B2B Case Study Template With 15 Headline Examples

You have seen it working in different contexts. And that made you think a detailed B2B case study template could help you craft one. Regardless of how you refer to it, we are talking about the type of social proof often referred to as case studies.

But wait. If this type of content can help you or your brand stand out, why use a template? Well, we’ll get to that in a few minutes.

For one thing, many different types come to mind. However, B2B case study seems to be one of the most influential types often used in sales and marketing. Before proceeding into the key part of this post, I want to clarify how using a B2B marketing case study template might be helpful at this time.

Why Stories Sell

The first thing to note is this. It is not about following a static formula that everyone and their team use in your industry or niche. Instead, it is about weaving a story that is -

1. Attractive
2. Influential
3. Convincing

Naturally, humans are creators of narratives. When connected to certain emotions, values, or pain points, real or even fictional stories move us. This is how stories influence us and alter our perspectives of who we are, certain brands, products, or services.

Especially in the context of marketing, many studies have also proven this fact beyond my personal opinion.

As written by Frank Rose in his book, The Art of Immersion,

‘’Just as the brain detects patterns in the visual forms of nature — a face, a figure, a flower — and in sound, so too it detects patterns in information. Stories are recognizable patterns, and in those patterns we find meaning.’’

Interestingly, it is this natural ability for pattern detection that allows us to connect into relatable stories that often move us through a marketing call to action (CTA).

Take note of the keyword in the last sentence, ‘relatable’.

This is the key factor that makes it possible for prospects to see possibilities through the perspective of your satisfied clients or customers. Yes, a B2B case study template can help you save time.

But the core of the customer story doesn’t have to be in a way that lacks substance or influence, just because you are using a template.

The Power of Social Proof In Marketing

In a hyper-competitive industry like digital marketing, differentiation is extremely hard. If you are running a search engine optimization (SEO), lead generation, or conversion rate optimization (CRO) agency, you are pretty much trying to sell the same thing as everyone else.

With literal words and generic images, everyone claims to offer the best services. Unfortunately, it is not every agency out there that can prove the real value of their services beyond words.

This is where strong social proof like case studies comes into play.

The key point is that in an ambiguous social situation where someone or people are unable to determine the appropriate behavior, most of us rely on social proof for making decisions.

In other words, social proof influences human choice, including purchase decisions.

Now imagine a situation where a decision-maker is in the market for the type of digital marketing services provided by your agency. But only a few of these competing agencies have strong proof of their value propositions. Who do you think will be more attractive?

The thing is this. Without trust-worthy proof to back up your value propositions or marketing claims, closing sales will continue to be extremely hard regardless of lead quality or how many leads in your sales pipeline.

Having noted the fact that a case study is just one type of social proof that can be leveraged in the context of marketing, let’s look into the template you can use to create one.

B2B Case Study Template For Marketing Agencies

The Title

Irrespective of where you want to publish your B2B case study, the title is the very first thing that gets the reader’s attention. However, getting the reader’s attention is one thing. Giving the reader a strong reason to continue reading the rest of the story is another different issue.

Assuming you want to publish the content as a blog post aimed at generating organic search traffic, the title will determine to a large extent, the level of attractiveness as well as click-through rate (CTR).

While there are no standard formats for writing B2B case study headlines, below are some of the key points to keep in mind.

Buyer Persona

The big question to ask is — who do I want to attract or read this case study? To make it attractive, the customer projected should be a perfect match or similar to the specific buyer persona you want to attract. Here is the thinking behind that. We, humans, love to read or hear stories from people like ourselves.

Done very well, case studies are supposed to replicate word of mouth marketing. Now, whose word of mouth would you want to replicate in your

B2B case study writing?

Example: How a stay-at-home mom generated 4,552 leads for her brand new e-commerce business.

Looking at this lead generation case study example, UpViral, a B2B SaaS company, highlighted a few important things within the title. First is the buyer persona — a stay-at-home mom. The second is the results she got. Then thirdly, is the specific niche, industry, or type of business — ecommerce business.

Here is a perfect coverage of three different contexts in a way that is precisely targeted at a specific buyer persona. This is better than a generic title that lacks context, precision, and clarity.

Pain Point

It is a known fact that stories, especially relatable ones, can alter our brain chemistry. In this case, if you want to make your case study headline more attractive, speak to the emotion of your buyer persona using the problems or pain points they care about.

Example: How one digital marketing agency identified and diverted 43% in wasted ad spend

Many factors can lead to wasted Ad spend. And this is really a problem that many business owners experience very often when working with digital marketing agencies or freelancers.

For example, the absence of a call tracking system can mean the difference between clarity and confusion regarding what is working in terms of paid advertising campaigns. This is where CallRail, a call tracking company comes in.

In this B2B case study headline example, you can see how they called out the buyer persona (a marketing agency) and the specific pain point — wasted Ad spend. You’ll also notice the use of a specific number depicting the results achieved.

Assuming you are spending $3000 per month on paid advertising, what would a 43% decrease in wasted Ad spend mean to you?

Focusing on customer pain points, below are some B2B case study headline templates you can use in your digital marketing agency or SaaS business.

1. How (your buyer persona) can overcome the inconsistent flow of quality leads within (duration)
2. How (buyer persona) found a solution to (specific and relatable pain point)
3. What would a 40% decrease in wasted Ad spend mean to (buyer persona) over 90 days?
4. Why (your buyer persona) is losing money through (a specific service)
5. How (buyer persona) went from (specific pain point) to (outcome

The Product/Service Used

Taking this factor into account will help you to give context to your case study headline. It makes the prospective buyers in need of such services or products stop and pay attention. Being that you are projecting real proof of your value propositions, it makes your brand more attractive than every other competitor that is just promising outsized gains.

Here is another reason why this is very important. You might have different types of products or services with separate value propositions. Being specific in this regard makes it easier to attract your ideal buyer persona.

Example: Kailei uses Leadpages to book her clients and sell her consulting services

Here is an example of how a coaching expert uses a specific SaaS product, LeadPages to build a sales funnel for selling her services. While this case study title looks simple, it has a little kind of context when you look at how the type of business was mentioned in the headline.

In this case, a business coach that is looking for a landing page builder might learn one or two useful tips from it. Just in mind that a powerful case study should aim to educate and inform first before selling.

Regarding product or service use cases, consider using the following case study headline templates.

1. How using (our unique product feature) led to 68% lower CPA in (specific duration)
2. How (your business name) helped (buyer persona) to achieve (specific result)
3. When getting (specific results) from (service/product name) seemed impossible
4. Why (your buyer persona) is getting (specific result) from (service/product name)
5. How (your buyer persona) can start getting (specific result) from (service/product name)

Results Achieved

This should represent the exact outcome of using your product or service. And that is what most prospective buyers need. People care more about results and solutions to their problems.

Nothing more, nothing less. Instead of merely claiming that your product or service can deliver, a B2B case study headline provides real proof.

Here you can use words or specific numbers to project the results a client or customer got from using your product or service. Another important thing worth considering within the headline is the time or duration of achieving such stipulated results.

Example: Estate Agency CPA From £139.43 To £44.11

Looking at it from different perspectives, this one can be improved by a little bit to make it more attractive. However, the main thing is that it is an example of a case study title. The key function is to highlight the buyer persona, pain point, and the result achieved.

For clarity’s sake, this case study was published by an agency specialized in real estate marketing.

If you have been in the digital advertising space for some time, you’ll understand that high cost per acquisition (CPA) is a financial pain point. Based on my observations, many people experience very often. For one thing, a high customer acquisition cost usually affects profit margin on the negative.

Here is the exact thing that could make your title relatable to someone who might be experiencing the same problem as at the time of reading your case study.

Below are some headline templates you might want to use in your case.

1. How (your buyer persona) decreased CPA from (higher number) to (lower number)
2. How (buyer personas) can decrease CPA from (higher number) to (lower number)
3. How to go from (high CPA number) to (lower CPA number) like (buyer persona)
4. How (specific strategy) led to 34% lower CPA for (a buyer persona)
5. 11 Paid Ads strategies that helped (buyer persona) to decrease CPA by 36%

As you can see, this type of result is about lowering the cost per acquisition. Consequently, a lower CPA can lead to a higher profit margin in most cases. Perhaps, it is not enough to make sales and earn revenue. But at what cost?

About The Client

Client profile information is one ingredient that case study content readers often check. And the reason is simple. Most people are looking for that factor of relatability. The usual question reads like this, is this piece related to my industry, niche, or current situation?

Here is a question that this part of your case study is supposed to answer. Regarding this B2B case study template, your job is to provide some useful details about the client or customer.

The most useful details in this case usually include things like client name, industry, or niche. Beyond that, it is also important to highlight their business model or what they provide to their clients or customers. Closely related to client overview is this other important factor discussed below.

Client Challenge/Problem

Acknowledgment of a specific problem or challenge is the usual thing that moves people to start searching for digital marketing agencies. Besides having it mentioned in your headline, highlighting the problem experienced by your client also makes the entire story relatable.

Interestingly, prospective clients currently experiencing the same problem are very likely to find value in reading the case study.

Assuming you are conducting customer interviews for your B2B case study writing, this is the question you should be asking. What was the problem you had or experienced before starting the search for a marketing agency that will help you or your business?

Another closely related question is this one.

Why was it hard or impossible for you to solve this problem? What have you or your team tried towards getting a solution to this problem?

See this as the point that word of mouth amplification or replication starts. Again, to make it more relatable, it is better to use the customers’ voice to describe these situations.

For example, the statement below can be a depiction of a specific marketing problem or challenge.

‘’For over 7 months, we were having an extremely high cost per acquisition (CPA). And that made it impossible for us to earn an impressive profit margin’’.

While you are writing this part, try to put the buyer persona in the context of dealing with such problems or challenges.

As you can see, a usable case study is not just about testimonials. Remember, you are writing a story that ought to have a beginning, middle, and end. And the goal is to attract, influence, and convince people.

Point of Contact

In the grand scheme of things, the point of contact may not deserve a separate section on its own. However, you should have it highlighted in your B2B case study writing. In the appropriate stage of your write up, try to reassure prospective buyers that it is normal to start a conversation using the same medium as the client featured in your case study.

Client Goals

Besides having a specific problem solved, most people looking for digital marketing agencies usually have some goals they want to accomplish. Based on this, the client that you or your agency wants to feature in the case study probably had a goal they wanted to achieve before coming to you.

While writing this section, consider looking into the exact goals that the client wanted to accomplish using your services. To make the narrative more interesting, try to pinpoint the obstacles they faced towards achieving the goals.

Moreover, it is also important to relate the goals to the problems they wanted to solve.

Here is another area where you may want to use the client’s voice or words to highlight the problems, goals, and obstacles that prevent them from getting to where they want to be. Below are some of the most common goals that business owners or marketers care about include the following -

• Increase organic search traffic
• Generate more quality leads
• Increase sales funnel conversion rate
• Reduce cost per lead or acquisition
• Increase return on Ad spend

As part of the storytelling formula, stating the client’s position in terms of the goal is very important. Doing this will help the reader understand where the client was before getting the results achieved through your services. Based on this, I recommend that you use specific numbers when writing the goal that your client wanted to achieve.

For example, a client might be having a 9% return on monthly Ad spend before committing to your services. And then their goal might be something achieving 15–20% ROAS.

Done very well, this will make it easier for the reader to envision what could be possible if they buy into your digital marketing services.

Services Delivered

When your agency delivers different services, being specific about those services delivered to the client in your case study is paramount. The reason for this is simple. You can find variations of the needs or problems of each prospective client reading your case study.

Assuming that I am a prospective client, it is better to tell me what your agency can do for me instead of telling me everything that you are capable of doing.

Perhaps, the best way to do this is to be specific about the exact services delivered to the client you are featuring in your B2B case study writing. If you can use the storytelling formula, relating your services to the stated problems, goals and obstacles will make everything flow perfectly.

Remember, the essence of the B2B marketing case study is to put strong social proof behind your value propositions.

Hence, it is easy for everyone to promise outsized gains in the shortest possible time. Unfortunately, it is not everyone that can prove their experience and capabilities beyond written or spoken words.

Timeline

At this point, I want to reiterate that there are no standard conventions when it comes to the B2B case study outline. The essence of this template is to clarify some of the key points you may include to make it powerful enough to attract, influence, and convince your prospects.

Regarding the timeline, there are no rules on whether to put it first, in the middle or last part of the case study. However, you should endeavor to answer the timeline question where appropriate.

One key question I want you to ask is this — when did your delivery of the services started, is it ongoing? And when did it end?

Being specific in this regard makes it possible for prospective buyer personas to understand what could be possible within your agency’s capabilities. The duration of time is also considered. In most cases, the question that prospects are asking isn’t whether an agency can deliver results. The real question is this. What results can you deliver and how long will it take you?

In terms of timeline, two things are important.

Date — when exactly did the project start? Think about the day, month, and year. To make it flow even better, see if you can relate this to the point of contact. Without a specific date, everything tends to look bland and boring.

Duration — How long did it take before the client started seeing results from your services? And how long did the project last? By using some specific numbers, your reader will have what it takes to compare the capabilities of other competing agencies.

One key point here is that people want results, including your prospective clients. And they want it fast.

Results Achieved

Results, in this case, is the key benefit of B2B marketing case studies. It helps you highlight some verifiable results you delivered to some real clients as proof of what you can also deliver to prospective clients in the same niche or similar situations. Among other things, it helps to boost your brand credibility above and beyond other brands competing with unverifiable claims.

However, there are wrong and right ways to write B2B case studies that can attract, influence, convince and move people to take the desired action.

If you have written and published some pieces on your site in the name of case studies, but you are not getting results out of it, then you might need to do something differently.

Knowing that results are the exact thing that most prospects care about, this is the place where you need to show your creative storytelling power. It is not just about stating absolute and sometimes scary numbers.

‘’Customer success stories is about connecting lots of related dots in a way that matches your prospect’s purchase intent.’’

What are these specific dots you need to connect anyway?

Think about the client’s problems, pain points, challenges, stated goals, and where they want to arrive in terms of goals. The whole thing has to flow in sync and in a relatable way. Here is the crux of using B2B case studies to entertain, inform, influence, and convince prospects.

Depending on the client’s goals, some of the key results that most business owners and marketers look for are below.

Website Traffic Volume — Depending on the client goals, getting considerable volume and consistent inflow of website visitors is a prerequisite for getting other results. Perhaps, website traffic is one of the measurable results you may want to highlight in your case study.

The most important thing is to clarify the specific services or activities that resulted in traffic growth within a specified period of the case study.

What led to what and why?

Quality Leads — Irrespective of traffic sources or volume, here is another type of result worth mentioning. The big question is — how many leads were you getting from your traffic within the period of the case study you are writing? In a case where traffic growth is not the end goal, as an Ad based business model, this question is worth answering in a way that appeals to the target prospects.

Sales Volume — Closely related to traffic volume and quality leads is actual sales generated from your services. Consistent sales are what sustains every business. Without it, your services are likely to be judged as having low value.

Based on the tracking system set up in place or the open nature of your client relationships, you should be able to record the number of sales generated within the stipulated timeline. Remember that your job is to tell a story. Make it centered on how the connection of one dot led to the results achieved over time.

Once again, it is not just about stating absolute and bland numbers.

Earned Revenue — A business owner was asked why he doesn’t care about social media metrics like shares, likes, comments, and video views. And his answer was like, ‘I cannot deposit any of those into my business bank account.’ Money makes the world go round, you know.

Based on the nature of a business, operating size, and specific goals, your marketing agency services should be helping clients grow their revenue.

Assuming your agency helped a client earn $68,000 over the a-3 months’ service period, tell us how it happened briefly. Do not just mention absolute numbers. Moreover, don’t forget it’s about storytelling.

While it might be hard to track sales and earned revenue in most cases, you have to set up a system for getting these numbers from your clients. But first, you need their consent to share some real numbers. Possibly, you may want to cover some information that might be considered sensitive or confidential.

ROI — Based on the reported sales and earned revenue, it could be relatively easier to measure the ROI achieved from using your services. For example, if I spend $6000 on your services over 3 months, what will be my ROI?

Through this stage, you need to show your prospective clients that spending money to work with you is a real investment, not a liability or a mere operating cost.

At this point, it is worth reiterating that the key benefit of B2B marketing case studies is to put strong social proof behind your value propositions. Interestingly, the best way to do that is to highlight actual and verifiable sales, earned revenue, and ROI. As important as it is, a strong desire for higher ROI is the sole reason why some people are looking for reputable marketing agencies.

In this case, it is not desirable enough to spend $2000 on certain agency services without verifiable ROI. Here is the main thing that determines the real capabilities of an agency or expert consultant.

And that is one of the factors that most prospective clients use to compare digital marketing agencies before deciding who to hire.

The Visual Component

At this point, you’ve probably heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. In this day and time, video content is even worth more than this number of words. The key factor here is that relevant visuals make case studies more attractive. If you want to alter perceptions and emotions in a storytelling context, you cannot skip this part.

Unfortunately, this is where I see a lot of marketing agency case studies fail flat. It is not enough to use mere words cut out as glossy, written testimonials with branded design.

The two most common types of visuals used in B2B case studies are images and video. There is a productized service dedicated to the professional production of video testimonials only.

But that’s not where the hook often lies. The attractive hook is in the number representing the results you got for your clients within a specific timeline.

This is the main thing that enables the readers to see themselves in the shoes of your current or past client being featured in the case study. Think about the before, during, and after timelines.

Starting from the B2B case study headline, your job is to hook, engage and influence them to think through the problems and challenges.

From there, you have to make the reader interested enough to read through the results achieved. Here is the point where real data points and impressive visuals make a lot of difference. Think about the traffic volume, quality leads, sales, earned revenue, and ROI. If you can help a client in my niche get results like these, please show; don’t tell me.

Testimonial

A direct testimonial is one of the things that make B2B case studies worth reading. However, it doesn’t have to be all about the positive outcomes. It has to start with a known negative experience, pain point, or problem. This is the key point where prospects start to see themselves in the position of your past or current clients.

The usual question goes like this — what specific problems were you trying to solve. And why was it hard or impossible to solve? In other words, what challenges were you facing when trying to solve the problem?

In some cases, it could be the lack of sufficient budget to hire a full-time marketer. On the other hand, it could be working with a generalist marketer struggling with a big workload and limited resources. The lack of transparent reporting on the side of another agency might be the reason.

While you can easily use a written or video testimonial in a stand-alone context, bringing them into a story- based case study makes the whole thing more attractive.

Though it might not be your job to determine who reads the case study. Try to be sure that the client featured and the intended readers belong to the same niche or operate the same business model. Here is another area where the factor of relatability plays an important role.

In the grand scheme of things, your specific job is to tell a story using the customer’s voice.

Tracking And Reporting

Setting clear and specific goals is one thing. Making consistent progress towards the eventual accomplishment of those goals is another different challenge. To a large extent, this has a lot to do with transparency.

While it is easy for everyone to say that their agency is very transparent, not all of these people can prove that before being hired by a client.

In my experience, a lack of transparent reporting is one dark spot that often leads to a low client retention rate. Perhaps, transparency is one big priority among people usually looking for agency services.

Concerning this specific factor, it is not enough to be making progress. It doesn’t even matter if you are facing challenges towards the stated client goals. You have to carry the client along the journey.

Fortunately, there are many powerful tools for tracking and reporting. Some will even make it very easy to share access with your clients.

Your job in the case study then is to show the reporting process to your prospective clients.

Conclusion

If you have spent time reading up to this point, I want to think that you’ve gotten some value out of this piece. When you reach the conclusion part of your case study, it is time to invite your reader to some specific call to action. Unfortunately, this is where I see a lot of people make a mistake.

They ignore the call to action part completely. This singular mistake decreases the potential for generating leads or sales from the case study you spend money or time writing.

Below are some specific types of call to action examples you can use.

• Request campaign or website audit
• Sign up for a free trial
• Schedule a demo call
• Enter a giveaway contest
• Sign up for a free trial or download

From there, you can start tracking how the case studies are contributing to your overall content marketing, lead generation, and revenue goals. Without any form of tracking, your commitment to case study content creation might end up in a pure waste of time and money.

At this point, if you need someone to help you write SEO optimized blog posts, ebook lead magnets, case studies, website copy and guest posts, consider getting in touch now.