagram ad or a candy bar while you wait in line at the grocery store.

What is the B2B sales process and who leads it?

Companies that sell B2B have dedicated sales teams that reach out to prospects — sales associates, account executives, and sales representatives. These salespeople find and follow up with prospects and work through the complex and layered B2B sales process:

Because B2B sales requires so many stakeholders to get involved, however, every company will have a different process. That said, there are some core elements that every salesperson will likely experience. Let’s look at what these are in more detail.

Lead generation or prospecting . Sales and marketing teams identify potential customers, either via ads that attract interested prospects or via outreach based on research (more on that below).
Lead qualification . Sales teams assess the product fit of potential customers.
Needs assessment. Sales teams uncover the detailed needs of potential customers they’ve qualified.
Proposal and quote . Sales teams present a tailored solution to the potential client.
Negotiation. Sales teams work out the terms of the deal.
Close . Sales teams finalize and process the details of the sale.

As a sales rep, it’s important to use technology to your advantage to streamline the process. AI sales tools are great for organizing information, like keeping track of leads and where you are in a deal’s process.

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What are the essential b2b sales activities during the sales process.

B2B sales activities are designed to identify and attract prospective customers and then engage and close deals with customers in need of your products or services. Sales activities can vary based on your industry and what your organization offers, but some are essential to every sales process . Here are a few examples:

Customer research is the first step in B2B sales. Start by creating an ideal buyer profile for your product and explore their motivations for purchasing by talking to customers of similar businesses, and by reviewing online reports and information. This profile should also include characteristics such as demographics, psychographics (prospect behaviors), and communication preferences. All of this will inform whom you look for in your prospecting
Outreach is how you stay in contact with prospective clients. You can reach out in many ways: phone calls, texts, emails, in-person conferences and events, and online networking platforms like LinkedIn. Your approach will vary based on the client and their needs.
Customer relationship management helps you build long-term relationships with your customers that lead to loyalty and retention. Because B2B sales can take a long time to close, managing and nurturing these relationships is a key skill for you to develop. That’s why you should set up a cadence of communication to make sure prospects’ needs are being met.
Sales reporting is an overview of key sales metrics . Some of these metrics focus on prospect behavior, like email open and click-through rates, while some focus on your behavior, like how many calls you schedule per week and how many deals you close. Over time, you can use the data you collect to inform and refine your approach to B2B sales.

What are the most important B2B sales metrics?

Tracking sales metrics is essential because they give you an unbiased look at how reps perform individually and as a team. It also gives you a sense of how close you are to hitting your targets, and if you need to adjust strategy to increase sales.

Here are some key metrics to keep in mind for B2B sales:

New leads in pipeline: The number of new leads added to each rep’s pipeline during a single quarter.

Conversion rate: The number of new leads added to each rep’s pipeline during a single quarter.

Annual contract value (ACV): This is the average sales amount of a customer contract over the course of a year.

Customer lifetime value (CLV): The value of all purchases, including upsells, cross-sells, and renewals, that a customer makes over the course of their relationship with your company.

Read our article on sales key performance indicators (KPIs) for a more in-depth look at what you can (and should) be tracking.

How do you use metrics and data to improve your B2B sales process?

The depth of data available about market trends, customer behavior, and the effectiveness of various sales tactics can be helpful in tweaking your sales process approach. Here’s a look at how you can use data to improve your performance:

Targeting the right prospects. Data about your prospects, especially from your sales tools , can help you target the best leads for the products and services you sell.
Personalizing messages and sales pitches. With more data about your target customers, you can better personalize and customize the pitches you send. Personalization will help you connect more with your prospects and increase your likelihood of success.
Lead prioritization. With up-to-date sales data, you can create lead-scoring rubrics to identify which leads are most likely to convert. From there, you can prioritize leads and, ideally, increase win rates.
Forecasting sales for company planning. Sales data can help you predict outcomes and make highly accurate forecasts about future sales and revenue. This is key to planning budgets, pay, and targets for the company.

How do you measure B2B sales performance?

Knowing the right B2B sales metrics to track is all well and good, but how do you track it? Via a comprehensive sales dashboard. A dashboard lets you see all the most relevant information about past, current, and pending sales so that you can make better decisions that drive better win rates. It also aggregates completed sales data so that you can measure sales performance over periods of time, such as year-over-year or over a specific quarter. All of this can be used to inform sales strategies , hiring decisions, and tactics.

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You can get better at B2B sales through study, practice, and reflection. Here are some B2B sales quick tips to keep in mind:

Understand your prospect’s pain points and goals . Focus on getting to know your future customer and empathizing with their challenges. Then, make a strong case that shows how your goods or services will give them a meaningful return on their investment. One way to do this is by talking with them directly, but you can also subscribe to their content — social media, email newsletters, blogs — to get an idea of their business priorities, who their audience is, and how to speak their language when offering your solution.
Build relationships with the top decision-makers. Rather than spend valuable time making connections with people who can’t actually make any purchase decisions, whenever possible, go straight to the top. Research a company’s real decision-makers and reach out to them directly. Don’t waste time with middle managers who don’t have the authority to make choices or close deals.
Sell solutions and results, not products. To reach people and make a lasting impact, it’s important to sell them not on your product, but on how your product will change their lives for the better. The proof is in the results, so show prospects — through data, success stories, and first-hand knowledge — how your product can solve their problems and increase their bottom line.
Focus on simplicity . Businesses want to know how your product or service will make their lives easier, not more complicated. Make sure to emphasize how easy it is to integrate your software into their existing processes, for example. And, make sure they know you’ll provide training and ongoing support. The simpler your solution is, the sooner they can start using it and see results.
Respect your prospect’s time . Yes, you want to make a sale, but you must be cognizant and respectful of your prospect’s busy schedules. Never show up unannounced at their offices or call out of the blue and expect them to have the time (or desire) to talk to you. Make it a rule to set and keep appointments — both phone calls and face-to-face meetings — but also be flexible enough to accommodate your prospect’s schedule when necessary.

B2B sales can happen differently based on the type of company and industry involved. Here are four examples of B2B sales you are likely to see:

Manufacturing

Manufacturing B2B sales involves a company that either sells supplies or raw materials to another company that manufactures their own product, or produces a simple product that other companies buy and use in more complex products.

Example: A lumber company sells wood to a cabinet manufacturing company, which then creates kitchen cabinets to sell to its own customers.

Retail B2B sales involves businesses that sell retail products like clothing or electronics to other businesses. These businesses then repackage the products to sell to consumers.

Example: A clothing manufacturer sells sweaters to a boutique, which then resells the sweaters to its customers.

Government agencies of all kinds — from local to federal — need to buy products and services to support their own programs and services. These transactions are called business-to-government (B2G) sales.

Example: A global aerospace company builds helicopters, missile defense systems, fighter jets, and surveillance aircraft, among many other products, for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)

SaaS companies provide technology solutions to businesses to improve their operations, customer service/experience, and other business needs. SaaS B2B sales involve companies purchasing solutions or products for business purposes.

Example: A nonprofit education organization might buy a CRM tool to keep track of the employees in the school districts it serves.

B2B Sales Tools

Without sales tools, it’s impossible not to get bogged down in manual B2B activities and complex processes. But the right tools can help you sell faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Here’s a look at a few essential sales tools and how they can support you:

Customer relationship management (CRM) tools , like Sales Cloud , put all your communication data into one place, so it’s easier to keep track of where you are in the sales process.
Sales analytics can help you predict business outcomes with confidence by tracking B2B sales performance in real time and forecasting future results. By integrating with your CRM, analytics can track any activities associated with a sale. You can then use insights from your analytics to understand the health of your pipeline and close deals faster.
Sales AI can integrate with your CRM to automate the sales process, identify areas for improvement, and build strong relationships with prospective clients — all without manual input.

Grow your B2B sales knowledge and skills

The key to selling B2B products and services is to think of the process holistically and work to improve your approach over time. Because B2B selling is complex, there are many opportunities to improve, from understanding your company’s products and services to testing new sales tools to improve your processes. In the end, though, it’s all about building trust with decision-makers, so don’t forget to build strong relationships.

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Food Delivery & Takeout: New UX Benchmark with 3,000+ Performance Scores and 2,000+ Best Practice Examples self.__wrap_n!=1&&self.__wrap_b(":R95lb396:",1)

At Baymard we’ve just released a new UX benchmark of food delivery and takeout mobile sites and mobile apps.

This follows from our large-scale user testing research on Food Delivery & Takeout UX , and adds to our existing e-commerce UX benchmark.

8 Food Delivery & Takeout UX Case Studies

The 8 mobile sites and apps have been manually assessed across 400+ research-based UX parameters relevant to Food Delivery & Takeout, resulting in 3,000+ weighted UX performance scores and 2,000+ best practice examples from food delivery and takeout sites and apps.

You can explore our 8 in-depth Food Delivery & Takeout UX case studies using the below links:

39 page designs: mobile, app

49 page designs: mobile, app

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30 page designs: mobile, app

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Food Delivery & Takeout UX Performance

The 8 food delivery and takeout mobile sites’ and mobile apps’ 3,000+ UX performance scores are summarized in the interactive scatterplot below — showing you how they perform collectively and individually:

A publicly available overview of the research and benchmark can be found on our Food Delivery & Takeout research overview page.

Getting access: all 3,000+ UX performance scores, 2,000+ best practice examples, and the UX insights from researching the Food Delivery & Takeout industry are available immediately and in full within Baymard Premium . (If you already have an account open the Food Delivery & Takeout study.)

If you want to know how your food delivery and takeout desktop site, mobile site, or app performs and compares, then learn more about getting Baymard to conduct a Food Delivery & Takeout UX Audit of your site or app.

Authored by Anders Nielsen on June 19, 2024

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — A Million Little Pieces — A Case Study of “A Million Little Pieces”

A Case Study of "A Million Little Pieces"

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The controversy surrounding "a million little pieces", the impact of controversy on reader perception, the role of authenticity in memoirs, lessons learned from the controversy.

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Introduction To LLMs Text Embeddings For SEO With Examples

Start from the basics! Learn how you can use LLMs to scale your SEO or marketing efforts for the most tedious tasks.

Illustration of a brain diagram representing LLMs, interconnected with various icons symbolizing communication, data, and technology, on a dark background.

If you are an SEO practitioner or digital marketer reading this article, you may have experimented with AI and chatbots in your everyday work .

But the question is, how can you make the most out of AI other than using a chatbot user interface?

For that, you need a profound understanding of how large language models (LLMs) work and learn the basic level of coding. And yes, coding is absolutely necessary to succeed as an SEO professional nowadays.

This is the first of a series of articles that aim to level up your skills so you can start using LLMs to scale your SEO tasks. We believe that in the future, this skill will be required for success.

We need to start from the basics. It will include essential information, so later in this series, you will be able to use LLMs to scale your SEO or marketing efforts for the most tedious tasks.

Contrary to other similar articles you’ve read, we will start here from the end. The video below illustrates what you will be able to do after reading all the articles in the series on how to use LLMs for SEO.

Our team uses this tool to make internal linking faster while maintaining human oversight.

Did you like it? This is what you will be able to build yourself very soon.

Now, let’s start with the basics and equip you with the required background knowledge in LLMs.

What Are Vectors?

In mathematics, vectors are objects described by an ordered list of numbers (components) corresponding to the coordinates in the vector space.

A simple example of a vector is a vector in two-dimensional space, which is represented by (x,y) coordinates as illustrated below.

Sample two dimensional vector with (x13y) coordinates (8,13)

In this case, the coordinate x=13 represents the length of the vector’s projection on the X-axis, and y=8 represents the length of the vector’s projection on the Y-axis.

Vectors that are defined with coordinates have a length, which is called the magnitude of a vector or norm. For our two-dimensional simplified case, it is calculated by the formula:

L= ( x 1 ) 2 + ( y 1 ) 2

However, mathematicians went ahead and defined vectors with an arbitrary number of abstract coordinates (X1, X2, X3 … Xn), which is called an “N-dimensional” vector .

In the case of a vector in three-dimensional space, that would be three numbers (x,y,z), which we can still interpret and understand, but anything above that is out of our imagination, and everything becomes an abstract concept.

And here is where LLM embeddings come into play.

What Is Text Embedding?

Text embeddings are a subset of LLM embeddings, which are abstract high-dimensional vectors representing text that capture semantic contexts and relationships between words.

In LLM jargon, “words” are called data tokens, with each word being a token. More abstractly, embeddings are numerical representations of those tokens, encoding relationships between any data tokens (units of data), where a data token can be an image, sound recording, text, or video frame.

In order to calculate how close words are semantically, we need to convert them into numbers. Just like you subtract numbers (e.g., 10-6=4) and you can tell that the distance between 10 and 6 is 4 points, it is possible to subtract vectors and calculate how close the two vectors are.

Thus, understanding vector distances is important in order to grasp how LLMs work.

There are different ways to measure how close vectors are:

Euclidean distance.
Cosine similarity or distance.
Jaccard similarity.
Manhattan distance.

Each has its own use cases, but we will discuss only commonly used cosine and Euclidean distances.

What Is The Cosine Similarity?

It measures the cosine of the angle between two vectors, i.e., how closely those two vectors are aligned with each other.

Euclidean distance vs. cosine similarity

It is defined as follows:

cos ⁡ ( α ) = A ⋅ B ∣ A ∣ ⋅ ∣ B ∣

Where the dot product of two vectors is divided by the product of their magnitudes, a.k.a. lengths.

Its values range from -1, which means completely opposite, to 1, which means identical. A value of ‘0’ means the vectors are perpendicular.

In terms of text embeddings, achieving the exact cosine similarity value of -1 is unlikely, but here are examples of texts with 0 or 1 cosine similarities.

Cosine Similarity = 1 (Identical)

“Top 10 Hidden Gems for Solo Travelers in San Francisco”

These texts are identical, so their embeddings would be the same, resulting in a cosine similarity of 1.

Cosine Similarity = 0 (Perpendicular, Which Means Unrelated)

“Quantum mechanics”
“I love rainy day”

These texts are totally unrelated, resulting in a cosine similarity of 0 between their BERT embeddings.

However, if you run Google Vertex AI’s embedding model ‘text-embedding-preview-0409’ , you will get 0.3. With OpenAi’s ‘text-embedding-3-large’ models, you will get 0.017.

(Note: We will learn in the next chapters in detail practicing with embeddings using Python and Jupyter ).

Vertex Ai's text-'embedding-preview-0409' model

We are skipping the case with cosine similarity = -1 because it is highly unlikely to happen.

If you try to get cosine similarity for text with opposite meanings like “love” vs. “hate” or “the successful project” vs. “the failing project,” you will get 0.5-0.6 cosine similarity with Google Vertex AI’s ‘text-embedding-preview-0409’ model.

It is because the words “love” and “hate” often appear in similar contexts related to emotions, and “successful” and “failing” are both related to project outcomes. The contexts in which they are used might overlap significantly in the training data.

Cosine similarity can be used for the following SEO tasks:

Classification.
Keyword clustering .
Implementing redirects.
Internal linking .
Duplicate content detection.
Content recommendation.
Competitor analysis .

Cosine similarity focuses on the direction of the vectors (the angle between them) rather than their magnitude (length). As a result, it can capture semantic similarity and determine how closely two pieces of content align, even if one is much longer or uses more words than the other.

Deep diving and exploring each of these will be a goal of upcoming articles we will publish.

What Is The Euclidean Distance?

In case you have two vectors A(X1,Y1) and B(X2,Y2), the Euclidean distance is calculated by the following formula:

D = ( x 2 − x 1 ) 2 + ( y 2 − y 1 ) 2

It is like using a ruler to measure the distance between two points (the red line in the chart above).

Euclidean distance can be used for the following SEO tasks:

Evaluating keyword density in the content.
Finding duplicate content with a similar structure.
Analyzing anchor text distribution.
Keyword clustering.

Here is an example of Euclidean distance calculation with a value of 0.08, nearly close to 0, for duplicate content where paragraphs are just swapped – meaning the distance is 0, i.e., the content we compare is the same.

Euclidean distance calculation example of duplicate content

Of course, you can use cosine similarity, and it will detect duplicate content with cosine similarity 0.9 out of 1 (almost identical).

Here is a key point to remember: You should not merely rely on cosine similarity but use other methods, too, as Netflix’s research paper suggests that using cosine similarity can lead to meaningless “similarities.”

We show that cosine similarity of the learned embeddings can in fact yield arbitrary results. We find that the underlying reason is not cosine similarity itself, but the fact that the learned embeddings have a degree of freedom that can render arbitrary cosine-similarities.

As an SEO professional, you don’t need to be able to fully comprehend that paper, but remember that research shows that other distance methods, such as the Euclidean, should be considered based on the project needs and outcome you get to reduce false-positive results.

What Is L2 Normalization?

L2 normalization is a mathematical transformation applied to vectors to make them unit vectors with a length of 1.

To explain in simple terms, let’s say Bob and Alice walked a long distance. Now, we want to compare their directions. Did they follow similar paths, or did they go in completely different directions?

A Cartesian plane with 'Alice' represented by a red dot in the upper right quadrant and 'Bob' represented by a green dot.

However, since they are far from their origin, we will have difficulty measuring the angle between their paths because they have gone too far.

On the other hand, we can’t claim that if they are far from each other, it means their paths are different.

L2 normalization is like bringing both Alice and Bob back to the same closer distance from the starting point, say one foot from the origin, to make it easier to measure the angle between their paths.

Now, we see that even though they are far apart, their path directions are quite close.

A Cartesian plane with a circle centered at the origin.

This means that we’ve removed the effect of their different path lengths (a.k.a. vectors magnitude) and can focus purely on the direction of their movements.

In the context of text embeddings, this normalization helps us focus on the semantic similarity between texts (the direction of the vectors).

Most of the embedding models, such as OpeanAI’s ‘text-embedding-3-large’ or Google Vertex AI’s ‘text-embedding-preview-0409’ models, return pre-normalized embeddings, which means you don’t need to normalize.

But, for example, BERT model ‘bert-base-uncased’ embeddings are not pre-normalized.

This was the introductory chapter of our series of articles to familiarize you with the jargon of LLMs, which I hope made the information accessible without needing a PhD in mathematics.

If you still have trouble memorizing these, don’t worry. As we cover the next sections, we will refer to the definitions defined here, and you will be able to understand them through practice.

The next chapters will be even more interesting:

Introduction To OpenAI’s Text Embeddings With Examples.
Introduction To Google’s Vertex AI Text Embeddings With Examples.
Introduction To Vector Databases.
How To Use LLM Embeddings For Internal Linking.
How To Use LLM Embeddings For Implementing Redirects At Scale.
Putting It All Together: LLMs-Based WordPress Plugin For Internal Linking.

The goal is to level up your skills and prepare you to face challenges in SEO.

Many of you may say that there are tools you can buy that do these types of things automatically, but those tools will not be able to perform many specific tasks based on your project needs, which require a custom approach.

Using SEO tools is always great, but having skills is even better!

More resources:

Technical SEO: The 20-Minute Workweek Checklist
20 Essential Technical SEO Tools For Agencies
The Complete Technical SEO Audit Workbook

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What is omnichannel marketing?

Picture this: you’re browsing online for some new work clothes, and you add something to your virtual cart but ultimately decide not to buy it. Then later, you see an ad on social media for the abandoned garment. Some scratch their heads at this, but it’s actually an example of omnichannel marketing.

The prefix “omni” means “all,” and “channel” is a reference to the many ways customers might interact with a company—in physical stores, by surfing the web, on social media, and in emails, apps, SMS, and other digital spaces. And this omnichannel approach can be a powerful way to meet your customers where they are, providing them good service in line with their preferences and needs. (Note that, in this article, we use the terms “customers,” “consumers,” and “shoppers” interchangeably in referring to omnichannel marketing in both B2B and B2C contexts.)

More and more, customers move across all channels—in person, online, and beyond—to get what they want. But not every customer is looking for the same thing, and omnichannel marketing acknowledges that. Some people want more services for certain transactions; others prefer low-touch, 24/7 interactions. Effective omnichannel marketing , then, happens when companies provide a set of seamlessly integrated channels, catering to customer preferences, and steer them to the most efficient solutions.

So why is omnichannel marketing important? Research on the omnichannel experience shows more than half of B2C customers engage with three to five channels each time they make a purchase or resolve a request. And the average customer looking to make a single reservation for accommodations (like a hotel room) online switched nearly six times between websites and mobile channels. If these customers encounter inconsistent information or can’t get what they need, they may lose interest in a brand’s products or services.

And this can translate into business outcomes. Omnichannel customers shop 1.7 times more than shoppers who use a single channel. They also spend more.

Sometimes the term omnichannel is used in the context of customer service or customer experience . And it’s also used as a descriptor of other elements that go into supporting an organization’s omnichannel efforts—for instance, omnichannel supply chains , which is shorthand for an approach in which companies ensure that their supply chains are optimally set up to support omnichannel marketing efforts.

What are examples of omnichannel?

Omnichannel approaches are commonly used in retail (both B2B and B2C ), but you’ll also find it in healthcare and other spaces. Medtech companies , for instance, use a variety of channels including digital marketing, inside sales, portal and e-commerce, and hybrid sales-rep interactions to engage with healthcare professionals.

Several omnichannel examples can illustrate various approaches:

Best Buy typically focuses on commerce (both in store and online), but boosted its in-store experience by creating offerings for customers to explore smart home-technology solutions, pairing them with free in-home advisory services. And its mobile app lets customers “scan to shop” from catalogs and curbside, or buy online and pick up merchandise in the store itself, smoothing the end-to-end journey for customers with the 24/7 tech support from its Geek Squad. Best Buy’s Totaltech support offer was compelling to customers—it launched with 200,000 memberships in 2018, which climbed to two million within a year.
Beauty retailer Sephora emphasizes omnichannel personalization, relying on rich in-app messaging, personalized push notifications, and easy ways for customers to book in-person consultations. Its in-store technology is a powerful complement that allows employees to access customer favorites and suggest products they might try next. Its loyalty program also plays an important role. The efforts are already driving value for Sephora: data showed that customers visiting the retail website within 24 hours of visiting a store were three times more likely to make a purchase, and orders were 13 percent higher than for other customers.
Nike takes an ecosystems view of omnichannel, extending the brand experience and offering customers an ever-growing platform of content, offers, and community interactions. Its SNKRS and Run Club apps, for example, facilitate in-person meetups, running groups, and events. It also has an app for delivering individual workouts and fitness programs, creating experiences that go far beyond shoe and apparel lines to meet customers in their day-to-day routines.

Learn more about our Retail and Growth, Marketing & Sales practices.

How has omnichannel been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

Omnichannel rose during the COVID-19 pandemic as more consumers turned to e-commerce. Due to the increased demand for contactless shopping during the height of the pandemic, US grocery stores saw 20 to 30 percent of their business shift to online . Before the pandemic, e-commerce accounted for just 3 to 4 percent of total sales for grocers.

The shifts made during the pandemic are likely to persist . In the pandemic, people gravitated to curbside pickup, “buy online, pay in store” models, and self-checkout at higher rates than in the past. And recent research indicates these behaviors are “sticky”—indeed, about 70 percent of people who first tried self-checkout in the pandemic say they’ll use it again.

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What do customers want out of the omnichannel experience.

Customers want a compelling and personalized omnichannel user experience with robust digital capabilities, both online and offline. About 60 to 70 percent of consumers research and shop both in stores and online . More concretely, over one-third of Americans made omnichannel features—think buying online and picking up in store or curbside—part of their regular shopping routines since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Nearly two-thirds of those individuals plan to continue doing so. And younger buyers, like Gen Zers, embrace omnichannel enthusiastically; these customers don’t think in terms of traditional channel boundaries, and they expect brands and retailers to provide a seamless experience, no matter where they are.

In a sense, all customers are omnichannel customers now, McKinsey partner Tiffany Burns explains in an episode of the McKinsey on Consumer and Retail podcast :

“Many retailers still think, ‘There are omnichannel interactions and store interactions, and I’m optimizing those two things separately. I have two different teams working on and thinking about those experiences.’ But as a consumer, when I go on the retailer’s website or app, I expect to see availability, a connection to what’s in the store, and a way to order things that I can pick up in store. I also expect to be able to stand in the aisle in the store and research a product. Today, consumers are figuring out workarounds to do all those things: they’re switching over from the app to Google, looking up the product, and searching for reviews.”

Organizations that make shopping a seamless omnichannel experience , or provide an app that helps customers find their way or see what’s in stock in the store, are already creating experiences that are a win for omnichannel customers .

Is omnichannel the same thing as phygital? And what is phygital, anyway?

Omnichannel is a business strategy, while “phygital” (a portmanteau that combines the word “physical” and “digital”) refers to the integration of the physical and digital worlds.

The term suggests a completely connected world that is both physical and digital at the same time . While fewer consumers are visiting brick-and-mortar stores and choosing to use e-commerce instead, more than 80 percent of retail sales still occur in a physical location . By 2030, the shopping experience will be highly personalized , and some activities may even take place in the metaverse . According to a recent survey, 80 percent of US adults want personalization from retailers with multiple, personalized touchpoints , which can include a mobile app, digital displays, interactive screens, tech-enabled associates, and point of sale.

What about omnichannel vs multichannel?

When it comes to omnichannel vs multichannel, the key difference is the focus at the center of all efforts. Omnichannel is a customer-centric approach in which all channels are integrated so the customer has a unified and consistent experience whether they are at a physical store, using an app, or on a website. Multichannel, in contrast, tends to revolve around products instead of customers. It aims to inform as many people as possible about the product or brand, and the channels are not linked, so the customer experience is often different for each channel.

An interview with an insurance executive, Eric Gewirtzman of BOLT , makes that distinction relatable: “Insurance customers are already moving between various channels,” Gewirtzman says. “But there’s a big difference between being multichannel and being omnichannel. Just because carriers have, say, an exclusive agent channel, an independent agent channel, and a website, doesn’t mean they’re omnichannel. Too often, consumers will get a different experience and different results depending on which channel they use. This has to change. If there is no awareness between the channels, sales are lost.”

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What is omnichannel personalization?

Omnichannel personalization refers to the way organizations might tailor the customer experience for individuals across physical and digital channels. This includes multiple touchpoints that cater to the customer’s preferences pre-visit, during the visit, and post-visit. Customers receive products, offers, and communications that are unique to them as individuals.

Efforts to personalize the omnichannel market can have a big payoff. Indeed, getting omnichannel personalization right could help companies increase revenue by 5 to 15 percent across the full customer base.

While companies recognize the power of omnichannel personalization, they may face roadblocks in implementing these efforts for a variety of reasons:

Omnichannel personalization requires a lot of investment in technology (both software and hardware). Personalizing physical spaces often starts from scratch because it requires enabling digital touchpoints such as screens, kiosks, or tablets for store associates, which may not exist.
It is difficult to deliver a seamless customer experience and train employees. The front line needs training to understand and reinforce the customer journey.
Traditionally, companies operate their digital and physical channels independently. Omnichannel personalization requires companies to rethink their organizational structure across both the digital and physical parts of the business .

These barriers, however, can be overcome. Five steps can help companies achieve omnichannel personalization :

Define the omnichannel personalization strategy and learning agenda. It’s crucial to develop a clear view on key moments of influence in the customer journey , and then identify what outcomes are desired at each step of that journey. Finally, an organization needs to prioritize use cases to test, looking at their ability to deliver business benefits and value to customers.
Address five digital touchpoints to activate personalized experiences in physical environments. Companies need to connect digital and physical footprints to drive omnichannel personalization, especially at touchpoints where these worlds converge. Five are particularly important: mobile apps, digital displays, interactive screens, tech-enabled associates, and point of sale.
Use an omnichannel “ decisioning engine ” to deliver experiences and measure performance. This can help organizations identify, quickly and accurately, the next best action to take with each customer.
Implement agile operating practices. Personalized marketing goes beyond mere technology; it requires new ways of working, and agile marketing teams can help in this regard.
Activate omnichannel personalization in the field. To bring all these elements together, a company’s sales force must be fully aligned and well trained. In-person teams could make your customer’s day, so frontline personnel need to support personalization efforts, understand their value, and use digital tools to deliver the complete experience.

What is omnichannel strategy?

An omnichannel strategy for marketing is a way of ensuring that your efforts drive tangible business value. Rather than rushing blindly into the space, or haphazardly approaching it, organizations should step back and think about underlying business value drivers. Excelling in omnichannel depends on a laser focus on value creation, looking at both strategic and customer priorities to craft the omnichannel strategy that will be most effective for their unique circumstances.

The most successful companies set their omnichannel strategy by leading with their strategic ambition and aspirations for customer experience. There are three primary omnichannel strategies :

Commerce. This prioritizes cross-channel shopping experience both in store and online.
Personalization. This strategy focuses on tailored, targeted, and relevant cross-channel engagement at scale.
Ecosystem. Here, the strategy aims to provide rich cross-channel platforms integrated with consumer needs and lifestyles.

Learn more about our Growth, Marketing & Sales practice.

What’s involved in omnichannel operations?

Organizations can build leading omnichannel operations , spanning a variety of areas. By strengthening the foundation of your omnichannel operations and focusing on strategy, structure, and processes, you could gain a performance edge.

Topics to explore include mastering omnichannel supply chains , creating a customer-centric supply chain strategy , designing the omnichannel distribution network of the future , reimagining the role of physical stores , and more.

What should I know about B2B omnichannel?

Omnichannel has become a permanent part of B2B sales , with e-commerce, face-to-face, and remote videoconference sales all a necessary part of buyers’ experience. According to a 2021 McKinsey survey of US-based B2B decision makers, 94 percent of respondents view today’s B2B omnichannel reality as being as effective or more effective than before COVID-19. The findings also revealed that B2B customers regularly use ten or more channels to interact with suppliers, up from five in 2016.

B2B omnichannel efforts can be a path to grow an organization’s market share, but loyalty is up for grabs, with customers more willing than ever to switch suppliers for a better omnichannel experience. B2B decision makers use more channels than ever before to interact with suppliers, and being attuned to those channels will be important.

There are five must-dos for B2B companies seeking to retain customer loyalty and succeed in omnichannel:

offer a performance guarantee (nearly 80 percent of B2B customers say it’s crucial)
show product availability online
enable purchases over any channel
provide customer service in real time
ensure the customer experience is consistent as buyers toggle between channels

While B2C omnichannel efforts might be the first to spring to mind, omnichannel experience is crucial to giving all customers a better and more seamless journey.

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on marketing and sales —and check out omnichannel-related job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

“ The new B2B growth equation ,” February 23, 2022, Arun Arora , Liz Harrison , Max Magni, Candace Lun Plotkin , and Jennifer Stanley
“ Omnichannel: The path to value ,” April 30, 2021, Holly Briedis, Brian Gregg , Kevin Heidenreich, and Wei Wei Liu
“ Omnichannel shopping in 2030 ,” April 9, 2021, Praveen Adhi , Eric Hazan , Sajal Kohli , and Kelsey Robinson
“ Redefine the omnichannel approach: Focus on what truly matters ,” June 22, 2020, Jorge Amar , Raelyn Jacobson , Becca Kleinstein, and Allison Shi
“ The end of shopping’s boundaries: Omnichannel personalization ,” February 10, 2020, Gal Gitter, Meg Raymond, Kelsey Robinson , and Jamie Wilkie

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Omnichannel: The path to value

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