marketing company case study

10 Marketing Case Study Examples: Learn How to Master Them in Your Campaigns

There are millions of blog posts, articles, and videos across the internet that try to give you advice about marketing. According to Google, at least 7,050,000 unique content pieces include the phrase “marketing tips.”

But with plenty of outdated and filler content creation to just build out a website, it’s hard to find applicable advice that actually works online.

In this article, you’ll learn from marketing case study examples that demonstrate what it takes to master channels like social media, email marketing , and PPC, as well as how to use case studies in your own campaigns.

Don’t rely on empty words. Learn powerful marketing best practices that are backed up with examples and data.

What is a marketing case study?

In marketing, a case study is an in-depth study of the effectiveness of a certain tool, tactic, or strategy. It focuses on measurable outcomes, like an increase in sales, visitors, or production hours.

Typically, it includes a few key elements:

• Introduction to the customer/client
• The problem the client needed to solve (should align with problems prospective clients also need to solve)
• The solution (and context of why your company/software was the right fit)
• Data from before and after implementing the solution

In a sense, a case study documents the journey of working with your company. And it gives potential future customers a reason to trust your company.

What are the different types of case studies in marketing?

In marketing, three main types of case studies are commonly used:

1. Third-person or client case studies: These highlight the experience of a specific client working with your company or using your product.

2. Explanatory case studies: These case studies explore the impact of a phenomenon or tactic, such as the company’s marketing strategy, and how it impacted its growth. In this case, it’s not based on first-hand experience, but rather observation and inference.

3. Implementation case studies: An implementation case study takes the average client case study a bit further, focusing on the actual implementation and covering it in detail.

You can also divide the case studies further by the type of medium they use — video or text.

And in 2024, video case studies are becoming more and more popular. Many companies even use them as remarketing ads to address potential objections.

Why should you use case studies?

Case studies are a powerful way to prove that your products or services work, showcase your expertise, and build trust with potential customers.

It’s a way to transition away from just “telling” your customers and instead start “showing” them through examples. There’s a reason the old copywriting maxim goes, “Show, don’t tell.”

Consumers’ trust in companies to tell the truth in advertising materials is lower than ever. In 2020, only 14% of consumers said they trust advertising to be honest about a product or service.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t generate trust with your company’s website.

Consumers trust third-party reviews, testimonials, and data. In fact, 91% of 18–34-year-olds trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

So you need social proof. And client case studies — especially those that interview the current clients — are the best of both worlds. You get to highlight data while getting powerful social proof that shows that your product works.

When just adding a simple customer testimonial to your website can increase conversion rates by up to 34% , imagine what a detailed, compelling case study can do.

1. Email marketing case study: Your Therapy Source

If you think that email is a marketing medium of the past, think again. At ActiveCampaign, we have hundreds of recent case studies that prove the opposite.

For example, Your Therapy Source receives a 2000% return on investment (ROI) from our campaigns simply by taking advantage of basic marketing automation .

In particular, a basic abandoned cart email represents around 30% of all revenue generated by automations.

With ActiveCampaign, that’s incredibly easy to set up. You can take advantage of our integrations with key e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce , Shopify , and more.

Because the case study goes into detail about exactly how the company achieved the results, it’s a combination of an implementation case study and a regular third-person case study.

2. Instagram marketing case study: Converse

If you look at all the top Instagram accounts in clothing, Converse has a much higher engagement rate than its competitors.

At 1.79%, their social media posts have an organic engagement rate over 15 times higher than Nike.

Why is that?

Let’s take a closer look at how they achieve these numbers:

When looking at Converse’s top Instagram posts, you quickly notice a trend. Collaborations with influential creators and artists — lately Tyler, the Creator — get a different level of engagement.

The post promoting their new collaboration shoe got over 183,000 likes in a few weeks. Converse even took it a step further and produced a short film with Tyler.

If you want to reach a wider number of people, combining audiences is a great strategy.

This is an example of an explanatory case study.

First, we worked backward from Converse’s powerful Instagram results. Then, we identified tactics that contribute to their high levels of engagement.

Because we didn’t work directly with Converse, and we’re only observing as an outsider, this is an explanatory case study.

3. Content marketing case study: porch.com

Fractl is a content marketing agency that worked with porch.com for over a year to earn 931 unique domain links, 23,000 monthly organic visits, and more.

The case study focuses on results over method — that means it’s a typical third-person case study.

They’re showcasing the results the company generated for a specific outside client without getting into the how-to.

These types of case studies are most useful for persuading hesitant potential customers to get on board. Showing that you’ve generated results for similar companies or people in the past is the best way to prove your skill set.

Depending on your target audience, going into detail with an implementation case study may be a better option.

4. SEO case study: Zapier study by Ryan Berg

This in-depth case study by Ryan Berg is a perfect example of how you can use explanatory case studies in your marketing.

It breaks down Zapier’s SEO strategy and how they created over 25,000 unique landing pages to improve their search rankings for different search terms.

Zapier’s main strategy revolves around targeting relevant long-tail keywords like “app A + app B integration.” That’s the key they used to generate serious organic traffic over the long term.

By breaking down industry leaders and how they rose to success, you can borrow some of their brand power and credibility.

You can use these kinds of case studies if your current clients don’t allow you to go into detail about the tactics you use to grow their online presence.

These case studies demonstrate to potential clients that you know what you’re talking about and have the expertise needed to help them succeed in their industry.

5. PPC case study: Google Ads and Saraf Furniture

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, Google was one of the earliest innovators. And in 2021, it’s still the largest digital advertiser globally, with $146.92 billion in ad revenue in 2020.

You might not think they need any more credibility, but Google still uses case studies, especially in emerging markets like India.

This case study shows how Google Ads helped Saraf Furniture generate 10 times more inbound leads each month and hire 1,500 new carpenters as a result.

Without going into details about the methods, it’s another typical third-person case study designed to build trust.

6. Video marketing case study: L’Oréal and YouTube

In this case study, various members of L’Oréal’s global marketing team break down exactly how they used YouTube ads to launch a new product.

As a result of the campaign, they were able to establish their new product as the No. 2 in its category and earn 34% of all mass sales across a network of online retailers.

The case study breaks down how they used YouTube for different stages — from awareness to loyalty. It’s another example of a third-person implementation case study.

7. Remarketing case study: AdRoll and Yoga Democracy

AdRoll is a remarketing platform that tracks your visitors and lets you show them targeted ads across the internet.

Their case study with Yoga Democracy perfectly showcases the power of the platform.

Look at these highlights:

• 200% increase in conversions
• 50% reduction in CPA
• 19% of total revenue attributed to AdRoll

These are metrics you’d love to show any potential customer. The case study goes into detail about how they built an effective remarketing campaign, including cart recovery emails and ads.

Because of the detail, you can classify this as an implementation case study.

8. Influencer marketing case study: Trend and WarbyParker

This influencer marketing case study from Warby Parker and Trend showcases how you can use influencer marketing even with a limited budget.

The “Wearing Warby” campaign was centered around showcasing influencers wearing Warby Parker glasses in their everyday life.

From mundane tasks like eating breakfast to artists creating a new masterpiece — it showcased Warby Parker’s products in use and made the brand more approachable for influencers’ followers.

This is another third-person case study, as it doesn’t go into much detail beyond the results.

9. Customer experience case study: App Annie and Coca-Cola

In this case study, Greg Chambers, the director of innovation for Coca-Cola, explains what App Annie brings to the table.

Instead of specific numbers and metrics, it focuses on the big-picture benefits that App Annie has on Coca-Cola’s customer experience.

The video interview format is also perfect for driving trust with potential customers.

Again, this is a typical third-person case study that you see a lot in the marketing world.

10. SaaS case study: Asana and Carta

Of course, it’s not just agencies and advertising platforms that need to master the use of case studies in digital marketing.

Let’s explore an example of a case study outside the marketing industry, in this case specifically for B2B marketers.

Asana is a project management platform that helps companies make their workflows more efficient.

It’s a good example of a case study that focuses more on the lived experience and less on the metrics.

This is a third-person case study that is closer to a client interview or testimonial, which is a good option if it’s hard to quantify improvements with metrics.

Best practices: How to use case studies in your own marketing campaigns

In this section, you’ll learn best practices to help you maximize the value of case studies in your own marketing campaigns.

Let’s look at four steps you can take to effectively use case studies.

Include a dedicated case study/customer stories page on your website

Most companies with a successful online presence have one of these pages. Emulate the top competitors in your industry by creating an improved version of their pages.

You can also add a case studies section to your resources page or blog.

Build CTAs into your case study pages

The chances are low that a random Googler will make it to your case studies. Most likely, it’s someone who thinks they might need your product.

So don’t be afraid to include calls to action throughout your case study pages.

Share case studies as part of your email marketing campaigns

Email marketing is hands-down the best channel for nurturing potential needs . That means you should always use case studies and customer success stories in your campaigns.

But it’s important that it doesn’t feel too promotional. Instead, share the unique steps they took to ensure success to deliver value, not just pitch.

Use case study video ads to overcome objections

When you’re thinking about buying a product, it’s easy to talk yourself out of it.

“It’s too expensive.” “It won’t work for me.” There are a lot of excuses and objections out there.

A case study video can be a powerful tool to overcome these objections in potential buyers.

Don’t overlook case studies when you’re planning your next marketing campaign. Towards the bottom end of the funnel, in stages like decision and action, they’re a powerful marketing tool.

When used right, case studies will help you fill your sales pipeline and provide your sales team with qualified leads.

Hopefully, the examples in this article taught you how you can use case studies in social media, email, and content marketing strategy to further your business goals.

You should also have learned how to use case studies to sell your company’s expertise.

If you want to grow your business, it’s crucial to learn from the people who have gone before you. In marketing, trying to learn all principles from scratch through trial and error would be a costly mistake.

If you’re ready to take advantage of marketing automation and email marketing tools that help similar businesses generate ROIs of 20x or higher, start your ActiveCampaign trial today .

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15 Marketing Case Study Examples With Standout Success Stories

Some marketing campaigns leave a lasting impression. We’ve gathered insights from CEOs and marketing leaders to share one standout marketing case study that resonates with them.

Tomas Laurinavicius

Table of Contents

Dove’s real beauty campaign impact, oatly’s bold brand strategy, rockervox’s tax credit success, local bookstore’s community engagement, coca-cola’s personalized brand experience, dropbox’s viral referral program, authentic influencer marketing for cpg brand, airbnb’s “we accept” social impact, amul’s topical and humorous campaigns, axe’s “find your magic” brand refresh, squatty potty’s humorous viral video, old spice’s viral humor campaign, red bull stratos’s high-flying publicity, maple dental’s seo success story, dollar shave club’s viral launch video.

Some marketing campaigns leave a lasting impression.

We’ve gathered insights from CEOs and marketing leaders to share one standout marketing case study that resonates with them.

From Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign’s impact to Dollar Shave Club’s viral launch video, explore fifteen memorable marketing triumphs that these experts can’t forget.

• AXE’s ‘Find Your Magic’ Brand Refresh

One marketing case study that has always stayed with me is the Dove Real Beauty Campaign. It really struck a chord when it launched in 2004, challenging the beauty standards and celebrating women’s diversity. What made it stand out was the “Real Beauty Sketches” video, where women described themselves to a sketch artist. Seeing the stark contrast between their self-perceptions and how others saw them was incredibly eye-opening and touching.

What I found so compelling about this campaign was its message of self-acceptance and empowerment. Dove didn’t just try to sell products; they took a stand for something much bigger, and it resonated deeply with people. Using video storytelling was a genius move as it made the message more impactful and shareable. I believe Dove showed how brands can make a real difference by addressing important social issues in an authentic and meaningful way.

Nicole Dunn , CEO, PR and Marketing Expert, Dunn Pellier Media

As a content and brand marketer, Oatly’s brand strategy always inspires me. They are a textbook example of comprehensive brand-building.

Their visual style is instantly recognizable—bold, disruptive, and often filled with humor, making oat milk a statement and something you’d be proud to display on your shelves or socials.

Their tone of voice is witty, sometimes cheeky. They’ve even printed negative feedback on their packaging, which really just shows how they court controversy to spark conversations and enhance their brand’s visibility.

And there’s a strong story behind Oatly, too. They promote sustainability and aren’t shy about their environmental impact, which has simply helped them grow an enthusiastic community of environmental advocates. Clever in endless ways, such that tons of oat milk brands have followed suit.

Wisia Neo , Content Marketing Manager, ViB

One standout marketing case study that sticks with me is the implementation of our RockerVox Restaurant Bundle, aimed at optimizing cash flow through targeted use of employer-based tax credits. The power of this case study lies in its immediate financial impact on the client, a local restaurant chain that was struggling to keep its doors open in the wake of the pandemic.

By integrating the Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) and other relevant tax schemes into their payroll setup, we enabled the restaurant to reclaim a significant amount in tax credits. The real game-changer was not just the financial relief but also how it was achieved. We combined this with StaffedUp’s Applicant Tracking System, which improved their hiring processes and decreased employee turnover. This holistic approach led to a sustainable improvement in their operations and cash flow.

What made this case study so great was its tangible results. The restaurant saw a cash flow improvement of over 100%. This wasn’t just a number on a report—it meant being able to invest back into the business, enhance their services, and ultimately, keep their community fed and employed. This approach of integrating technology with financial strategy can be adapted by other businesses striving for similar resilience and growth, especially in times of economic difficulty.

Philip Wentworth, Jr , Co-Founder and CEO, Rockerbox

Certainly, one particularly impactful marketing strategy I led at FireRock Marketing involved a small local bookstore that was facing steep competition from online retailers. Our challenge was to increase foot traffic and reinforce the store’s brand presence in a highly digitalized market.

We initiated a campaign called “Local Pages, Local Stages,” where we leveraged digital marketing alongside community engagement. The bookstore held monthly events featuring local authors and artists, which we promoted heavily through targeted social media ads, email marketing, and local influencer partnerships. This multifaceted approach tapped into the community’s growing interest in supporting local ventures, enhancing visibility significantly.

The outcomes were remarkable. Over the campaign’s six-month duration, in-store sales increased by 40%, and the bookstore saw a 65% rise in attendance at events, which also boosted ancillary revenue from merchandise and cafe sales. Additionally, social media engagement metrics increased by over 150%, reflecting greater brand awareness.

This case study sticks with me because it exemplifies the power of combining digital strategies with community-based marketing to create a sustainable growth model. It shows how businesses can use holistic, integrated approaches to effectively adapt to new consumer behaviors and competitive landscapes.

Ryan Esco , Chief Marketing Officer, FireRock Marketing

A memorable marketing case study is the “Share a Coke” campaign by Coca-Cola. Initially launched in Australia in 2011, this campaign personalized the Coke experience by replacing the iconic Coca-Cola logo on bottles with common first names.

The idea was to encourage people to find bottles with their names or those of their friends and family, creating a more personal connection to the brand. The campaign was an enormous hit and was quickly rolled out worldwide, incorporating more names and even terms of endearment in different languages.

The brilliance of this campaign lay in its use of personalization, which tapped directly into the social media trend of sharing personal moments. People enthusiastically shared their personalized Coke bottles on various social media platforms, significantly amplifying the campaign’s reach beyond traditional advertising media.

This strategy boosted sales and reinforced Coca-Cola’s position as a fun and innovative brand. The “Share a Coke” campaign is a powerful example of how traditional products can be revitalized through creative marketing strategies that engage consumers personally.

Sahil Kakkar , CEO and Founder, RankWatch

For me, a standout marketing case study that really sticks with me is Dropbox’s referral program strategy back in their early days. By offering free storage space for every successful referral, they incentivized existing users to spread the word organically, resulting in exponential growth at virtually no acquisition cost.

What made this case study so brilliant was how elegantly it aligned product experience with viral sharing. Users had a vested interest in sharing Dropbox since it directly expanded their own cloud storage. This created a self-perpetuating cycle where better product engagement fueled more referrals, which then improved engagement further.

It was an ingenious lever that capitalized on the inherent sharing dynamics of their service to ignite explosive growth. The simplicity and potency of this growth hack is what truly resonates as a paragon of effective guerrilla marketing.

Ben Walker , Founder and CEO, Ditto Transcripts

One marketing case study that has always stuck with me was a campaign I led for a major CPG brand a few years back. The goal was to increase awareness and trial of their new line of organic snacks among millennial moms in a crowded market.

We developed an influencer seeding strategy focused on relatable mom micro-influencers on Instagram. Instead of just sending products, we worked with the influencers to develop authentic content that told real stories about the role of snacking and nutrition in busy family life. The photos and videos felt genuine, not overly polished or promotional.

Engagement was through the roof—the content resonated so strongly with the target audience. By the end of the 3-month campaign, we increased awareness by 45% and trial by over 20%. The CPG brand was thrilled, and the case study became an example we still reference today of the power of influencer marketing done right. Authenticity wins.

Gert Kulla , CEO, RedBat.Agency

One marketing case study that stuck with me was the Airbnb “We Accept” campaign, launched in 2017, focusing on social impact. This response to the global refugee crisis aimed to promote inclusivity, diversity, and acceptance within communities worldwide.

What made this case study remarkable was its ability to leverage the Airbnb platform to facilitate connections between hosts and displaced persons, providing them with temporary housing and support.

Airbnb demonstrated its commitment to using its platform for social good and making a tangible difference in the lives of those in need. This aligned with its mission to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.

At the end of the day, Airbnb’s “We Accept” campaign was a compelling case study showing brands how to address social issues, promote inclusivity, and drive positive change in communities worldwide.

Peter Bryla , Community Manager, ResumeLab

One standout marketing case study that sticks with me is the “Amul” marketing campaigns by Amul, the iconic Indian dairy cooperative, make for excellent and impactful case studies as well. Here’s why Amul’s marketing stands out:

The Amul Girl – The mascot of a mischievous, friendly butter girl has become one of India’s most recognizable brand icons since her inception in 1966. Her presence on topical ads commenting on the latest news and pop culture trends has made Amul’s billboards a long-standing source of joy and relevance.

Topicality – Amul’s billboards and newspaper ads are renowned for their topicality and ability to humorously comment on major events, celebrity happenings, and political developments within hours. This real-time marketing has kept the brand part of daily conversations for decades.

Humor – The not-so-secret sauce is the brilliant use of puns, wordplay, and satirical humor that Amul consistently delivers through the eyes of the Amul Girl. The healthy, inoffensive jokes have earned a cult following.

Longevity – Very few brands can boast an equally iconic and successful campaign running for over 50 years, still keeping audiences engaged across multiple generations. The long-running property itself has become a case study in sustaining relevance.

Local Connect – While achieving pan-India recognition, the puns often play on regional language nuances, striking a chord with Amul’s Gujarati roots and building a personal connection with local consumers.

The impact of Amul’s long-running topical billboard campaign is unmatched—it has not only strengthened brand recognition and loyalty but has also made the cooperative a beloved part of India’s popular culture and daily life. Creativity, agility, and contextual marketing at its best!

Yash Gangwal , Founder, Urban Monkey

Axe (Lynx in the UK) had created a problematic brand image from past marketing efforts. Their focus on ‘attraction is connected to conquest’ hadn’t dissuaded men from buying their deodorants, but had a toxic effect on perceptions of women. Research conducted on brand equity showed that brand equity was declining, with this perception of the brand aging poorly and desperately needing a refresh to continue allowing the brand to be relevant for the future.

That led to a superb partnership with creative agency 72andSunny Amsterdam. Unilever was able to tap into an entirely new philosophy for its brand:

Empower men to be the most attractive man they could be – themselves.

With that idea in mind, 2016 saw the launch of the AXE ‘Find Your Magic’ commercial, a stunning celebration of the diversity of modern masculinity. The campaign also saw the release of a new range of premium grooming products and a supporting influencer marketing campaign featuring brand ambassadors, including John Legend.

While not all parts of the creative were successful, the campaign drove more than 39 million views and 4 billion media impressions in the first quarter after the launch. But most critically, AXE saw a 30+% increase in positive perception of their brand.

This campaign will stand the test of time because it combines several important and brave initiatives:

• A forward-thinking mentality that the brand image you have today may not be suited for a future world
• A broader understanding of what your customer base looks like – women also play a big role in men’s choice of deodorant
• A big and bold attempt to change the way your brand is perceived – and succeeding with flying colors.

Yannis Dimitroulas , SEO and Digital Marketing Specialist, Front & Centre

One standout marketing case study that sticks with me is the campaign for Squatty Potty. The brand created a humorous video featuring a unicorn pooping rainbow ice cream to demonstrate the benefits of using their product. This unconventional approach garnered widespread attention and went viral, generating millions of views and shares on social media platforms.

The success of this campaign can be attributed to its creative storytelling, humor, and shock value, which made it memorable and engaging for viewers. By thinking outside the box and taking a risk with their messaging, Squatty Potty was able to create a unique and effective marketing strategy that resonated with consumers.

This case study serves as a reminder that creativity and originality can set a brand apart in a crowded marketplace, ultimately leading to increased brand awareness and customer engagement.

Carly Hill , Operations Manager, Virtual Holiday Party

The Old Spice ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ campaign remains etched in my memory. Its brilliance lies in its humor and creativity. By featuring a charismatic spokesperson and employing absurd scenarios, it captured viewers’ attention and went viral.

The campaign seamlessly integrated across platforms, from TV to social media, maximizing its reach. Its cleverness and entertainment value made it unforgettable, setting a benchmark for engaging marketing strategies. The case study showcases the importance of storytelling and humor in capturing audience interest and driving brand awareness.

Dan Ponomarenko , CEO, Webvizio

A marketing case study that has made a lasting impression on me is the Red Bull Stratos Jump. This campaign was for Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking jump from the edge of space, sponsored by Red Bull. The goal of this campaign was to create buzz and generate brand awareness through this extreme event.

The reason why this case study stands out to me is because of its successful execution in capturing the attention and interest of not just extreme sports enthusiasts, but also the general public.

The live broadcast of Baumgartner’s jump on various channels and social media platforms garnered over 52 million views, making it one of the most-watched live events ever. Red Bull’s strategic use of real-time marketing, storytelling, and high-quality visuals made this campaign a huge success, resulting in a significant increase in sales and brand recognition for the company.

This case study serves as a great example of how a well-planned and executed marketing campaign can effectively reach and engage with a wide audience.

Brian Hemmerle , Founder and CEO, Kentucky Sell Now

One standout marketing case study that resonates with me is the SEO transformation for Maple Dental. This campaign dramatically improved their local online visibility, leading to a substantial increase in new patient appointments. The integration of Google Maps SEO proved to be a game-changer, emphasizing the power of local search optimization in attracting nearby clients.

What made this case study exceptional was the measurable impact on the clinic’s business. For instance, the campaign led to a 230% increase in phone calls and a 223% increase in website visits. Such clear, quantifiable results showcased a direct contribution to business growth. These metrics are vital for demonstrating the return on investment in digital marketing efforts.

Additionally, the use of a targeted approach to enhance Google Maps visibility was particularly compelling. By optimizing their presence on Google Maps, Maple Dental saw a 250% increase in monthly maps impressions, which directly correlated with increased patient inquiries and visits.

Ihor Lavrenenko , CEO, Dental SEO Expert

One case study that always comes to mind is Dollar Shave Club’s launch video in 2012. It was called “Our Blades Are F*cking Great,” and let’s just say it got people talking! This video was hilarious and totally different from those fancy shaving commercials we were used to seeing. It spoke directly to guys, poked fun at expensive razor prices, and offered a way to get awesome blades for much less.

Additionally, it told everyone to check out their website. It was short, catchy, and made a huge impact. This is a perfect example of how a creative and funny video can grab attention, make people remember your brand, and get them to become customers.

Perry Zheng , Founder and CEO, Pallas

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40 Detailed Digital Marketing Case Studies [2024]

In the rapidly evolving digital era, the effectiveness of marketing tactics can have a huge impact on the brand’s success. This collection of 40 detailed digital marketing case studies from globally recognized companies offers a deep dive into the tactical approaches and innovative solutions that have reshaped consumer interactions and carved success stories across various industries. From leveraging cutting-edge technologies like augmented reality and artificial intelligence to embracing community-driven initiatives and personalized user experiences, each case study presents a unique challenge faced by the brand, the strategic response implemented, and the resultant impact on market presence and consumer loyalty. These 40 narratives not only highlight the transformative potential of effective digital marketing but also serve as a valuable learning resource for marketing professionals seeking to understand the dynamics of customer engagement and brand growth in the digital era.

Related: Surprising Digital Marketing Statistics & Facts

1. Airbnb – Leveraging User-Generated Content

Task or Conflict:

Airbnb, despite its revolutionary concept, faced significant challenges in scaling trust and global brand awareness. Operating in a highly competitive travel industry, Airbnb needed a cost-effective strategy to resonate emotionally and authentically with potential customers worldwide, without resorting to expensive traditional marketing techniques.

To overcome this challenge, Airbnb capitalized on user-generated content by motivating both parties to share their unique lodging experiences through images and stories on different platforms. They facilitated this by creating hashtags and launching contests to motivate participation. Airbnb’s strategy was not merely about collecting content but about fostering a community-centric brand that values customer experiences and stories as the core of its marketing.

Overall Impact:

• Considerable increase in organic reach across different online platforms.
• Enhanced brand trust and credibility, which translated into increased bookings globally.

Key Learnings:

• User-generated content can serve as an impactful and economical marketing tool.
• Building a brand community can help in enhanced user loyalty and organic brand promotion.

2. Nike – Digital Brand Transformation

Nike faced the challenge of maintaining relevance and connection with its diverse consumer base in a rapidly changing digital landscape. As consumer behaviors shifted towards more digital interactions and personalized experiences, Nike needed to find innovative ways to engage with its audience beyond traditional advertising and retail settings.

Nike addressed this challenge by fully embracing digital transformation with the launch of various mobile applications, such as the Nike Training Club and Nike Run Club, which integrated workout plans, running tracking, and community challenges into their user experience. They also harnessed the power of data analytics to offer personalized product recommendations and tailored fitness advice, thereby creating a more engaging and customized user journey.

• Drastically improved user engagement rates, with millions of downloads and active users on their apps.
• Strengthened brand loyalty and community feel among Nike customers, leading to increased sales both online and in-store.
• Digital tools and apps can significantly enhance customer engagement and loyalty when used to provide value beyond the traditional sales experience.
• Personalization and community building are crucial for maintaining brand relevance in a digital-first consumer market.

3. Tesco – Virtual Store

Tesco was looking to expand its market presence in South Korea without the substantial costs associated with opening new physical stores. The challenge was to reach a tech-savvy and time-constrained commuter population who valued convenience and efficiency in their shopping experiences.

Tesco’s innovative solution was to create virtual stores in subway stations, where busy commuters could shop while waiting for their train. They placed life-sized billboards of store shelves with products bearing QR codes in subway stations. Commuters could scan these codes using Tesco’s mobile app to add items to their virtual shopping cart, making their daily commute time productive for shopping.

• Positioned Tesco as the top online grocery retailer in South Korea.
• Achieved a substantial increase in customer base and online sales, effectively transforming the grocery shopping experience.
• Digital innovations that blend into the daily routines of customers can lead to high engagement and conversion rates.
• Utilizing commonplace technology like QR codes can effectively connect the physical and digital shopping environments, catering to the modern consumer’s desire for convenience and efficiency.

4. Spotify – Data-Driven Personalization

Spotify faced the challenge of differentiating itself in the saturated music streaming market. With numerous services offering similar catalogues of music, Spotify needed to find a way to stand out and retain users in a competitive landscape where user preferences and engagement could make a significant difference.

Spotify’s approach was to harness the vast amounts of data they collected on user listening habits to create hyper-personalized experiences. They developed algorithms for features like “Discover Weekly,” which provides users with a playlist tailored to their tastes every week. This strategy was rooted in predictive analytics and machine learning, aiming to anticipate user preferences and introduce them to new music seamlessly.

• Considerably increased user engagement on the platform.
• Boosted subscription rates as users found more value in personalized content.
• Leveraging user data for personalization can highly distinguish a service in the market.
• Continuous innovation in user experience can drive both retention and acquisition.

5. Domino’s Pizza – Digital Ordering Innovation

Domino’s was striving to enhance sales and streamline the customer ordering process. The fast-food industry is notoriously competitive, and Domino’s needed to innovate to make ordering as convenient and quick as possible for customers seeking instant gratification.

Domino’s revolutionized the digital ordering process by introducing an array of ordering methods, including a pioneering “pizza emoji” text order system and a robust digital platform that works seamlessly across various devices. They also utilized voice recognition and artificial intelligence to predict customer preferences and speed up the ordering process.

• Digital orders rose dramatically to account for a huge portion of total sales.
• The company’s stock price increased due to improved operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
• Streamlining the customer experience with technology can lead to substantial increases in sales and efficiency.
• Innovative ordering options can set a company apart in a competitive industry.

Related: How to learn Digital Marketing?

6. GoPro – Harnessing Advocacy

GoPro needed to amplify its brand presence and deepen user engagement in a market where consumers are bombarded with countless digital advertisements. The challenge was to make GoPro not just a product but a part of its customers’ adventure narratives.

GoPro’s strategy focused on turning their customers into brand ambassadors by encouraging them to share their thrilling videos and images taken with GoPro cameras. They launched the “GoPro Awards” to incentivize user content submission with rewards, effectively using this content in their marketing campaigns to showcase the camera’s capabilities.

• Enhanced brand loyalty and created a massive repository of authentic user-generated content.
• Fostered a strong community of GoPro users who are engaged and regularly contribute content.
• Encouraging user-generated content can create a vibrant community and provide authentic marketing material.
• Rewarding customer contributions can increase engagement and brand loyalty.

7. ZARA – Agile Social Media Strategies

ZARA faced the challenge of maintaining its fast-fashion leadership while transitioning to a digital-first retail approach. They needed to keep up with rapid fashion trends and consumer expectations on social media, where trends can change overnight.

ZARA employed an agile social media strategy that mirrored its renowned supply chain flexibility. They quickly adapted campaigns and content to reflect the latest fashion trends and consumer feedback, using a data-driven approach to tailor their marketing efforts to real-time insights.

• Increased engagement on social media platforms, driving both online and offline traffic.
• Enhanced brand perception as trendy and responsive among consumers.
• Agility in social media marketing can effectively align with and capitalize on consumer trends.
• Data-driven content adaptation can lead to higher consumer engagement and satisfaction.

8. Slack – B2B Content Marketing

Slack needed to establish itself in the crowded B2B tech market, where differentiation is crucial for capturing the attention of business customers. The challenge was not only to stand out but also to articulate the value of Slack’s platform in streamlining communication across diverse teams and enterprises.

Slack’s strategy involved utilizing high-quality, informative content marketing to address common communication challenges faced by businesses. They created a variety of content types, including case studies, whitepapers, and blogs, which demonstrated how Slack enhances productivity and integrates with various business tools. This approach helped position Slack as a thought leader in workplace communication.

• Successfully established thought leadership in the B2B communications sphere.
• Saw a significant increase in adoption rates among businesses, leading to a larger user base.
• High-value content that addresses specific industry pain points can effectively engage and convert B2B audiences.
• Establishing thought leadership through content is vital for differentiation in the B2B technology sector.

9. Unilever (Dove) – Campaign for Real Beauty

Dove sought to challenge beauty industry norms and redefine what beauty means to women around the world. The brand faced the task of shifting perceptions in a market saturated with idealized, often unattainable beauty standards, to foster a broader, more inclusive definition of beauty.

Dove launched the “Campaign for Real Beauty” by featuring real women with diverse body types, ages, and ethnicities in their advertisements. This strategy was complemented by a series of videos, workshops, and storytelling initiatives that highlighted personal beauty stories, aiming to inspire confidence among women and provoke conversations about beauty standards.

• Successfully shifted consumer perception of beauty, promoting a more inclusive view.
• Strengthened customer loyalty and brand alignment with core values of diversity and authenticity.
• Marketing campaigns that resonate emotionally and challenge societal norms can create powerful brand affinity.
• Authenticity in advertising can lead to deeper customer connections and loyalty.

10. Coca-Cola – Share a Coke Campaign

Coca-Cola needed to rejuvenate its brand and increase beverage consumption among younger demographics globally. The challenge was to create a personalized connection with consumers in a way that felt genuine and encouraged social sharing.

Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign replaced the iconic Coca-Cola logo on bottles with common first names and invited people to find bottles with their names or those of their friends and family. The campaign was amplified through social media, encouraging customers to share their personalized Coke bottles online using specific hashtags.

• Revitalized global brand engagement, particularly among teens and young adults.
• Triggered a worldwide trend of personalized consumer goods that led to increased sales.
• Personalization at a mass scale can effectively engage consumers and foster a personal connection with the brand.
• Social media can be a impactful tool for amplifying interactive marketing operations and driving consumer participation.

Related: Design Tools to help you become a better Digital Marketer

11. Amazon – Prime Day Optimization

Amazon sought to boost its annual Prime Day sales and enhance customer loyalty in a market crowded with competing sales events. The challenge was to distinguish Prime Day from other sales and drive both participation and revenue across global markets.

Amazon utilized targeted email marketing campaigns, personalized shopping recommendations, and exclusive Prime member promotions to drive engagement. They also leveraged their massive logistics network to ensure fast delivery, enhancing the customer experience and encouraging repeat purchases during the event.

• Record-breaking sales figures each year, surpassing previous Prime Day events.
• Increased Prime membership sign-ups, reinforcing customer loyalty and recurring revenue.
• Personalization and exclusive benefits can effectively drive participation and customer loyalty during large-scale promotional events.
• Efficient logistical support can enhance customer satisfaction and drive repeat business during high-demand periods.

12. LEGO – Reviving a Brand

LEGO faced a severe decline in sales in the early 2000s, with risks of bankruptcy looming due to outdated product offerings and a failure to engage a new generation of children.

LEGO revamped its marketing strategy by integrating digital experiences with physical play. This included partnerships with popular franchises for themed LEGO sets and developing interactive digital platforms where children could share their creations.

• Successfully reversed the sales decline, returning to profitability.
• Expanded their customer base to include both children and nostalgic adults.
• Combining digital experiences with traditional products can breathe new life into classic brands.
• Strategic partnerships can effectively expand market reach and relevance.

13. Ford – Euro 2020 Sponsorship Activation

Ford aimed to leverage its sponsorship of the UEFA Euro 2020 to enhance its brand visibility and connect with a diverse European audience, amidst a cluttered advertising environment.

Ford developed an interactive campaign that included a virtual reality experience allowing fans to “sit” in a Ford while taking a virtual tour of football stadiums. They also used real-time social media updates linked to game events to engage viewers.

• Increased brand engagement across Europe, particularly during game times.
• Enhanced brand association with innovation and excitement.
• Out-of-the-box advertising can develop unforgettable brand experiences and enhance user engagement.
• Real-time social media engagement can effectively capitalize on event-driven marketing opportunities.

14. IBM – Smarter Planet Initiative

IBM wanted to position itself not just as a technology provider but as a thought leader addressing global challenges through innovation, needing to shift public perception and increase business engagements in new verticals.

The “Smarter Planet” campaign was launched, utilizing extensive content marketing, including thought leadership articles, case studies, and partnerships with academic institutions to demonstrate how technology can solve real-world problems.

• Successfully shifted IBM’s brand perception towards that of a global innovator.
• Increased engagement in new industry verticals, including healthcare and renewable energy.
• Thought leadership can effectively shift brand perception and open new market opportunities.
• Content marketing can be a dominant device for demonstrating product relevance and company values.

15. Adidas – Digital Shoe Launch

Adidas needed to launch a new line of running shoes and wanted to stand out in a highly competitive market, aiming to reach a global audience while highlighting the technological advancements in their product.

Adidas created an augmented reality app that allowed users to virtually try on shoes and participate in a digital scavenger hunt that led them through interactive challenges based on shoe features. This was complemented by influencer partnerships to drive awareness and engagement.

• Generated significant global buzz and high consumer engagement online.
• Achieved high sales volumes immediately following the launch.
• Innovative use of augmented reality can provide engaging and unique consumer experiences.
• Influencer partnerships can amplify reach and credibility in product launches.

Related: Simple Ways to get better at Digital Marketing

16. Pepsi – Refresh Project

Pepsi aimed to rejuvenate its brand and foster a positive corporate image in the face of growing health concerns about sugary drinks. They needed a campaign that would resonate broadly and foster substantial consumer engagement.

The Pepsi Refresh Project was a community-focused campaign that allowed people to submit and vote on projects for Pepsi to fund. The initiative focused on social good and community development, utilizing social media platforms to maximize engagement and participation.

• Improved brand image as socially responsible.
• Created widespread consumer engagement through voting and participation in the campaign.
• Brand alignment with social responsibility can enhance corporate image and customer engagement.
• Interactive and community-focused campaigns can drive substantial consumer participation and loyalty.

17. Samsung – Galaxy Launch

Samsung faced the challenge of launching their new Galaxy smartphone in a market dominated by Apple’s iPhone. They needed to differentiate their product and create a compelling argument for consumers to switch.

Samsung embarked on a comprehensive marketing campaign that highlighted the Galaxy’s superior tech specifications and user-friendly features compared to the iPhone. The campaign included high-profile television ads, social media challenges, and interactive pop-ups where consumers could experience the technology firsthand.

• Successfully increased market share in the smartphone industry.
• Enhanced consumer perception of Samsung as a leader in technology innovation.
• Highlighting product advantages through comparative advertising can effectively influence consumer purchasing decisions.
• Interactive marketing experiences can deepen consumer engagement and brand loyalty.

18. Google – Education Initiatives

Google aimed to expand its influence in the education sector but faced skepticism from educational institutions about the applicability and security of digital tools in educational settings.

Google launched a series of educational initiatives, including Google Classroom, which offered a seamless, integrated platform for managing teaching and learning. They provided robust security features and collaborated with educators to tailor their tools to classroom needs.

• Widely adopted by schools worldwide, becoming a staple in digital education.
• Strengthened Google’s reputation as a valuable partner in education technology.
• Tailoring technology solutions to meet specific industry needs can lead to widespread adoption.
• Collaborations with industry professionals can enhance product design and market acceptance.

19. MasterCard – Priceless Campaign

MasterCard needed to differentiate itself in a crowded credit card market and foster deeper emotional connections with its customers, moving beyond transactional relationships.

The “Priceless” campaign was launched, featuring stories of unique and emotional experiences made possible by MasterCard, emphasizing the card’s role in facilitating priceless life moments. The campaign was supported by partnerships with travel, dining, and entertainment sectors to offer exclusive experiences to cardholders.

• Successfully resonated with customers on a deeper level, strengthening brand loyalty.
• Increased usage of MasterCard for booking experiences and high-value purchases.
• Emotional branding can create deeper consumer connections and loyalty.
• Exclusive partnerships can enhance the value proposition of a product.

20. Netflix – Global Expansion Strategy

Netflix needed to expand its subscriber base internationally but faced challenges related to content relevance and local competition in various countries.

Netflix invested heavily in local content production, creating original series and films that catered to local tastes and cultures. They also optimized their user interface to accommodate multiple languages and cultural nuances, improving user experience globally.

• Significantly increased international subscriber numbers.
• Enhanced global brand recognition and loyalty through culturally relevant content.
• Investing in local content can significantly improve market penetration and customer satisfaction in new regions.
• Cultural customization of product offerings can enhance user experience and brand loyalty internationally.

Related: How  to use AR/VR in Digital Marketing?

21. Volvo – Safety Marketing

Volvo sought to reinforce its position as a leader in automotive safety in a market increasingly focused on electric and autonomous vehicles. The challenge was to communicate Volvo’s longstanding commitment to safety innovation in a way that resonated with modern consumers and differentiated it from competitors.

Volvo launched a multi-faceted digital marketing campaign highlighting its historical safety innovations and the integration of advanced safety technologies in its newest models. The campaign used emotional storytelling through customer testimonials and crash-test footage to highlight the life-saving impacts of their vehicles.

• Reinforced Volvo’s reputation as a leader in vehicle safety.
• Increased consumer trust and interest in newer Volvo models.
• Leveraging brand heritage in marketing can strengthen consumer trust and loyalty.
• Emotional storytelling can effectively communicate complex product features like safety innovations.

22. Adobe – Subscription Model Transition

Adobe faced the challenge of transitioning from traditional software sales to a subscription-based model, which was initially met with resistance from its long-standing customer base used to one-time purchases.

Adobe implemented a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that highlighted the benefits of the subscription model, such as continuous updates, cloud storage, and improved collaboration tools. They also offered transitional discounts and bundled offers to existing customers to ease the shift.

• Successfully shifted the majority of their consumer base to the subscription model.
• Achieved a steady increase in recurring revenue and customer satisfaction.
• Clear communication of product value changes can facilitate major business model transitions.
• Offering incentives can mitigate customer resistance to new pricing structures.

23. Patagonia – Environmental Advocacy

Patagonia aimed to enhance its brand commitment to environmental sustainability while driving sales. The challenge was to authentically integrate this commitment into their marketing strategy without appearing opportunistic.

Patagonia’s approach included high-profile environmental projects, such as “Don’t Buy This Jacket,” which encouraged responsible consumption. They underlined the longevity of their goods and their restoration services, reinforcing the brand’s commitment to reducing environmental impact.

• Strengthened brand loyalty among environmentally conscious consumers.
• Maintained strong sales despite the campaign’s call for reduced consumption.
• Marketing activities that align with core company values can connect deeply with users.
• Advocacy and authenticity in marketing can differentiate a brand in a competitive market.

24. Microsoft – Cloud Computing

Microsoft needed to solidify its position in the rapidly growing cloud computing market against strong competitors like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

Microsoft focused on marketing its hybrid cloud solutions, emphasizing security, compliance, and seamless integration with existing on-premise infrastructure. They leveraged case studies of successful deployments in key industries to showcase their expertise and reliability.

• Enhanced market share in the cloud computing industry.
• Built reliance and integrity among enterprise customers.
• Focusing on unique selling propositions such as security and hybrid capabilities can capture a niche market segment.
• Case studies are effective tools for demonstrating capability and building trust.

25. Red Bull – Branding Through Sports

Red Bull faced the challenge of marketing an energy drink in ways that would continually capture the attention of a young, dynamic audience.

Red Bull created a unique brand image focused on extreme sports and adventurous lifestyles. They sponsored athletes, hosted extreme sports events, and produced high-adrenaline content that was shared widely across digital platforms.

• Successfully maintained a vibrant and exciting brand image.
• Increased global brand recognition and loyalty among target demographics.
• Investing in brand-aligned content and sponsorships can improve product identity and user engagement.
• Content that resonates with the brand’s audience can drive both online engagement and real-world participation.

Related: High-Paying Digital Marketing Jobs

26. Oreo – Real-Time Marketing

Oreo aimed to capitalize on real-time events to stay pertinent and appealing in the current social media era.

Oreo’s digital marketing team set up a “war room” during major events like the Super Bowl, allowing them to react instantaneously to live events with clever, themed social media posts. This strategy was highlighted by their famous “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet during a Super Bowl blackout.

• Gained extensive media coverage and social media buzz.
• Enhanced engagement and supporters on social media platforms.
• Real-time marketing can create significant brand buzz and viral potential.
• Preparing to leverage unexpected events can lead to high-impact marketing moments.

27. Toyota – Hybrid Cars

Toyota needed to drive adoption of its hybrid vehicles amidst skepticism about hybrid technology and performance concerns.

Toyota launched an educational campaign that included test-drive events, informational videos, and customer testimonials highlighting the reliability, performance, and environmental benefits of their hybrid models.

• Increased sales and market share in the hybrid vehicle category.
• Strengthened Toyota’s reputation as a leader in automotive innovation.
• Educational marketing can effectively address consumer skepticism and boost product adoption.
• Demonstrating product benefits through real-life experiences can enhance consumer trust and interest.

28. BuzzFeed – Content Virality

BuzzFeed needed to maintain its dominance in the digital media space amid increasing competition from other content platforms offering similar viral-type content.

BuzzFeed optimized its approach to content creation by leveraging data analytics to understand what makes content shareable. They focused on creating highly engaging, visually appealing content tailored to specific audiences and distributed across various social platforms.

• Maintained high engagement rates and growth in readership.
• Solidified its leadership in developing viral content.
• Data-driven content creation can effectively maintain engagement in a competitive market.
• Tailoring content to platform-specific audiences can maximize shareability and reach.

29. IKEA – Augmented Reality App

IKEA faced the challenge of enhancing customer shopping experience and minimizing returns due to size mismatches or style misfit with their furniture.

IKEA launched an AR app that allows users to visualize furniture in their own space before buying. The app, integrated with IKEA’s digital catalog, enables users to see how different furniture styles and sizes fit and look in their actual living spaces.

• Reduced return rates due to size or style mismatches.
• Enhanced customer satisfaction and increased sales conversions through the app.
• Augmented reality can significantly enhance the online shopping experience.
• Providing solutions that reduce consumer uncertainty can lead to higher satisfaction and sales.

30. Canva – Democratizing Design

Canva aimed to make design accessible to non-designers, competing against professional design software that requires significant skills and training.

Canva developed an intuitive, user-friendly platform with drag-and-drop features and an extensive library of templates. Their marketing focused on empowering users with no prior design experience to create professional-level designs easily.

• Rapid growth in user base, including small businesses, educators, and marketers.
• Established Canva as a leader in accessible design tools.
• Making professional tools accessible to a broader audience can capture a significant market share.
• User-friendly design and effective educational marketing can drive adoption and loyalty.

Related: History of Digital Marketing

31. Fitbit – Community-Driven Fitness

Fitbit needed to differentiate itself in a crowded market of wearable fitness technology and engage users on a long-term basis.

Fitbit enhanced its devices with social features that allow users to interact with friends, challenge each other, etc. They focused on building a community around fitness, highlighting a lifestyle rather than just a product.

• Increased consumer engagement and retention rates.
• Strengthened brand loyalty through a community-centric approach.
• Community features in tech products can enhance customer engagement and product stickiness.
• Promoting a lifestyle and building a community can have more impact than concentrating solely on the features.

32. Sephora – Beauty Insider Loyalty Program

Sephora faced the challenge of increasing customer loyalty and repeat purchases in the competitive beauty retail market.

Sephora revamped its Beauty Insider loyalty program to offer more customized incentives, exclusive experiences, and beauty classes. The program utilizes customer data to tailor recommendations and promotions, enhancing the personal connection with the brand.

• Increased frequency of repeat purchases.
• Enhanced consumer faith and contentment with customized experiences.
• Loyalty programs that offer personalized experiences can improve user loyalty.
• Utilizing customer data effectively can lead to more fruitful marketing policies.

33. New York Times – Digital Subscription Growth

The New York Times needed to adapt to the digital age, facing declining print subscriptions and the challenge of monetizing digital content.

The NYT introduced a flexible digital subscription model, which included tiered pricing levels to attract a broader audience. They invested heavily in quality journalism and digital content to provide value that justifies the subscription cost.

• Successful growth in digital subscriptions, offsetting declines in print.
• Strengthened brand reputation as a leading news provider in the digital age.
• Providing high-quality content is crucial for monetizing digital platforms.
• Flexible pricing models can appeal to a broader range of consumers.

34. L’Oréal – Embracing Digital Beauty Tech

L’Oréal faced the challenge of personalizing the beauty shopping experience in a digital environment, where customers traditionally rely on in-store trials before purchasing makeup and skincare products.

L’Oréal invested in augmented reality and artificial intelligence technologies to create a virtual try-on app, allowing customers to see how different products look on their own skin. The app also provided personalized skincare recommendations based on user skin analysis conducted through their mobile device cameras. This technology was heavily marketed through social media and online advertising to drive app downloads and engagement.

• Significantly increased online sales and customer interaction with the brand.
• Enhanced customer satisfaction through personalized and innovative shopping experiences.
• Digital technologies like AR and AI can effectively bridge the gap between online shopping and the need for product trial.
• Personalization in the beauty industry enhances customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

35. Duolingo – Gamification of Learning

Duolingo faced the challenge of making language learning engaging and retaining users over long periods.

Duolingo implemented gamification strategies in their app, including points, levels, and daily streaks, to make learning languages fun and addictive. They continuously updated their app with new languages and features to engage audiences.

• Significantly increased user retention and daily engagement.
• Expanded globally, ranking among the most popular language learning apps.
• Gamification can make educational content more interactive and improve retention rates.
• Regular updates and new features keep users interested and encouraged in using the application.

Related: Predictions about Digital Marketing Future

36. Warby Parker – Online Eyewear Customization

Warby Parker needed to overcome consumer hesitation about buying prescription glasses online without trying them on first.

Warby Parker introduced a home try-on program where consumers can shortlist five frames to try at home for free before buying. They combined this with a robust online virtual try-on feature that uses augmented reality to simulate the glasses on the user’s face.

• Reduced barriers to online purchases of eyewear.
• Increased user contentment and sales conversions.
• Innovative trial options can overcome traditional barriers to online shopping.
• Augmented reality can effectively bridge the gap between online and offline shopping experiences.

37. Tesla – Direct Sales Model

Tesla aimed to revolutionize the car buying experience but faced legal and market resistance against its direct sales model, bypassing traditional dealerships.

Tesla persisted with its direct sales approach, focusing on educating users about the advantages of electric vehicles through experiential showrooms and interactive displays. They also engaged in legal battles to secure the right to sell directly in various states.

• Established a successful direct-to-consumer sales model.
• More control over brand identity and user experience.
• Direct sales models can provide significant advantages in controlling the brand experience.
• Educational marketing can effectively shift consumer preferences and overcome market resistance.

38. Chanel – Leveraging Heritage in Digital Marketing

Chanel needed to maintain its iconic brand status while transitioning to a digital-first marketing strategy, ensuring they connect with a younger audience without losing their established customer base.

Chanel leveraged its rich heritage by creating digital storytelling campaigns that intertwined its history with modern elements. They utilized high-quality visuals and collaborated with contemporary artists and influencers to remain relevant and appealing across generations.

• Successfully engaged both younger and older demographics.
• Maintained a luxury brand image in the digital marketplace.
• Integrating brand heritage with modern digital marketing can appeal to a broad audience.
• High-quality content and strategic influencer partnerships can elevate brand perception in the digital era.

39. Under Armour – Connected Fitness Strategy

Under Armour sought to differentiate itself from other sports apparel brands by integrating technology into its product offerings.

Under Armour acquired several fitness app companies to create a connected fitness community that tracks and shares health data. They integrated these apps with their apparel and footwear, offering consumers a comprehensive fitness monitoring system.

• Created a unique ecosystem combining apparel, footwear, and digital health tracking.
• Strengthened brand loyalty among tech-savvy fitness enthusiasts.
• Integrating digital technology with traditional products can create a unique market position.
• Building a brand community can improve user loyalty and engagement.

40. Disney – Streaming Service Launch

Disney needed to enter the competitive streaming market controlled by established players such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The challenge was to carve out a niche and attract subscribers to yet another streaming platform.

Disney leveraged its extensive library of beloved classics, along with exclusive new content from popular franchises, to launch Disney+. They marketed the platform with a nostalgic appeal combined with the excitement of new, exclusive releases, utilizing cross-promotions through their theme parks, merchandise, and television networks.

• Quickly amassed millions of subscribers worldwide.
• Successfully established Disney+ as a key player in the streaming market.
• Exclusive content and strong brand heritage can be pivotal in differentiating a new entrant in a crowded market.
• Leveraging existing brand ecosystems for cross-promotion can significantly boost the launch of new services.

Related: Digital Marketing Internship vs. Taking a Course

Closing Thoughts

These digital marketing case studies underscore the transformative power of strategic, data-driven marketing initiatives across a diverse array of industries. By examining these examples, it becomes clear that whether through embracing technological innovations, capitalizing on brand heritage, or engaging with communities in meaningful ways, companies can significantly enhance their market position and forge deeper connections with their audiences. Each case study not only narrates a story of challenge and solution but also distills critical lessons about the adaptability, creativity, and forward-thinking necessary in today’s digital marketing landscape. For businesses aiming to refine their marketing strategies, these insights offer invaluable guidance on harnessing digital tools to foster customer loyalty, drive engagement, and accelerate growth. Ultimately, these narratives celebrate the ingenuity of marketers in navigating the complexities of the digital world and crafting campaigns that resonate profoundly with consumers globally.

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Marketing Results

22 Marketing Case Study Examples (With Template)

February 17, 2016 by Will Swayne

Prospects who aren’t ready to buy – or who are “sitting on the fence” – tend to be resistant to even well-crafted marketing messages.  But a bunch of well aimed marketing case studies can often tip the scales in your favour.

“Sell benefits, not features” is good advice, but benefit-rich copy can actually deter prospects who haven’t reached the decision stage yet.

And too many benefits in the absence of marketing proof elements  can ring hollow in today’s increasingly sceptical marketplace.

We published our first marketing case study back in 2005 and I quickly realised the power of case studies as a versatile and effective marketing tactic.

Why are marketing case studies so effective?

Here are three reasons:

• Case studies show, they don’t tell. Telling you I can get you more qualified leads is one thing. Showing you how a similar company to yours got 145% more leads with 24% lower marketing costs is another.
• Prospects are typically curious to understand how others have achieved the results they desire. They will eagerly devour a well-constructed case study.
• Case studies are also a great tool for closing fence-sitting prospects. For many years I’ve asked prospects why they chose to work with us, and the most common response seems to be, “I was impressed by your case studies” , or “I saw you helped someone in my industry so I figure you can help us too” .

Now let’s look at how to structure and effectively promote a case study, and then some marketing case study examples for you to replicate.

Our Recommended Case Study Template

Here’s the case study structure we’ve adopted which has proven effective:

• Start with a major headline that summarises the key result achieved: e.g. “Investment Property Strategist Triples Leads In 6 Months” . This gets the prospect excited about reading on.
• Then introduce the background . In other words, the “Before” scenario.Don’t bore the reader with too many details about the history of the client. But DO provide an insight into the “trigger” that led to them seeking your assistance. e.g. “The client noticed smaller competitors starting to appear ahead of them on Google”. And,   DO talk about the negative effects of the “Before” state. E.g. “New customer acquisition that had previously been growing by 10% every quarter had flatlined for the last 12 months.”
• Now talk about the solution . Here’s where you explain what you did to achieve the outcomes. I like to list different services or solutions in the form of bullet points. Also, include significant details and facts and figures to add “richness” to the story. Where possible, demonstrate with images, screenshots or other proof elements. Emphasise anything you did differently to the standard approach, or anything that highlights your point-of-difference benefits.
• Now talk about your results . Results are the crux of any good case study.I like to go with a number of punchy bullet points, populated with specific numbers. E.g . “Lead volume up 75%… New customer volume from online sources up 145%… 1,540 more organic search engine visitors per month.”
• Include a testimonial from the client. What was their reaction to your work? The “Before-During-After” approach is a good structure for testimonials. A strong testimonial adds texture and credibility to the data in your core case study.
• End with a call-to-action . This can be relatively low-key. For example, “Contact us to explore how you can enjoy similar breakthrough results.”

You can see more examples of different implementations of this concept on our online marketing case studies page.

How To Promote Your Case Study

A case study that never gets read won’t help you.

Here are some of our favourite promotional methods:

• Optimise each case study for search engines . A good start is using a <title> tag on your case study pages in the format: “<INDUSTRY> <SERVICE> case study”. For example, “Accountant online marketing case study” or “Car sales lead generation case study” .   This will tend to rank you well for anyone searching for case studies about your industry.
• Send case studies to your email subscribers . These emails achieve high engagement both as broadcasts, and as “drip emails” within an automation sequence .
• Create a print booklet of case studies to send to prospects and clients via snail mail or distribute at trade shows.
• Case studies make great social media updates and can be recycled every few months using different headlines.

22 Marketing Case Study Examples

1. fuji xerox australia business equipment, tripled leads for 60% less marketing spend.

In 90 days, we doubled web lead flow with lower marketing costs.

Read the full case study here.

Paul Strahl , National e-Business Manager

2. Surf Live Saving Foundation

Surf lottery grows online revenue 47%.

Marketing Results delivered tangible business improvements, including 47% higher revenue from digital, year-on-year.

Yin Tang , Surf Live Saving Foundation

3. ABC Reading Eggs

Integrated search and conversion management for abc reading eggs.

Marketing Results have been instrumental in profitably expanding our ad spend, while removing waste.

Matthew Sandblom , Managing Director ABC Reading Eggs

4. MAP Home Loans

From 70 hour weeks to 40 hour weeks with 100% annual growth.

I now make twice as much money, have less stress and fewer hours.

Craig Vaunghan , Principal MAP Home Loans

5. Inkjet Wholesale

Online advertising roi doubles – in just three months.

We couldn’t be happier – conversion rates are up, costs are down, ROI has doubled.

Glenn Taylor , National Marketing Manager Inkjet Wholesale

6. Breaking Into Wall Street

Info-marketing business achieves 300% revenue growth with 7-figure profits.

Marketing Results provided the marketing support to grow my annual revenue 300%+. They don’t just advise – they implement.

Brian DeChesare , Founder Breaking Into Wall Street

7. LatestBuy

Brw fast 100 online retailer latestbuy.com.au boosts sales by 45.3%.

Revenue had flatlined… Now it is up by 45%, with over 80% of that due to conversion rate optimisation.

Shaun Campbell , Co-Owner LatestBuy.com.au

8. directSMS

More traffic, less cost, lead volume doubles.

More than doubled the number of qualified enquiries via our website for the same ad spend.

Ramez Zaki , Co-Founder directSMS

9. Business Coach and Author, Pure Bookkeeping

Successful marketing automation and 100.95% year on year growth.

50%+ of business comes directly through online channels and none of this would have happened without Marketing Results.

Peter Cook , Business Coach & Author Pure Bookkeeping

10. Positive Training Solutions

Higher rankings plus more, higher-quality leads.

Marketing Results excels in strategic and online marketing.

James Grima , Managing Director Positive Training Solutions

11. Geelong’s Gym

From 5-6 leads a month to 60-70. 10x increase.

We’ve gone from 5 – 6 leads per month to 60 – 70!

Gerard Spriet , Owner Geelong’s Gym

12. Super Finance – SMSF Property

A new pipeline delivering a steady flow of web leads.

Outstanding quality of web generated leads!

Yannick Ieko , Director Super Finance

13. College For Adult Learning – Training Organisation

300%+ more sales with 60% lower cost per sale.

I expect at least another 60% more leads and 80-90% more revenue by continuing to work with Marketing Results.

Rob Golding , Director College For Adult Learning

14. The Gourmet Guardian – Food Safety Programs

4 times more leads and a 269% revenue increase.

Your AdWords strategies have quadrupled leads, almost tripled revenue and reduced my dependence on contract work to zero.

Gavin Buckett , Managing Director The Gourmet Guardian

15. Quick Coach – Life Coaching Courses

More qualified sales plus a facebook roi of 1285%.

The results have been fantastic… I have had over 500 potential students opt in via Google wanting to change their lives and those of their clients.

Glen Murdoch , Founder & CEO Quick Coach

16. Investment House – Property Development

Clients lined up for everything we can find.

We have clients lined up for everything we can find.

Colin Ferguson , Managing Director Investment House

17. Cosmetic Surgery Lead Generation

257% increase in qualified lead volume.

In less than a year, our enquiry volume increased by over 257% while increasing the quality and conversion rate of those leads.

Dee Tozer , Managing Director Medici Clinics

18. All Suburbs Catering

61% roi gain in less than 5 months….

20% more enquiries for 34% less cost – a compounded gain of 61% in only 5 months.

Jeff Veale , Managing Director All Suburbs Catering

19. Trilogy Funding

549 qualified sales leads in 3 months.

549 qualified sales leads in 3 months.

Ed Nixon , Principal Trilogy Funding

20. Customized Stickers

Online revenue rockets by 800%.

With Marketing Result on our side, our website revenue has increased by over 800% in only 18 months.

Anthony Khoury , Managing Director Customized Stickers

21. Technoledge

Engaging ceos of ideal target companies.

We’re routinely seeing CEOs of Australian hi techs with turnover of $5 million to $50 million (our target audience) opting in and proceeding to self-qualify before they contact us for a meeting. This is what digital marketing is supposed to do.

Tracey James , Director Technoledge

22. First Aid Training

Specialist first aid training company doubles revenue in 6 months.

We’ve streamlined customer acquisition, increased customer lifetime value, and doubled our revenue in 6 months!

Dave Hundt , Director Kids First Aid

I encourage you to put these tips into action and see how they work for you.

What other ways have you used case studies effectively in your business?

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28 Case Study Examples Every Marketer Should See

• May 12, 2024
• by Steven Austin

30+ Compelling Case Study Examples to Inspire Your Own (2023)

Case studies are one of the most powerful weapons in a marketer‘s arsenal. By providing real-world examples of how your product or service has been successfully implemented by satisfied customers, case studies can help new customers feel more confident in your brand, demonstrate your value, and close more sales.

In fact, a 2021 Content Marketing Institute report found that 69% of B2B marketers use case studies as part of their marketing mix. And according to Social Fresh, customer testimonials and case studies are considered the most effective content marketing tactics by 89% and 88% of marketers respectively.

But not all case studies are created equal. In order to truly leverage the power of social proof through case studies, you need to create them strategically, to tell a compelling story that resonates with your target audience.

To help inspire you, let‘s take a look at over 30 exceptional case study examples from companies across all different industries and explore what makes them so persuasive. We‘ll cover best practices for creating powerful case studies of your own, look at different case study formats, and provide helpful templates and resources you can use to get started.

What is a case study?

First off, let‘s clarify what we mean by a "case study." A case study is basically a success story that highlights how your product or service solved a real problem for a satisfied customer. It usually takes the form of a 800-2000 word article that includes things like:

• A summary of the customer‘s challenge and goals
• The process and solution provided by your company
• Key results and benefits experienced by the customer
• Engaging elements like photos, videos, and quotes to bring the story to life

The purpose is to educate potential buyers on how they can achieve similar positive outcomes by choosing to work with you. You‘re essentially making the case for why your solution is the ideal choice, by showing its real-world impact.

Here are a few fascinating statistics that demonstrate the impact case studies can have:

• B2B marketers who use case studies see 73% higher conversion rates compared to those who don‘t. (Content Marketing Institute)
• Including a case study on your website can increase conversions by 20-50%. (Bidsketch)
• 63% of marketers believe case studies are an effective tactic for building credibility and trust with prospects. (Curata)
• 78% of buyers seek out case studies when researching purchase decisions. (Demand Gen Report)

As you can see, case studies hold a lot of sway with buyers. Now let‘s look at some real-world examples for inspiration on creating your own.

30+ case study examples to learn from

• "How Handled Scaled from Zero to 121 Locations with the Help of HubSpot," by HubSpot

What‘s great about it:

• Puts the spotlight on the customer first and makes them the hero
• Weaves in compelling data points that quantify the impact
• Uses mixed media like video to engage the reader
• Includes a clear mention and link to the product used (HubSpot‘s CRM)
• "Rovio: How Rovio Grew Into a Gaming Superpower," by App Annie
• Opens with a powerful quote from the client that captures the value proposition
• Closes with another strong client quote to bookend the piece
• Highlights the specific product used (App Annie Intelligence) right at the top
• Ends with a clear CTA to book a demo
• "The Whole Package," by IDEO
• Uses a simple and conversational headline that still conveys the key outcome
• Breaks up the story into clear challenge, impact and progress sections
• Incorporates photos and engaging visuals to complement the copy
• Keeps paragraphs short and easy to scan
• "Rozum Robotics intensifies its PR game with Awario," by Awario
• Kicks off with a quick summary that encapsulates the key points
• Incorporates a clickable table of contents to enhance navigation
• Closes with a bulleted list of concrete results experienced by the client
• Maintains an informal yet informative tone
• "Biobot Customer Success Story: Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida," by Biobot
• Structures the piece like a narrative news article
• Provides extensive detail and context around the customer‘s challenge
• Mentions the COVID-19 pandemic to demonstrate relevance
• Uses clear headings and callouts to make the content easily digestible
• "Ensuring quality of service during a pandemic," by Ericsson
• Leverages diverse media like photos, graphs, videos and quotes to engage the reader
• Weaves in relevant links to related product/service pages throughout
• Closes with a clear CTA to explore more information
• Strikes a journalistic and educational tone that puts the customer first
• "The Met," by Fantasy
• Leads with a powerful and eye-catching headline image
• Allows the visuals to do much of the talking
• Keeps the copy concise and minimal to avoid overwhelming the reader
• Ends with a bold results section that quantifies the impact
• "Copernicus Land Monitoring – CLC+ Core," by Cloudflight
• Doesn‘t shy away from covering technical details and specs
• Incorporates a contact snapshot for the assigned sales rep at the bottom
• Focuses heavily on the client‘s unique needs and goals
• Uses white space and simple formatting to enhance readability
• "Valvoline Increases Coupon Send Rate by 76% with Textel‘s MMS Picture Texting," by Textel
• Immediately mentions the key result directly in the headline
• Includes a helpful "at a glance" sidebar to provide a quick summary
• Visually highlights key quotes and stats in a different color
• Makes effective use of white space and keeps the design clean
• "Capital One on AWS," by Amazon
• Creates an ongoing series of case studies focused on a single client
• Uses both internal and external content to round out the story
• Demonstrates the long-term impact and continued partnership
• Keeps each "chapter" of the series focused and digestible

Key best practices for writing compelling case studies

Based on these examples and industry knowledge, here are some best practices to follow when crafting your own powerful case studies:

Focus on telling an authentic story, not just rattling off facts. Use engaging elements like quotes, photos, videos.

Structure it with a clear beginning, middle and end. Set up the challenge, describe the solution, and share the results.

Make the client the hero of the story. Use their voice and perspective as much as possible.

Include real numbers and data points to illustrate the concrete impact your solution provided.

Keep the content concise and bite-sized. Use short paragraphs, bullet points, headings, and visuals to break it up.

Put the most important information up front. Share the key results in the headline or executive summary.

Include a clear CTA and links to additional relevant content so readers know what to do next.

Consider creating a series of case studies focused on a single client to demonstrate an ongoing relationship.

Experiment with different styles and formats to see what resonates best with your audience.

Illuminating case study formats and styles to consider

There is no one-size-fits-all template for a case study – the format and style you choose will depend on factors like your industry, audience, and resources. Here are a few different formats to consider:

The classic written case study: An 800-2000 word article formatted with elements like headings, images, quotes, and data points. This is the most common type.

The case study video: A 2-5 minute video featuring the client telling their story, intercut with footage of the product/service and explanatory animations.

The case study infographic: A long-form visual design that uses engaging data visualizations, icons, and short text blurbs to illustrate the key points of the story.

The case study slide deck: A 10-20 slide presentation that sales reps can walk prospects through, combining visuals and text.

The live case study webinar: A webinar featuring a real client sharing their story and results, with live Q&A from the audience.

You can also play with different stylistic approaches, such as using a journalistic news article format, a casual conversational Q&A, or an interactive scrolling design. Don‘t be afraid to get creative!

How to use case studies in your marketing and sales efforts

Once you‘ve created your case studies, it‘s time to put them to work as part of your marketing and sales strategy. Here are a few key ways to use them:

Feature case studies prominently on your website, especially on your homepage and product/service pages.

Include links to relevant case studies in your lead nurturing emails and email newsletters.

Share snippets and quotes from case studies on your social media channels and in social ads.

Equip your sales team with case studies to share with prospects throughout the sales process.

Gate your case studies behind a lead capture form to generate leads and get contact info from interested prospects.

Submit your case studies to industry awards and recognition programs to build credibility.

Incorporate case studies into your paid ad campaigns as part of your social proof.

Best of all, once you create a solid case study, you can get a lot of mileage out of it over a long period of time. It‘s the gift that keeps on giving!

Boost conversions with case studies

There you have it – over 30 inspiring case study examples and best practices to help you create your own powerful success stories. To recap, case studies are so effective as a marketing asset because they:

• Provide social proof and build trust with real customer stories
• Educate prospects on how your solution works and the outcomes it provides
• Demonstrate the value of your offering with concrete examples
• Generate leads when gated behind a lead capture form
• Move prospects through the sales funnel by overcoming objections
• Improve SEO by creating opportunities to rank for relevant keywords

If you want to boost conversions, establish credibility, and ultimately drive more sales, case studies should be a central part of your content marketing strategy. Follow these examples and best practices and start putting the power of case studies to work for your business today.

Looking for more help getting started? Check out these helpful case study templates and resources:

• [link to template 1]
• [link to template 2]
• [link to resource 1]
• [link to resource 2]

Happy case study creating!

Persuasive Marketing Case Study Examples & Templates

Get examples of marketing case study mastery. Learn by example how to engage and convert more prospects and launch your effort with battle-tested templates.

Dominika Krukowska

9 minute read

Short answer

What makes a great marketing case study.

A great marketing case study is a compelling narrative, showcasing real-world success, complete with quantifiable results. It weaves strategy, execution, and outcome into a captivating story that inspires and convinces the reader to take the desired action.

Are your marketing case studies falling flat?

Marketing case studies are an essential step for many prospects to see if they can trust you, if you meet their particular needs, and if tying their business with yours feels right.

Marketing case studies provide prospects a sense of security without which they’ll never convert.

But when done poorly, case studies can become little more than digital white noise. They’ll fail to build trust and confidence, but worse yet, they might just drive prospects to go with your competition.

Too many companies invest time, thought, and money into creating “white noise” case studies without knowing that they may cause more harm than good.

But there’s a way forward. This post will serve as your compass, guiding you to the promised land of persuasive, profit-driving success stories.

Let’s get started!

What is a marketing case study?

A marketing case study is a narrative showcasing a company's successful marketing strategy . It outlines the challenges faced, the solutions implemented, and the achieved results. This tool effectively demonstrates value, builds credibility, and convinces potential customers to take action.

What is the purpose of a marketing case study?

The purpose of a marketing case study is to build trust and authority and inspire action from potential clients. It's intended to present a narrative of success through a transformational business story with measurable outcomes. Its goal is to encourage potential customers to envision their own success with the help of your solution.

1) To present a narrative of success

Think of your case study as a rags-to-riches success story starring your client. They struggle with problems, they stumble on your product or service which guides them back to safety. But here the 'happily ever after' is a measurable outcome.

2) To build trust

A case study shows how you brought tangible indisputable results. It shows the positive transformation you helped bring about for your client. It's like having a credible friend vouch for you—it has an authentic persuasive effect that nothing you say yourself could ever achieve.

3) To inspire action

A good marketing case study nudges the reader to think: 'If it worked wonders for them, why not for me?' It subtly encourages potential customers to envision their own success with your product or service, though they came doubtful.

4) To show relevance

A marketing case study doesn’t just show a specific problem. By highlighting challenges similar to those faced by your potential customers, a case study makes your solution look more than “a good fit” it makes you look like “the best fit”, or even “the only fit”.

Our Head of Marketing has this piece of advice for you:

"When we write a marketing case study we treat it like a personal story we’d share with friends over lunch.

This makes our case studies feel familiar and gives them the credibility of personal experience, which tends to inspire others to act the same way."

—Amotz Harari, Head of Marketing at Storydoc

What should a marketing case study include?

Looking to craft a marketing case study that grips, convinces, and converts? Here's your blueprint.

A compelling marketing case study should include:

A captivating title: Much like a great book, your case study needs an intriguing title. One that grabs attention and promises an interesting story - a story of a problem solved, a challenge overcome, a victory achieved.

The protagonist: Every good story needs a hero. In your case study, it's the client or customer. Start by introducing them - who are they? What do they do? What unique challenge were they facing?

The problem: Detail the problem your customer faced. This is the villain of your story - the hurdle that stood in your customer's way. Make it relatable, so potential customers facing the same issue can see themselves in your protagonist's shoes.

The solution: Now introduce your product or service - the knight in shining armor. Explain how you swooped in to tackle the problem. Highlight what makes your solution unique and effective.

The implementation process: Give a brief account of how the solution was implemented. This is the journey part of your story - the struggle, the strategy, and the steps taken to overcome the challenge.

The results: The happily-ever-after of your tale. Showcase the positive results achieved using your product or service. Be specific and use hard numbers - they provide tangible proof of your success.

The testimonial: Finally, include words of praise from your satisfied customer. A happy client is the best endorsement. This validates the story you've told and adds an emotional, human touch.

A clear next step: Conclude with a clear call to action. What should the reader do next? Contact you for a consultation? Sign up for a demo? Download a guide? Make sure the next step is relevant, clear, and compelling.

Here’s an example of a marketing case study designed according to this structure:

What are the main types of marketing case studies?

Selecting the right format for your case study depends on your goal, the specifics of your customer's story, and the message you wish to convey.

4 case study types to consider:

1) Problem-solution case study:

This is the classic 'hero’s journey'. Your customer (the hero) is faced with a challenge (the problem), and aided by a trusted guide (your solution) goes through a transformation overcoming their hurdles and fulfilling their full potential.

This format focuses on the details of the journey with its ups and downs.

2) Before-and-after case study

The Cinderella tale of the business world. You show the situation 'before' your product or service came into play, and the improved situation 'after'.

This format focuses on contrasting the transformation , highlighting the dramatic changes from before your solution came in and after.

3) Success story case study

Think of this as the 'rags to riches' narrative. Rather than focusing solely on a single problem and solution, this case study celebrates an overarching success.

It provides the details of how the change was achieved but focuses mainly on the outcomes and their business impact.

4) Interview style case study

This type is more personal and candid, providing direct quotes and insights from the customer’s perspective.

This format lends authenticity and focuses on building an emotional connection with the reader.

The ACORN method - 5 steps for writing story-led case studies:

Best marketing case study examples to inspire you

I've curated for you a selection of brilliant marketing case study examples from some of the biggest names in business.

These case studies represent a variety of industries, challenges, solutions, and outcomes, providing a wealth of insights and inspiration for your own case study creation.

Let's dive in:

1. How Nestlé empowered the sales team with high-quality leads

Tenlo, a marketing agency, worked with the Nestlé Professional Dispensed Beverage Sales Team to improve their lead generation efforts.

Through a targeted content strategy and optimized lead nurturing campaigns, they successfully empowered the client's sales team with high-quality leads, resulting in increased conversion rates and revenue growth.

2. Dove's Real Beauty Sketches

Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" campaign aimed to challenge societal beauty standards.

Through an emotional and thought-provoking video campaign, Dove sparked conversations and empowered women to redefine their perception of beauty, resulting in widespread awareness and positive brand sentiment.

3. How AppSumo grew organic traffic 843% and revenue from organic traffic 340%

AppSumo, a digital marketplace for software deals, employed clever marketing tactics to drive organic growth.

Through the strategic implementation of SEO, engaging product-focused content, and effective link building , they successfully increased their blog's organic traffic and saw a significant boost in revenue from organic sources.

4. How Start-Up Nation Central created innovative reports for an innovative industry

Start-Up Nation Central is an NGO with a clear mission—to fuel the growth of high-tech companies. They produce and send out a lot of business analysis reports, and they were looking for a way to modernize the way they present data.

By working with Storydoc to switch from static PDFs to interactive next-gen decks, they gained access to full reader analytics and A/B testing options to see which versions of their reports were getting the most traction.

5. How Forbes grew their subscriber base by 20% using PPC advertising

Adventure PPC collaborated with Forbes Magazine to enhance their subscriber base. Through targeted paid advertising campaigns , video production, and remarketing, they achieved a significant 20% increase in subscribers. Adventure PPC's strategy included closely monitoring ad budget to optimize campaigns and ensure effective resource allocation.

6. L’Oreal Paris and Google

L’Oreal cooperated with Google ahead of their new product launch to identify relevant audience segments based on hard data.

They targeted potential customers across all stages of the marketing funnel, which resulted in increasing ad recall, market share, and e-commerce sales.

You can watch the case study below:

7. How Bitly solved the omnichannel challenge

Vissla, an e-commerce shop, was looking for a more effective way to keep an account of data across all of their marketing channels.

They partnered with Bitly Campaigns to create a dashboard containing all marketing activities, track results in real-time, and optimize their content based on hard data, including insights on how to add a Bitly redirect .

8. Gannett marketing operations grows digital subscriber base with Asana

When Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the US, brought their marketing campaign production in-house, they had to find a way to scale up the number of projects.

They collaborated with Asana to increase campaign volume and streamline campaign management.

9. How Stripe leverages GPT-4 to streamline user experience and combat fraud

Stripe, the innovative payment platform, gathered 100 brilliant minds from within its own ranks to revolutionize features and workflows with GPT-4. Their mission? Take Stripe to new heights!

The result? 15 groundbreaking prototypes emerged, promising personalized support, expert answers to tough questions, and the power to nail fraud on community platforms.

10. How Ryanair uses Hotjar Surveys to measure satisfaction and report on trends

Ryanair, a leading Irish discount airline, needed to find a way to report product performance to its main stakeholders.

They turned to Hotjar Surveys to measure user satisfaction, identify main pain points and barriers to purchase, and report the larger trends.

11. Accelo gives software company the insights and efficiency to double revenue

The leadership team at Tambla, an HR technology company in Australia, was struggling to pinpoint resource leaks.

By consolidating client work management tools using Accelo, they gained unprecedented visibility. In just two years of using the platform, Tambla doubled revenue, quadrupled project turnover and increased recurring work by 15%!

Marketing case study design examples you can use as your template

Your marketing case study design can significantly influence its effectiveness. But design is a serious business.

Imagine starting a marketing case study from zero—it's like carving a statue from a solid block of marble. But, what if you had a mold?

These interactive case study templates provide a structured narrative, coupled with the flexibility to add your own data, images, and other interactive elements designed to engage, impress, and persuade.

Why you shouldn’t make case studies as PDFs

Considered the go-to format for case studies, PDFs offer accessibility and versatility. Share them around, download at will, or print for a keepsake.

But just because PDFs are easy for you to use, it doesn’t mean they’re easy for your audience to consume. They’re not.

PDFs are a hassle. They're tough to read, scan, and navigate. They're not mobile-friendly, they lack interactivity, and they can be downright dull.

On top of that, they take your audience offline, disconnecting them from your online assets, like your website or app.

What you can do instead

Instead of PDFs that tank engagement, it’s better to go with the webpage option.

Webpage-designed case studies offer multimedia, interactivity, and mobile-friendly navigation that lead to renewed engagement.

They give your readers a rich content experience with videos, animations, and clickable elements like tabs, sliders, and buttons, all wrapped in a story.

However, webpage case studies are not so easy to produce . They require the involvement of designers, developers, website managers, brand managers, and so on.

With all these people involved, even adding the tiniest update to the page can become a headache.

But there’s a way to bypass all this needless complexity . Creating a case study with Storydoc combines the interactivity of a webpage and the simplicity of producing a PDF.

When using Storydoc you’re stepping into a safe walled garden where everything is already taken care of , from coding to design to branding. And making changes takes just a few seconds.

Here’s how PDF and Storydoc case studies compare:

Hi, I'm Dominika, Content Specialist at Storydoc. As a creative professional with experience in fashion, I'm here to show you how to amplify your brand message through the power of storytelling and eye-catching visuals.

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Marketing Case Study Examples: Small changes by the marketer, big improvements in results for the business

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Quick Case Study #1: Online course creator adds abandoned cart email, gets 93% conversion rate

A few months ago, Jennie Lakenan realized that she was getting some leads who started the purchase process for her course but didn't finish it.

BEFORE – Two-step checkout process

Her checkout system happens in two steps. First, she captures the email address.

Creative Sample #1: First step in checkout flow

The second step was the payment entry page.

Creative Sample #2: Second step in checkout flow

AFTER – Abandoned cart emails

As soon as she noticed that leads were starting checkout but not finishing, she implemented a simple email automation to follow-up with them if they abandoned cart.

She sent the first email one hour after they didn’t finish their checkout, with the following copy…

I noticed that you clicked away without finishing the checkout process for Website Kit for Coaches , my course teaching new coaches how to create their own simple website to attract their first clients.

I understand that getting your coaching business off the ground is no small task.

I want to help make the process as easy as possible for you.

That's why I created this course.

It's a short but powerful program that will help you create a website you can be proud of quickly and easily.

In just 7 snappy modules, you'll learn everything you need to know to set up a simple website to market your coaching business.

Plus, as a certified coach myself, I know exactly how to guide you through the process so you don't get stuck.

"I just used this kit and set up a new website in two days. Super easy, super thorough directions, and not so much info that it overwhelms you."

- Kim Job, Systems & Soul Stories Coach

Don't miss out on this opportunity to take the first step in your website design journey.

Click here to finish your purchase and get started today!

Always here,

Jennie Lakenan

She sent the second abandoned cart email one day after they didn’t finish checkout. Here is the email copy…

I hope you're doing well!

I noticed that you clicked away from my website without completing the checkout process for Website Kit for Coaches .

You know, my course teaching new coaches how to create their own simple website to attract their first clients.

This course will help you create a website you can be proud of quickly and easily.

Plus, as a certified coach myself, I'm here to help you every step of the way.

And because I'm so confident in the value of this course, I'm offering a satisfaction guarantee.

If you watch the entire course, ask for help in the community, and you're still not able to successfully finish your site, I'll give you your money back.

No questions asked.

Click here to finish your purchase and get started today !

All the best,

RESULTS – 93% conversion rate

The conversion rate on this abandoned cart automation is 93.1%.

Of the 28 people who have gone through this automation since she implemented it, 23 of them have bought the course.

“I highly recommend anyone with an online course, e-commerce shop, or any website payment system, frankly, set up an abandoned cart automation if your payment system allows it. Abandoned cart follow-ups are a powerful way to convert!,” said Jennie Lakenan, Website Designer and Strategist, Jennie Lakenan Web Consulting .

Quick Case Study #2: Shipping service makes one simple change to ad, reduces cost per new registration 300%

Stallion Express is a shipping company in Canada.

BEFORE: Ads that appeal to niche of top clients

The team tested a variety of ads, mainly focusing on price savings. The ads included a general figure for the average savings achieved by their top clients.

Creative Sample #3: Ad focused on top clients

The team realized that the ad did not speak to its entire audience because the figure itself – “$60,000 annual savings” – does not mean much to e-commerce sellers with different volumes and hence, different savings.

AFTER: Ad with pricing comparison that could apply to broad audience

They decided to come up with a pricing comparison ad that would be helpful to each individual seller regardless of their sales volume. Basically, an ad which appeals to a broad audience rather than niche sellers.

To appeal to their entire audience, they included concrete figures for a representative example along with some value elements.

Creative Sample #4: Ad that is more broadly applicable

RESULTS – 300% lower cost per new registration

The cost per new registration was reduced by 300% by making this one simple change. They did not make any changes to the landing page or targeting so this is purely based on the ad performance.

This simple image ad also outperformed some of their older, high-quality, cinematic video ads.

One reason the team feels this ad was successful is that their B2B audience loves to see prices and clear-cut comparisons.

“A few other reasons why Meta may have pushed this ad more than our previous ones are the game element – ‘find the difference’ is a good hook and people stuck around and engaged with the ad – and the shipment example is funny and extremely relevant to our audience (Canadian e-commerce sellers + this was published during the NHL season),” said Diana Zheng, Head of Marketing, Stallion Express .

Case Sample #3: Mazda dealership changes SEO tag strategy, gets 10x increase in sales inquiries and service bookings

Redlands Mazda is an auto dealership in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It sells new and pre-owned cars and has a 20-car service workshop.

“We were already with a digital agency that was working on our SEO but little did I know that for the money they were charging me, they actually weren't doing the things that they were supposed to do," said Peter Niebling, Dealer Principal, Redlands Mazda .

He continued, “I have heard of horror stories in the past with certain digital agencies, so trust was a concern, in regards to letting go of the old agency. After all they had access to some of our business's digital properties such as our website backend, and Google Analytics. I sell cars for a living and I wasn't sure if they could do anything to hurt the business. Luckily they didn't.”

BEFORE – Tags focused on branded search

“Redlands Mazda was really having issues ranking on page 1 of Google for their major keywords,” said Rob Whaley, Head of Growth & Digital Strategy, Project Local (Redlands Mazda’s new SEO agency).

The team conducted a sitewide SEO audit and identified some key SEO mistakes that were hurting rankings.

The site <title> tag wasn't optimized around a keyword that would actually bring in search traffic. The original site title was: ‘Redlands Mazda | Mazda Dealer Capalaba.’ This site title would help with branded searches, but as Redlands Mazda had recently undergone a rebrand, branded searches were going to be unlikely. “A better alternative was to optimize the website around a keyword such as ‘Mazda Brisbane’ which gets over 800 searches per month according to Ahrefs,” Whaley said.

Capalaba is a suburb of Brisbane. ‘Mazda Capalaba’ gets 50 searches per month.

“There were multiple uses of <h1> tags which confuses Google as to what the page is about,” Whaley said. SEO best practice is to have only one <h1> tag per page. The <h1> tag at the time the new team took over the website was <h1> Redlands Mazda </h1> and, again, wasn't optimized around a keyword that would bring traffic.

“The site <title> tag is one of the best SEO elements to optimize as it directly tells Google what the page is about. The <h1> tag is a close second and is also known as being a ‘mini’ title tag,” Whaley said.

AFTER – Tags focused on local keywords

The team changed the site title from: <title>Redlands Mazda | Mazda Dealer Capalaba</title> to <title>Redlands Mazda Brisbane | Queensland's Premier Mazda Dealer</title>.

The team also ensured they only had one <h1> tag on their homepage and changed it from <h1> Redlands Mazda </h1> to <h1> Redlands Mazda Brisbane Your Local Mazda Dealer Of New & Used Vehicles</h1>.

In fairness, the team did make some other changes as well (SEO tends to be more complex than other tactics), but the tag change stands out as a simple change anyone reading this article could make right now even with limited resources.

“Redlands Mazda was making a lot of SEO mistakes and really needed to get back to basics and increase the health of their website in Google's eyes before they could expect higher rankings,” Whaley said. “Redlands Mazda's domain rating according to Ahrefs was only 0.5.”

Other changes included:

• Images and videos were using the Http protocol instead of the more secure Https
• Many external and internal links were going to pages that no longer existed or had links removed
• The website’s overall speed was slow and needed to be optimized
• The target keyword was not mentioned on the page at all
• With a targeted outreach campaign Redlands Mazda was able to build a number of quality white hat backlinks to boost their domain rating.

RESULTS – Better search rankings

“I spend a lot on Google Ads and the PPC cost for a keyword like ‘Mazda Brisbane’ can be as high as $1.50 per click. Having organic rankings for the same keyword means I am effectively getting that traffic now for free (minus agency costs)," Niebling said.

Within four weeks, the site went from ranking as low as page six for their target keywords all the way to page one. For example, the website ranked 35 th for ‘Brisbane Mazda dealers’ and now ranks fourth.

Organic traffic increased from 1,000 organic visitors per month to 5,000. Service bookings increased at least 10 times, and the number of leads and sales inquiries also increased by roughly the same margin of 10 times what they were originally getting.

Asked what he learned from the experience regarding agency management, Niebling said, “In hindsight, I would ask more questions about what their strategy is, which keywords they are targeting, and what they are doing each month to achieve the said targets and KPIs.”

Related Resources

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Win The Competition For Attention: 3 quick marketing case studies with tips

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How to Write a Marketing Case Study (With Examples)

Learn exactly what a marketing case study is, how to write one that stands out, and review some examples of existing, successful studies.

As any big brand like MailChimp, Spotify and IMB will tell you, case studies are a huge part of solidifying your brand as thought leaders.

A case study is a win: you share the success of a customer as a result of your company’s actions. At SimpleTexting we call them our Success Stories , but no matter the name, the structure is the same — how company A worked with B to achieve XYZ. 

In this article we’ll cover everything from the basics to real-life examples.What exactly is a marketing case study, what constitutes a good one, and most importantly, how do you build one?

Let’s get started.

What is a Marketing Case Study?

According to Curata , “a case study in the context of marketing is an analysis of a project, campaign or company that identifies a situation, recommended solutions, implementation actions, and identification of those factors that contributed to failure or success.”

Sure, it’s a bit wordy, but at its core marketing case studies share information with prospective customers or clients about how your product offered a solution.

It doesn’t need to be dry reading. It doesn’t even need to be a report (although it can be). The key with a case study is that it should read like a story—only the beginning, middle, and end are all replicable business takeaways.

Case studies are for businesses of all sizes. They can be just as effective for small and medium-sized businesses as they are for enterprise businesses. Here’s why you should be investing time in building case studies.

Why Write a Marketing Case Study?

Before we dive into the instructions, let’s take a second to explore why a business would invest the time and effort into writing a case study. After all, why share your big marketing secrets with the world, what do you get out of the deal?

Simply put, you get the chance to share your story. Case studies, after all, are just stories showcasing your products and methods. They make for pretty spectacular advertising because, to a reader, it doesn’t feel like they’re being marketed to.

92% of customers prefer that media messages sound like a story. By using case studies you’re appealing to the logical, casual consumer who wants to know the “who, what, where, when, and why” that drives them to buy without any of the extra fuss. Case studies are the perfect medium to package it all.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study

As mentioned, every good case study maintains one singular focus: how one company used another to achieve its goal(s). This means most marketing case studies tend to take on an easily understandable problem-solution structure.

Let’s take a look at what you need to create a successful case study.

Components of a Marketing Case Study

Using the ingredients above, assemble them in this order to create a basic marketing case study:

• Write a title : Don’t worry about spoiling the ending. With case studies you want your title to let readers know right away how a campaign ended.  A case study title should include the name of the company or brand being examined, if their campaign went well or poorly for them and a solid metric that demonstrates exactly how well or how poorly they performed. For example: “ SimpleTexting Cut Down Product Onboarding Process by 30% Through Video Instruction. “
• Introduce the subject: Every marketing case study should open with a brief historical overview of the company. What have they struggled with in the past that led to them developing this campaign? Who is their target audience, what do they sell?  Even if your subject is obscure, you want to build a sense of relatability to your readers: so be sure to structure from general to specific. After all, you want readers outside just your industry to take away value.
• Identify your subject’s problems : Avoid leaving your readers feeling underwhelmed by presenting your subject’s problems early on in your case study. What are they trying to build, fix, or change? These problems are what will ultimately establish the subject’s goal, a one or two-sentence overview of the outcomes they’d like to see.
• Spell out your strategies and tactics : The real meat to your case study occurs here. This portion of your study is where you describe what actions you specifically took to try and reach your goals: What did you expect to happen when you tried “X, Y, and Z”?  Your case study can write this all out in paragraph form if you want it to read with some fluidity, or you can simply bullet out your strategies below each goal. Examples of good strategies for a common marketing pain point, such as building a social media following, include: connecting with influencers, developing original creative content, and developing paid advertising parameters.
• Share your results with visuals : At this point, you’ll want to follow up with the preview you set in your title and share with readers how things went. If you saw success, how much and where? If you didn’t were you able to pinpoint where things went wrong? Spare no detail as you write out what worked and what didn’t, and be sure to provide replicable detail (it may be what inspires your reader to become a customer!). Some common metrics commonly found in case studies include: web analytics and traffic, backlinks generated, keyword rankings, shares or other social interactions. Graphics like charts, bolded quotes, and graphs are good opportunities to visually demonstrate your data.
• Wrap it up with a conclusion : Know the difference between reemphasizing and repeating. When writing a conclusion you shouldn’t sound like an echo, repeating exactly what you said in your introduction. Instead, you want to draw emphasis back to your key points and call your readers to action. Let them know what they can do right now to get connected and see this same success (or avoid its failure).  If you’re writing a case study for marketing purposes, this is where you sell yourself and your product.

Marketing Case Study Examples

You’ve certainly heard enough from us to this point. Now it’s time to see what all of these tips and tricks look like in action. `

A plethora of marketing case study examples are out there, each one with a different objective: educational, sales-driven, industry leadership, and more.

To give you a well-rounded picture, we’ll share some of our favorite marketing case studies with you so you can see it all in action for yourself.

1. Surf Live Saving Foundation

The Surf Life Saving Foundation rolled out an innovative new framework for their brand known as the surf lottery. Despite the size of the initiative they were able to break down their process on a share of voice campaign with a great deal of clarity. Why we like this case study : It provides actionable and replicable examples of how their objectives were received.

2. StyleHaul & Asana

Organizational application Asana also finds itself in a competition-heavy environment. They are one of many SaaS productivity programs available. They needed to give their brand more of a voice to edge out against competitors offering near-identical products. The problem that needed solving in this success story is relatable to businesses all around the world, and ASANA’s use of it is a showcase of why they’re leaders in what they do.

Why we like this case study : It’s storytelling at its finest and perfectly demonstrates the subtle advertising concept.

3. Red Sox and CTP

This is a great example of a marketing agency showcasing its history of work with a high-profile client (the Boston Red Sox). It explores their entire body of work on a dynamic landing page. Why we like this case study : It demonstrates what a multi-media approach to a digital case study should strive to be.

4. SimpleTexting & U.S. Hunger

We couldn’t talk the talk without walking the walk. We have a range of varied case studies on our Success Stories page, but one of our absolute favorites is the results from U.S. Hunger.

U.S. Hunger was looking for a way to reach those who need them most – including those without internet access.

Why we like this case study: Not only does it highlight the incredible work of U.S. Hunger, it also shows how much can be accomplished through SMS. It spins a new light on SMS marketing and shows the wider impact of accessible communication. 

Marketing Case Studies are Key to Brand Trust

As a business looking to grow, you need to prove to prospective customers and clients why they should invest in you. Whether it’s a service or a product, case studies are viable ways of showing that what you do works and discussing how you achieved it.

The most impactful case studies aren’t always the ones with big names attached to them. They’re the best stories, the best solutions, and the ones that the most people can relate to.

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Meghan Tocci

Meghan Tocci is a content strategist at SimpleTexting. When she’s not writing about SaaS, she’s trying to teach her puppy Lou how to code. So far, not so good.

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VIDEO TESTIMONIAL

10 Best Case Study Examples for Marketers

August 14, 2024

Case studies give confidence to the ICP in their purchasing decisions . Shared as marketing collateral, the best case study examples carry strong social proof of how businesses or people have benefitted from a product.

The studies take a closer look at what works and how. They are especially useful for testing out the successes of SaaS products for their specialized nature. The ICP is not just reassured but also helped with a step-by-step solutions guide to boot. SaaS case studies benefit from focusing on metrics and ROI to demonstrate real value.

Customer stories and a user reports-based b2b example of a case study get prospects to think – “If they can do it, why can’t I?”. This triggers a FOMO reaction, nudging prospects to move faster along the sales funnel.

It’s no coincidence that 73% of the most successful content marketers today use case studies. Further, nearly 50% of SaaS companies say case study in content marketing has improved their sales. ( Forbes , Sept 2022)

Here’s what some marketers think are benchmarks for product case study examples to stand out:

Today, there are many ready-to-use DIY apps for creating strong content. You can sign up for a free account with most of them. Check out:

• Figma and ClickUp for customer story and report templates .
• Videopeel for video feedback sharing.
• Flourish for interactive data visualization and more.

Using a case study video template can streamline the production process, saving time and resources.

To be honest, currently, there are way too many apps in the content creator’s toolkit. It can easily get overwhelming and lead to messy workflows. That’s why we find so many case studies ending up in the “white noise” of content marketing.

The result? Fancy graphics and meaningless fluff fill up the pages. BUT marketers fail to tell the world what kind of problems their products have solved and how.

We will assess some content examples later in this article to see which features stand out in case studies for marketing use cases.

What Is a Case Study?

A case study in marketing is a narrative on how a product/service solved a real-life challenge for a customer. The study is backed by results, documentary assurances (like a customer video testimonial), and data . Video marketing case studies should feel natural, not like a rehearsed sales pitch.

Case studies are good for attracting new buyers. You can see how prospects are constantly interested in learning about various products. They find it doubly interesting when their queries are not addressed from a sales perspective.

Reason? Fact-based content like case studies seem less salesy and, thus, more authentic.

In many particularly good case study examples, storytelling formats are used to introduce a customer. From there, the customer starts narrating the product story, not the brand.

Here is what such a format can capture:

• Introduction to the customer: He/she is a relatable profile for the ICP.
• A brief rundown of the problems: Talks about the pain points set in real-life situations.
• Various product touch points: Sheds light on the buyer journey. Beginning from the customer’s first encounter with the product to the consultation and, finally, the big buy.
• The product as the solution: Elaborates how the product simplifies tasks, followed by the delivery of measurable results.
• Resolution process: Breaks down a product’s resolution process into stages – this helps measure the buyer journey against a timeline.
• Concrete outcomes: Many specific outcomes are listed in the conclusion.

We have made videos for 150+ B2B & SaaS companies.

Explainer Video, Product Demo, Remote Video Testimonials, and more.

Types of Case Study

A marketing strategy matures by developing a full-funnel scope. Meaning — it guides the buyer journey from the top to the bottom of the marketing funnel stages. It begins with Awareness then comes Interest, then Desire, and finally Action – covering the entire AIDA spectrum.

So, should case studies be part of your round-the-funnel toolkit?

We’ve noted a few style formats to help you understand.

1. Problem Solution

This one makes your customer the key individual on a hero’s journey . They face various challenges but overcome them and ultimately succeed with the help of your product. It’s like your product is the wise guide, like Mr. Miyagi in ‘Karate Kid,’ helping them along the way.

We studied case study examples in the problem-solution format. They are custom-suited for prospects taking an interest. If they find a viable solution in your product, there is a good chance they will convert.

• The customer is introduced to an adverse situation
• The problem statement is delivered in the customer’s own words
• A solution is explored through your offering
• Measurable data is given to back claims of success
• Impact statement (again, delivered in the client’s own words)
• The best examples of case studies call for readers/viewers to experience similar success

Check out the Amazon customer story mentioned below of how Scenario used AWS Generative AI to produce 100,000 images daily.

It scaled their productivity within 2 months – and that’s a great story!

2. Before/After

So, your product makes a difference. How about making that visible?

Before/after case studies rope in visual learners present across the funnel stages. Here’s what they do:

• Product is vividly shown: Raises awareness level by several notches
• Parks viewer interest: Prospects’ doubts are answered with FAQs and visuals indicating solid outcomes
• Assures with market and social proof: Triggers conversions

Consider this Salesforce case study example.

It builds a story around Spotify coming to grips with personalized marketing at scale (propped by data silos). Soon, Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud transformed the scenario.

We know how to sell your story using your product UI

3. Success Story

People make emotional decisions (not necessarily all bad ones), even in business! Marketers are largely in the practice of using emotion to their selling advantage. See below:

First, a case study. By leveraging emotional marketing and our own emotional targeting process we helped https://t.co/NDH80kv37m increase: – Conversion rates from comparison pages by 54% – ICP signups from landing pages by 172% – Homepage conversion rates by 7x — Talia Wolf (@TaliaGw) May 17, 2023

Many branding case study examples that we studied (of Gong, Ramp, Asana, Shopify, and more) use the format of a customer’s success story. By telling the story of a challenge overcome, these brands anchor mainly on their prospects’ mental state . It covers people’s deeply felt wishes and aspirations.

There are ways to get your ICP’s attention with emotional appeal in all varieties of content. One particular example of case study which we studied showed how that is possible for factual content types as well.

• Build a case study on a theme of struggle anyone can empathize with (migration, recession, gender inequality)
• Let the story build up to a point where the customer’s quality of life improves when your product solves a particular problem
• Give data to support your claims
• End with an empathic call to action: “Need help with something similar? Chat with us.”

Remember, empathy prompts knee-jerk reactions and pushes forward buying decisions for prospects still in doubt.

4. Interview Style

The Q&A style is aptly called the “ Crisco ” of content marketing. In case studies, an interview-style Q&A smoothens the creases in introducing a problem. Next, it goes on to deliver nuanced views on the problem.

Here’s what makes a Q&A case study so convincing:

• Unfiltered user perspectives
• Two or more viewpoints shared (depending on the number of users participating)
• Pinpointed questions, bringing out specific outcomes of the product

The spontaneity of video case study examples in the interview style is hard to top in any other format. It also gives businesses the perfect opportunity to use information shared by users through their questionnaires (check this OliverWyman sample).

10 Best Case Study Examples

In product marketing, case studies strengthen the resolve of prospective buyers about their purchase. We discovered that particularly great case study examples offer facts and customer stories that prospects can trust.

The studies also help set realistic expectations before people decide to finally buy something. We have put together 10 case studies with special features. Reproducing certain specifics, as highlighted in the samples below, will increase the chances of getting your ICP’s attention on your content.

1. Content Beta

Type: B2B Journey

Summary: A creative design company handled the end-to-end video production process for a software firm. They also solved brand alignment and scaling problems by offering a CaaS (creative as a service) solution.

What we Liked: Before/After comparative diagrams and business impact quantified with data

Category: Collection of customer stories

Summary: An app for managing corporate expenses saves time and worries

What We Liked: The video of a customer speaking of their journey, the minimalist design, collection of customer stories as a case study

Category: Success Story

Summary: Efficiency for a team increases significantly with a remote work management solution

What We Liked: Creatively featured quotes to create scroll-stopping points

Summary: A revenue intelligence platform optimized sales pipeline

What We Liked: Multimedia embedding, light interface, and stylish use of different fonts

Category: Customer Experience

Summary: A web3 marketplace increases visibility for an art project

What We Liked: Showcase of finished creatives, bright layout, and use of GIFs creating a playful aesthetic

Category: Customer Story Gallery

Summary: An eCommerce company lists case studies about the many ways it has helped small businesses sell their products

What We Liked: These company case study examples can be filtered according to industry, product, region, use case, and others

Category: Interview-style

Summary: A homestay marketplace presents the opportunity for ‘experience hosting’

What We Liked: Use of candid conversation in interview style, personal storytelling

Category: Problem Solution

Summary: A conversational marketing company helps increase market-qualified leads for a search-as-a-service platform

What We Liked: This example of a case study has a forward approach with a comment on future plans

9. Biteable

Summary: An on-brand video maker helps make professional-looking videos quicker

What We Liked: Clear metrics and video marketing tips shared at the end

Category: Experience Story

Summary: An e-commerce company focused on handmade goods and craft supplies helps build a curated vintage article shop

What We Liked: An aptly placed CTA, in this case study example, deepens the curiosity that the title creates for the reader

Case Study Format

As the curated examples suggest, case studies for marketing can take inspiration from different creative styles. Brands today experiment with — multimedia embedding, first-person narrated user-generated content, visuals-centric skimmable forms , etc, to create their case studies.A case study video presentation can be repurposed across multiple channels for maximum impact.

Regardless, the underlying bare-bones structure of a case study needs to remain constant. Only then can you bring out the distinct flavor of this content type.

Our survey of different business case study examples reveals a format like this:

• Introduction: Gives background to the customer and the challenge scenario.
• Problem: Studies the main difficulty the customer was facing.
• Resolution: Gives an overview of the product or service the customer comes in contact with.
• Advantage: Summarizes the top benefits of the solution – why it was the appropriate selection.
• Outcome: The affirmative business result stems from the solution and advantages.

Having a standard structure is useful for many reasons. It allows the creative team working on a case study to understand exactly which pieces of information and assets to look for. At the same time, there is flexibility to highlight the USP of your business.

How to Write a Case Study

Case studies are factual and data-oriented . Research papers are quite the same. Only, they don’t tell a story.

When we placed some product case study examples under the scanner, different storytelling frameworks were found. Some were structured as a “hero’s journey,” while others were mindblowing success stories. We noticed all of them had a clear beginning, middle, and end corresponding to:

• Scenario and problem
• Product and solution
• Results and Quantifiable Outcomes

Our close reading of the case studies also gave us insights into writing them for the desired effect on prospects. Here is a process breakdown:

• Give the study a title indicating the problem your product has solved: This will create an instant connection with your ICP, who are trying to solve similar challenges.
• Introduce the customer with the background: This Freshbooks case study example focuses on a client who is a young mother surviving a recession while trying to run a business. The scope here for creating an emotional connection with the ICP is strong.
• Present the problem and tie it to the product: This is the core of your content. Many B2B case study examples we came across had this part as the lengthiest segment. You may show how the customer tried other ways of dealing with the problem before discovering your product.
• Bring out the solution: Deliver a vicarious experience for your ICP by going into the details of the customer’s journey. Trace it from product purchase to onboarding and use the solution for one or more use cases.
• Demonstrate the results: Plug data in to support the positive outcomes from your solution. Here, data covers more than numbers. Customer quotes, polls, and reviews found on business after product use count as data, too.
• End with a CTA: Invite prospects to experience the explained product benefits themselves. Instead of a buy button, try lead nurturing with a demo request or a ‘learn more’ CTA. Gives you more time to strengthen the lead before attempting to convert them.

Why Choose Content Beta?

If you are running a company with a small crew, surfing case study examples of multiple delivery format options, narrative styles, and new design elements can slow down your workflows. Yet, competitor research and the continuous creation of case studies remain essential for the marketing strategy of any Saas product.

This is where the Content Beta’s skilled design team can add value.

Get Content Beta’s Creative as a Service for a video (in case you want to make a video case study) and the design team on standby for a fixed monthly cost.

We are a 4.5+ rated team on TrustPilot with a proven track record of delivering well-researched case studies on time. Our team makes content creation a thoroughly collaborative process with these cutting-edge functionalities in our work portal:

• Credits Roll Over: Unused credits are transferred to the next cycle, so you don’t have to pay for anything extra. Learn more about our pricing .
• Quick Revisions: Add your comments to a creative in the making.
• Cloud Storage: Upload all brand assets you want the case study to feature.
• Collaboration: Invite your team to collaborate on the project

Schedule a call with us today!

We take inspiration from as many case study examples as possible when creating one for our brand (or our clients). Surfing through different samples increases our options for creative storytelling and gives insight into what other businesses are doing.

The range of innovative elements found in case study design examples on the web is multiplying by the day . Think – animations, UGC snippets, AR and VR segments, microlearning modules, and more.

Keeping an inventory of curated examples just helps you find relevant materials quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the key elements of a marketing case study.

The key elements of a marketing case study are:

• The problem statement or scenario,
• The product as the solution,
• Quantitative results.

What are the best practices for writing a marketing case study?

The best practices for writing a marketing study are:

• Quoting excerpts of customer-speak about your product and brand
• Giving data to support statements
• Presenting in a skimmable and visually rich format
• Placing a CTA to progress lead nurturing

What are the common mistakes to avoid in case study writing?

The common mistakes to avoid in case study writing for marketing are:

• Not focusing enough on customer experience
• Writing in a jargon-heavy language that buyers cannot understand
• Not providing data to back claims of success for your product

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Blog Graphic Design 15+ Case Study Examples for Business, Marketing & Sales

15+ Case Study Examples for Business, Marketing & Sales

Written by: Alice Corner Jan 12, 2023

Have you ever bought something — within the last 10 years or so — without reading its reviews or without a recommendation or prior experience of using it?

If the answer is no — or at least, rarely — you get my point.

Positive reviews matter for selling to regular customers, and for B2B or SaaS businesses, detailed case studies are important too.

Wondering how to craft a compelling case study ? No worries—I’ve got you covered with 15 marketing case study templates , helpful tips, and examples to ensure your case study converts effectively.

Click to jump ahead:

What is a case study?

What to include in a professional case study, business case study examples, simple case study examples, marketing case study examples, sales case study examples.

• Case study FAQs

A case study is an in-depth, detailed analysis of a specific real-world situation. For example, a case study can be about an individual, group, event, organization, or phenomenon. The purpose of a case study is to understand its complexities and gain insights into a particular instance or situation.

In the context of a business, however, case studies take customer success stories and explore how they use your product to help them achieve their business goals.

As well as being valuable marketing tools , case studies are a good way to evaluate your product as it allows you to objectively examine how others are using it.

It’s also a good way to interview your customers about why they work with you.

Related: What is a Case Study? [+6 Types of Case Studies]

A professional case study showcases how your product or services helped potential clients achieve their business goals. You can also create case studies of internal, successful marketing projects. A professional case study typically includes:

• Company background and history
• The challenge
• How you helped
• Specific actions taken
• Visuals or Data
• Client testimonials

Here’s an example of a case study template:

Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, business case studies can be a powerful resource to help with your sales, marketing, and even internal departmental awareness.

Business and business management case studies should encompass strategic insights alongside anecdotal and qualitative findings, like in the business case study examples below.

Conduct a B2B case study by researching the company holistically

When it comes to writing a case study, make sure you approach the company holistically and analyze everything from their social media to their sales.

Think about every avenue your product or service has been of use to your case study company, and ask them about the impact this has had on their wider company goals.

In business case study examples like the one above, we can see that the company has been thought about holistically simply by the use of icons.

By combining social media icons with icons that show in-person communication we know that this is a well-researched and thorough case study.

This case study report example could also be used within an annual or end-of-year report.

Highlight the key takeaway from your marketing case study

To create a compelling case study, identify the key takeaways from your research. Use catchy language to sum up this information in a sentence, and present this sentence at the top of your page.

This is “at a glance” information and it allows people to gain a top-level understanding of the content immediately. 

You can use a large, bold, contrasting font to help this information stand out from the page and provide interest.

Learn  how to choose fonts  effectively with our Venngage guide and once you’ve done that.

Upload your fonts and  brand colors  to Venngage using the  My Brand Kit  tool and see them automatically applied to your designs.

The heading is the ideal place to put the most impactful information, as this is the first thing that people will read.

In this example, the stat of “Increase[d] lead quality by 90%” is used as the header. It makes customers want to read more to find out how exactly lead quality was increased by such a massive amount.

If you’re conducting an in-person interview, you could highlight a direct quote or insight provided by your interview subject.

Pick out a catchy sentence or phrase, or the key piece of information your interview subject provided and use that as a way to draw a potential customer in.

Use charts to visualize data in your business case studies

Charts are an excellent way to visualize data and to bring statistics and information to life. Charts make information easier to understand and to illustrate trends or patterns.

Making charts is even easier with Venngage.

In this consulting case study example, we can see that a chart has been used to demonstrate the difference in lead value within the Lead Elves case study.

Adding a chart here helps break up the information and add visual value to the case study. 

Using charts in your case study can also be useful if you’re creating a project management case study.

You could use a Gantt chart or a project timeline to show how you have managed the project successfully.

Use direct quotes to build trust in your marketing case study

To add an extra layer of authenticity you can include a direct quote from your customer within your case study.

According to research from Nielsen , 92% of people will trust a recommendation from a peer and 70% trust recommendations even if they’re from somebody they don’t know.

So if you have a customer or client who can’t stop singing your praises, make sure you get a direct quote from them and include it in your case study.

You can either lift part of the conversation or interview, or you can specifically request a quote. Make sure to ask for permission before using the quote.

This design uses a bright contrasting speech bubble to show that it includes a direct quote, and helps the quote stand out from the rest of the text.

This will help draw the customer’s attention directly to the quote, in turn influencing them to use your product or service.

Less is often more, and this is especially true when it comes to creating designs. Whilst you want to create a professional-looking, well-written and design case study – there’s no need to overcomplicate things.

These simple case study examples show that smart clean designs and informative content can be an effective way to showcase your successes.

Use colors and fonts to create a professional-looking case study

Business case studies shouldn’t be boring. In fact, they should be beautifully and professionally designed.

This means the normal rules of design apply. Use fonts, colors, and icons to create an interesting and visually appealing case study.

In this case study example, we can see how multiple fonts have been used to help differentiate between the headers and content, as well as complementary colors and eye-catching icons.

Marketing case studies are incredibly useful for showing your marketing successes. Every successful marketing campaign relies on influencing a consumer’s behavior, and a great case study can be a great way to spotlight your biggest wins.

In the marketing case study examples below, a variety of designs and techniques to create impactful and effective case studies.

Show off impressive results with a bold marketing case study

Case studies are meant to show off your successes, so make sure you feature your positive results prominently. Using bold and bright colors as well as contrasting shapes, large bold fonts, and simple icons is a great way to highlight your wins.

In well-written case study examples like the one below, the big wins are highlighted on the second page with a bright orange color and are highlighted in circles.

Making the important data stand out is especially important when attracting a prospective customer with marketing case studies.

Use a simple but clear layout in your case study

Using a simple layout in your case study can be incredibly effective, like in the example of a case study below.

Keeping a clean white background, and using slim lines to help separate the sections is an easy way to format your case study.

Making the information clear helps draw attention to the important results, and it helps improve the  accessibility of the design .

Business case study examples like this would sit nicely within a larger report, with a consistent layout throughout.

Use visuals and icons to create an engaging and branded business case study

Nobody wants to read pages and pages of text — and that’s why Venngage wants to help you communicate your ideas visually.

Using icons, graphics, photos, or patterns helps create a much more engaging design. 

With this Blue Cap case study icons, colors, and impactful pattern designs have been used to create an engaging design that catches your eye.

Use a monochromatic color palette to create a professional and clean case study

Let your research shine by using a monochromatic and minimalistic color palette.

By sticking to one color, and leaving lots of blank space you can ensure your design doesn’t distract a potential customer from your case study content.

In this case study on Polygon Media, the design is simple and professional, and the layout allows the prospective customer to follow the flow of information.

The gradient effect on the left-hand column helps break up the white background and adds an interesting visual effect.

Did you know you can generate an accessible color palette with Venngage? Try our free accessible color palette generator today and create a case study that delivers and looks pleasant to the eye:

Add long term goals in your case study

When creating a case study it’s a great idea to look at both the short term and the long term goals of the company to gain the best understanding possible of the insights they provide.

Short-term goals will be what the company or person hopes to achieve in the next few months, and long-term goals are what the company hopes to achieve in the next few years.

Check out this modern pattern design example of a case study below:

In this case study example, the short and long-term goals are clearly distinguished by light blue boxes and placed side by side so that they are easy to compare.

Use a strong introductory paragraph to outline the overall strategy and goals before outlining the specific short-term and long-term goals to help with clarity.

This strategy can also be handy when creating a consulting case study.

Use data to make concrete points about your sales and successes

When conducting any sort of research stats, facts, and figures are like gold dust (aka, really valuable).

Being able to quantify your findings is important to help understand the information fully. Saying sales increased 10% is much more effective than saying sales increased.

While sales dashboards generally tend it make it all about the numbers and charts, in sales case study examples, like this one, the key data and findings can be presented with icons. This contributes to the potential customer’s better understanding of the report.

They can clearly comprehend the information and it shows that the case study has been well researched.

Use emotive, persuasive, or action based language in your marketing case study

Create a compelling case study by using emotive, persuasive and action-based language when customizing your case study template.

In this well-written case study example, we can see that phrases such as “Results that Speak Volumes” and “Drive Sales” have been used.

Using persuasive language like you would in a blog post. It helps inspire potential customers to take action now.

Keep your potential customers in mind when creating a customer case study for marketing

82% of marketers use case studies in their marketing  because it’s such an effective tool to help quickly gain customers’ trust and to showcase the potential of your product.

Why are case studies such an important tool in content marketing?

By writing a case study you’re telling potential customers that they can trust you because you’re showing them that other people do.

Not only that, but if you have a SaaS product, business case studies are a great way to show how other people are effectively using your product in their company.

In this case study, Network is demonstrating how their product has been used by Vortex Co. with great success; instantly showing other potential customers that their tool works and is worth using.

Related: 10+ Case Study Infographic Templates That Convert

Case studies are particularly effective as a sales technique.

A sales case study is like an extended customer testimonial, not only sharing opinions of your product – but showcasing the results you helped your customer achieve.

Make impactful statistics pop in your sales case study

Writing a case study doesn’t mean using text as the only medium for sharing results.

You should use icons to highlight areas of your research that are particularly interesting or relevant, like in this example of a case study:

Icons are a great way to help summarize information quickly and can act as visual cues to help draw the customer’s attention to certain areas of the page.

In some of the business case study examples above, icons are used to represent the impressive areas of growth and are presented in a way that grabs your attention.

Use high contrast shapes and colors to draw attention to key information in your sales case study

Help the key information stand out within your case study by using high contrast shapes and colors.

Use a complementary or contrasting color, or use a shape such as a rectangle or a circle for maximum impact.

This design has used dark blue rectangles to help separate the information and make it easier to read.

Coupled with icons and strong statistics, this information stands out on the page and is easily digestible and retainable for a potential customer.

Case study examples summary

Once you have created your case study, it’s best practice to update your examples on a regular basis to include up-to-date statistics, data, and information.

You should update your business case study examples often if you are sharing them on your website .

It’s also important that your case study sits within your brand guidelines – find out how Venngage’s My Brand Kit tool can help you create consistently branded case study templates.

Case studies are important marketing tools – but they shouldn’t be the only tool in your toolbox. Content marketing is also a valuable way to earn consumer trust.

Case study FAQ s

Why should you write a case study.

Case studies are an effective marketing technique to engage potential customers and help build trust.

By producing case studies featuring your current clients or customers, you are showcasing how your tool or product can be used. You’re also showing that other people endorse your product.

In addition to being a good way to gather positive testimonials from existing customers, business case studies are good educational resources and can be shared amongst your company or team, and used as a reference for future projects.

How should you write a case study?

To create a great case study, you should think strategically. The first step, before starting your case study research, is to think about what you aim to learn or what you aim to prove.

You might be aiming to learn how a company makes sales or develops a new product. If this is the case, base your questions around this.

You can learn more about writing a case study  from our extensive guide.

Related: How to Present a Case Study like a Pro (With Examples)

Some good questions you could ask would be:

• Why do you use our tool or service?
• How often do you use our tool or service?
• What does the process of using our product look like to you?
• If our product didn’t exist, what would you be doing instead?
• What is the number one benefit you’ve found from using our tool?

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Boost Your ROI

Understanding Customer Behavior

Creating relevant high-quality content, social media for relationship building, targeting your ideal audience with paid advertising, optimizing your website for search engines, key performance indicators (kpis), seo campaign roi, google ads campaign roi, social media marketing roi, content marketing roi, paid search.

• SEO: Gump's

Programmatic Ads: Hestan Culinary

Landing page and linkedin marketing: learning a-z, social media and e-commerce: locknlube.

• Google Ads: Peet's Coffee

PPC: Simon Pearce

Seo: the mom project, pixel and google tag manager: inkbox, airbnb and spearmint love, common themes and insights, final recommendations, 9 successful digital marketing case studies that boosted growth.

Updated February 2024.

2-min audio summary:

Finding the right digital marketing agency isn’t easy. But the digital marketing case studies they showcase on their site can offer invaluable insights for businesses looking to hire an agency.

Not only will you get a better idea of what they’re capable of, but you’ll better understand the impact of specific strategies and campaigns that the digital marketers used, too.

In this post, we’ll cover nine of our latest digital marketing case studies to dive deep into real-world scenarios in which we walk through the successes, challenges, and ROI that our clients experienced.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• SEO : Gump’s
• Programmatic Ads : Hestan Culinary
• Landing Page and LinkedIn Marketing : Learning A-Z
• Social Media and E-Commerce : LockNLube
• Google Ads : Peet’s Coffee
• PPC : Simon Pearce
• SEO : The Mom Project
• Pixel and Google Tag Manager : Inkbox, Airbnb and Spearmint Love

Successful Digital Marketing Strategies

In the competitive online world, digital marketing will engage your customers to drive business growth. That said, there are a number of marketing strategies that will accomplish your goals while making your ROI.

Here are the top strategies that should be added to every digital marketing campaign to drive measurable results.

When you understand your audience’s wants and needs, it can lead to an exceptional user experience.

In a survey, 94% of respondents  stated that a positive experience  made them purchase from the same brand again:

But these positive experiences vary, depending on what the customer is looking for.

There are four types of customer behaviors:

• Habitual buying behavior : Customers usually buy the same products from the same brand.
• Variety-seeking behavior : Consumers usually buy alternatives to products to achieve the same satisfaction.
• Complex buying behavior : When customers invest in high-value items or services that aren’t frequently purchased.
• Dissonance-reducing buying behavior : When a consumer is engaged in research but isn’t finding many options.

These behaviors vary depending on the level of involvement, products and industry, and competition between brands.

53% of companies are improving the quality of their content  – and for a good reason:

Content guides users down the sales funnel , educating them about your industry, what you sell, and why it solves their problems. The best type of content answers questions and keeps users engaged, all without sounding too promotional.

Popular examples of useful content include:

• Landing pages
• White papers
• Infographics
• Case studies (such as this one)

Creating content for all sales funnel stages  is the best course of action. For example, blog posts are popular for the awareness phrase, while a lead about to make a purchase may want to read your product white paper first.

4.9 billion people use social media worldwide , so it’s obvious that your customers are on various social platforms.

However, customers no longer want to be bombarded by various promotional posts and ads – they want to build relationships with brands. Businesses should consider the customer experience  when creating social marketing strategies. And there are many ways for brands to meet this demand.

• Social listening  is an exceptional way to satisfy customer demands while collecting first-party data. Various social listening tools track mentions, hashtags, and other branded terms so you’ll always know how customers feel about your company and products.
• 40%-60% of customers  are also using social media as a support channel . Brands should always keep up with their DMs, mentions, and reviews.
• And don’t forget about personalization  on social media. 89% of marketers see a good ROI and 40% enjoy higher revenue when using personalization in their campaigns :

In addition to offering exceptional social media  customer service, going live and interacting with customers is another way to improve your personalization strategy.

Paid advertising offers many benefits. For example:

• The average paid ad campaign  generates a 200% ROI!
• Paid advertising promotes your brand, increasing brand awareness and visibility.
• And since 65% of SMBs and medium-sized businesses have a paid ad campaign , investing in advertising ensures you keep up with the competition.

Because paid advertising is so effective, you can use PPC strategies on Google  and most social media platforms.

Since 53% of website traffic comes from organic search engine results , it’s still integral to optimize your website for SEO:

Remember to:

• Always perform on-page tactics, such as using keywords in page titles, URL slugs, and headings.
• Keep an updated blog and optimize your content  for high-ranking keywords.
• Run regular SEO audits  to ensure no technical issues are decreasing your performance on SERPs.

Poring over a case study for digital marketing can be very helpful in visualizing these marketing strategies.

KPIs  are quantifiable indicators that prove your progress in your marketing campaign. Marketers can also measure KPIs to plan future campaigns, improve existing strategies, and create a basis for decision-making.

Here are the most vital KPIs for marketing:

• Traffic growth : Measures the increase of website visitors over a specific timeframe.
• Conversion rates : Metric that represents the percentage of website visitors who bought a product or responded to your CTA.
• Customer engagement : Measures how customers interact with your brand, i.e., how long they spend on your website per session.
• Revenue increase : How much money your business made in a certain period. Businesses often compare revenue increases over past periods.

In our digital marketing case study examples below, you’ll see how we tackle each of these KPIs.

Calculating ROI for Different Digital Marketing Channels

Before starting your marketing campaign, it’s essential to calculate ROI for different marketing channels to ensure that you don’t overspend. Every marketing channel  comes with various strategies to calculate ROI.

Here’s a snapshot of each.

Since SEO consists of multiple tactics, marketers should calculate ROI for all strategies. This can include any investments, such as tools and the personnel you hire or outsource to complete these tactics.

SEO ROI also varies by industry. All businesses can use a tool like Google Analytics to measure revenue  from organic searches:

Certain industries, notably e-commerce companies, should also measure sales from organic search traffic. Other businesses can create a sales funnel and track conversions with each phase (for example, the percentage of leads who entered the awareness phase and who made purchases).

Once you have these figures, you can subtract the revenue you made from SEO from your investments.

To calculate Google Ads ROI, Google  suggests taking the revenue you generated from your campaign and subtracting it from your costs, then dividing that figure again by the costs. That formula looks like this: ROI = (Revenue – Cost of goods sold) / Cost of goods sold.

While tracking Google Ads conversions and purchases are the best ways to calculate paid ad ROI, your chosen method depends on your goals. Consider other goals, such as downloading a white paper or signing up for a free trial.

Social media marketing can be part of many strategies, such as a lead generation campaign . Some brands may also use social media to improve their brand awareness. This is why calculating your social media ROI depends on your goals.

You’ll first need to collect data on your campaign, such as engagements, impressions, and clicks. Compare these results against any expenses to run your campaign, such as advertising costs and any wages or rates you paid for staff members or freelancers.

Since content marketing involves many blog posts, videos, infographics, and other forms of content, many marketers calculate their ROI based on the total investments in a given time period.

Use this formula to calculate your content marketing ROI :

In this figure, you’ll add your overhead costs to get the investments, and you’ll find the return by adding your sales numbers. By subtracting and dividing the return by the investment and multiplying that figure by 100, you’ll get a percentage.

Now, let’s dive into a digital marketing case study for each of nine marketing areas.

9 Successful Digital Marketing Agency Case Studies

Now that you know what exactly goes into a marketing strategy, let’s take a look at nine of our digital marketing case studies that showcase these strategies while taking you through the challenge, strategy and execution.

This case study is of a client that is an AI-powered workplace communications platform. They reached out to Single Grain to launch a paid social and search strategy for their digital marketing campaign.

The client had low brand awareness and didn’t have a paid ad strategy in their digital marketing campaign before seeking our services. The company desired to build user demand with a social and search advertising strategy. They desired a full-funnel strategy, targeting leads at every stage of the buying process.

We created a comprehensive paid strategy for search engines. We also used LinkedIn  to establish our client as a leader in their niche to increase organic traffic.

For the paid search strategy, we targeted brand traffic, high-intent brand interest, and competitor searches. We took first-party data from LinkedIn to align the ads  with their target audience, experimenting with different ads to match user intent.

We also used their LinkedIn page to establish the client as a leader in their niche. This helped to grow customer lists, improve their digital marketing efforts, and grow website traffic.

The client experienced a 24% increase in lead submissions. LinkedIn is their main touchpoint for Tier 1 and 2 leads, and search is the driving force behind closing high-value accounts. We achieved these results while reducing costs by 16% and maintaining a CPA of -32%.

In only three months after paid search and LinkedIn campaign launch, the client achieved a 24% increase in conversions.

SEO: Gump’s

Gump’s San Francisco is a specialty goods store selling various home decor and jewelry items. After having a successful previous year, they sought help from Single Grain in March 2022 to advance the previous year’s sales with various digital marketing tactics .

Gump’s doesn’t have many challenges as far as digital marketing is concerned. They had successful sales in 2021 and set goals to surpass these revenue records.

For this digital marketing case study, we used cross-selling and digital marketing to retain existing customers while utilizing Google Search and Shopping to attract new customers.

We invested in paid ads  across various channels while expanding its Google Search and Shopping strategy. We optimized Gump’s product listings for the home decor category, ensuring that we targeted their audience.

Gump’s surpassed their 2021 sales goals. Their year-over-year sales are increasing by 92%, solely attributed to marketing. This led to a 79% increase in overall revenue. They achieved an over 40% increase in web traffic, a 79% increase in total orders, 104% Google ROI in the home decor category, and a 32% return customer rate.

By optimizing Gump’s product listings  for home decor categories, we improved their ROAS by 104% – nearly double the amount of spend.

By targeting the home decor category on Google and retargeting existing customers, we conquered Gump’s 2022 sales goals with digital marketing and drove sales and revenue growth.

Hestan Culinary sells high-quality pots, pans, and other cookware that’s backed by Michelin-star chefs. After seeing sales drop, they needed an effective revenue growth digital marketing solution that also improved their ROAS.

Hestan Culinary sells chef-grade cookware. While this is great for professionals, it doesn’t target the casual cooking enthusiast or those trying to cook more at home. Hestan Culinary’s products come with a longer buyer’s digital marketing journey, which posed a problem when they started seeing sales drop.

Hestan Culinary needed to drive sales growth while improving its ROAS. This is why we expanded to programmatic ads with a full-funnel digital marketing approach. We used StackAdapt to reach a qualified audience, using different tactics to nurture them down the sales funnel .

Through the programmatic advertising StackAdapt strategy, we implemented catalog and native feed units for a stronger-performing ad campaign. By targeting qualified audience members immediately, Hestan Culinary improved its ROAS while increasing conversions.

After the first month of the campaign, Hestan Culinary achieved a 218% increase in conversions and a ROAS that went from 1.91 to 9.20. We sustained these metrics for over 45 days after the launch, and Hestan Culinary achieved more revenue.

Hestan Culinary not only achieved more conversions and revenue, but programmatic advertising  improved its full-funnel digital marketing strategy.

Learning A-Z sells science and literacy blended learning products to students at Pe K-6 grades. We helped them with two strategies: landing page testing…

…and purchasing licenses by targeting school administrators on LinkedIn:

Learning A-Z’s original landing page had far too many external links and CTAs, which very likely confused customers. They were also looking to increase sales for licenses on LinkedIn.

First, we redesigned their existing landing page. We focused on simplifying their design so as not to deter customers away from their products and services.

To increase license sales, we used LinkedIn’s Job Title Targeting  function to find school administrators and used digital marketing to target these consumers.

For the landing page, we created 1-2 CTAs driving conversions per page. We used one of two buttons for these CTAs: “Free Trial” or “Order Now.”

For the licenses, we used LinkedIn’s tools to write specific job titles that narrowed down the list of candidates to those with K-5 grade school administration roles.

The redesigned landing page resulted in 73% more “Order Now” clicks, 42% more “Free Trial” clicks, and 125% more conversions.

By targeting K-5 school administrators on LinkedIn, Learning A-Z achieved 462 new users, notably one free trial, four new purchases, positive website metrics, and 12 sample downloads. However, our LinkedIn efforts resulted in a high CPA, so we turned our attention to Facebook Admin. Since then, Learning A-Z has achieved a 5.47 ROAS.

Learning A-Z’s simplified landing page resulted in more conversions. While they had some success on LinkedIn in increasing licenses, Facebook Admin resulted in a better ROAS.

LockNLube sells various greasing products and parts for cars. Single Grain helped them with various digital marketing strategies: optimizing for Amazon and eBay:

…along with developing a media strategy with a heavy emphasis on TikTok ads:

LockNLube wanted to optimize its product listings for Amazon. Since they were heading into their peak season, they wanted to increase top-of-funnel awareness with various digital marketing strategies.

LockNLube was also struggling with eBay’s new marketing tool, Promoted Listings Advanced. However, there were few bidding controls.

We gave LockNLube’s Amazon  digital marketing strategy a complete makeover, rewriting their titles and descriptions. We also scaled Amazon ad  spending.

For eBay , we used keyword bidding to make up for what eBay’s Promoted Listings Advanced tool lacked.

For TikTok , we took LockNLube’s previous creatives and re-optimized them for TikTok.

In addition to these standout cases, we created a complete media strategy for LockNLube, adding new digital platforms to their campaign. These included YouTube ads, demand-side-platforms (DSP), IG/FB Shopping, Walmart ads, top-of-funnel marketing, SMS marketing, relaunched branding and store pages, and Performance Max campaigns.

For Amazon , we implemented A+ digital marketing content for their Amazon product listings, A/B testing all images and content.

For eBay , we took top-performing keywords from Amazon and Google to begin their eBay campaign. We also added competitor keywords to the campaign. To test the success, we separated all keywords into three groups: Brand, Nonbrand, and Competitor. We observed these keywords to see which keywords were converting.

For TikTok , we redid the creatives to make them more creative and entertaining. In addition to the advertising and marketing campaigns we added to their overall media strategy, we also implemented “frequently bought together” features.

Re-optimizing LockNLube’s Amazon  page resulted in 54% revenue growth year over year while also maintaining ROAS. Optimizing their content led to over 100% increases in sessions and an increased 24.7% conversion rate.

For eBay , there are 21% more clicks, 74% more impressions, and 12%, with ROAS increased at 110%.

For TikTok , their engagement rate and CTR were fantastic while keeping CPCs and CPMs low. Since we didn’t achieve as good of a ROAS from direct response, we came to the conclusion that TikTok is better as an upper-channel digital marketing tactic.

From Q1 2019 to Q3 2022, LockNLube saw an overall revenue increase. We launched eight new channels, which resulted in a 42% increase in AOV, a 68% increase in paid traffic, and an 18% increase in the average YOY customer return rate.

We drove revenue for LockNLube thanks to the launch of eight new digital marketing channels and re-optimizing their existing Amazon, eBay, and TikTok strategies.

Google Ads: Peet’s Coffee

Peet’s Coffee sells high-quality coffee and tea, sourcing the best beans and leaves. They reached out to Single Grain to improve their Google Ads strategy.

Peet’s Coffee has excellent brand awareness and digital marketing campaigns but had very little presence on Google Ads. Even though they saw a return from their existing strategy, growth was still stagnant.

We focused on Google Ads and optimized their campaign for different types of keywords, as well as revamped the ad copy.

We  bid on high-ROI keywords , such as branded and product name terms. We rewrote the ad copy to fit the landing pages better and focus on the UVP of the product. We also tested non-branded keywords, scaling them to improve their ROI.

Peet’s Coffee saw a 455% increase in revenue and 676% more orders, all with a 158% increase in ROAS and a reduced 72% cost per order. This was thanks to our efforts aligning searcher intent with ad copy.

Revamping Peet’s Google Ads strategy resulted in huge sales growth while improving ROAS.

Simon Pearce is an entrepreneur who reached success by selling handmade pottery and glassware. He approached Single Grain to improve his ROAS on his paid search campaign.

Simon Pearce’s ROAS was declining YoY from January 2022 to January 2023. Not only that, but CPC was up by 168%.

We realized the rising CPC was directly affecting Simon Pearce’s ROAS. To cut back on costs, we created a manual bidding strategy and scrapped the previous automated bidding campaign.

Even though branded digital marketing keywords are some of the most affordable, Simon Pearce was spending more than he was getting in return on these search terms. We experimented with manual bidding and doing away with their previous automated strategy to try and improve the ROAS.

Early digital marketing results were extremely strong. By manually bidding on keywords and watching spend, we decreased his CPC by 60% and improved their ROAS by 135%. These tactics didn’t compromise impressions; Simon Pearce achieved a 60% CTR and a 17% increase in impression share.

This digital marketing case study shows that using manual bidding on Google Ads improved ROAS for Simon Pearce.

The Mom Project (TMP) is a recruiter that connects talented women to companies and job opportunities. They reached out to Single Grain to decrease their costs per lead in their digital marketing campaign.

While The Mom Project had a digital marketing search campaign, it was failing to capture total search demand. They needed a solution to decrease their costs per lead while better targeting their audience.

Single Grain revamped TMP’s search copy to target a qualified audience better. We also separated the job titles into different audience signals, giving Google a better idea of the audience we were trying to target. We used Performance Max to find qualified clicks.

The digital marketing audience signals we created for the strategy were Custom Segments (keywords related to hiring intent), Interests (audience members who connected with TMP based on interests and demographics), and Your Data (people who previously interacted with TMP).

From here, we were able to redo customer lists, assess lead quality, use location targeting and bid adjustments, and create ad schedules. Performance Max leveraged automation to find qualified clicks on display, search, video, discover, and Gmail, lowering costs.

By using Performance Max, we achieved a lower CPA and CPC, down 51.3% and 91.2%, respectively. Performance Max also helped us use this data to target TOFU audiences.

By using Performance Max, we were able to improve TOFU digital marketing search demand and improve CPA for The Mom Project.

This digital marketing case study targets remarketing  for three brands: Inkbox, Airbnb, and Spearmint Love. We collected data on revenue and conversions from these brands to determine the impact of our remarketing campaign.

• Inkbox  is a temporary tattoo company that wanted to retarget marketing leads on Reddit, hoping it would lower their CPA.
• Property rental giant Airbnb  used Google to improve vendor collection, prevent bottlenecks between operations and marketing, avoid unnecessary tagging replication, and minimize snippet size.
• Kids clothing and accessories company Spearmint Love  used Facebook to retarget moms.
• For Inkbox’s  social marketing retargeting, we used a Reddit Pixel that captured a larger audience and tracked conversions.
• For Airbnb , we implemented Google Tag Manager  and built a data layer.
• For Spearmint Love , we added Facebook Pixel to automate audience targeting, simplified ad creation and targeting, and tracked ROAS.
• For Inkbox , the Reddit Pixel helped us understand Inkbox’s Reddit audience, so we were able to customize messaging and creatives to target their consumers. This helped return customers to the sales funnel.
• For Airbnb , Google Tag Manager launched new programs, tools, and vendors quicker. It also cut tag deployment to hours (was previously at days).
• For Spearmint Love , we integrated Facebook Pixel with their BigCommerce platform, which boosted their business and resulted in more hires from within.
• For Inkbox , we helped them achieve 1.5x higher CTRs and lowered CPAs by 86%.
• For Airbnb , we helped them achieve an 8% increase in website speed, more optimizations, accurate data collection, and a better ROI.
• For Spearmint Love , we helped them achieve a 38x ROAS, with 14.6x of that figure return going toward Facebook. Their advertising success also led to a 12x YoY growth in revenue.

By enacting a remarketing strategy for Inkbox, Airbnb, and Spearmint Love, we helped these brands achieve more CTRs and revenue growth on various social media platforms with improved ROAS, CPAs, and ROI.

While all of these digital marketing case studies are different, there are many parallels between these brands:

Many of these brands executed their own advertising strategy but were struggling to improve their ROAS on their own.

Because of higher CPCs, this made achieving an ad return even more difficult.

Single Grain’s digital marketers had to think outside the box for these clients, using strategies such as manual bidding and relying on unconventional social media platforms such as Reddit.

Some of these platforms, such as eBay, lacked essential advertising marketing strategies with their own tools, so we implemented additional strategies to increase impressions and CTRs.

Here are our overall final recommendations:

• While many businesses can handle an ad strategy DIY, trusting a digital marketing agency like Single Grain will result in the most conversions and the best ROAS.
• Use different tools, such as Performance Max and Pixel, to better entice your target audience.
• While advanced advertising technology such as programmatic ads can increase conversions, manual tactics, such as bidding, can still keep costs down.
• Less is more, especially when it comes to ad copy and landing page design.
• Diversifying your channels and targeting specific audiences on those platforms is the real revenue driver for TOFU targeting.
• Don’t overlook the power of remarketing to an existing audience.

Because of the complex world of digital marketing, even the biggest companies may need help with their campaigns. That’s why they hired professional digital marketers.

While all these case studies are different, they have one thing in common: We increased impressions and revenue while improving ROAS.

By diversifying their platforms, adding new channels, and revamping existing strategies, our digital marketers helped these brands increase web traffic, sales, and return customer rates.

Seeking help from a professional is also a smart idea when creating a new ad strategy, especially if you have low brand awareness and don’t know your target audience. This way, you know you can convert leads while achieving exceptional ROAS.

Remember: Reading a case study on digital marketing (or, better yet, several case studies) can help you learn not only what kind of success can be had, but how exactly the marketing agency you’re thinking of hiring went about it.

If you’re ready to level up your business, Single Grain’s digital marketing experts can help with paid ads, SEO, content marketing and more! 👇

Digital marketing case studies faqs.

Case studies in marketing are comprehensive analyses of specific instances where marketing strategies and campaigns were employed to achieve business objectives. These case study examples of digital marketing focus on real-world examples, detailing the challenges faced, strategies implemented, and outcomes achieved.

They serve several purposes, including:

• Educational Tools: Marketing case studies are used as teaching aids to illustrate marketing concepts and strategies in action, helping students and professionals understand how theories apply in real-life scenarios.
• Evidence of Success: For businesses, they provide evidence of successful marketing strategies and can be used to showcase their achievements to potential clients or stakeholders.
• Strategic Planning: They offer valuable insights into what worked or didn’t work in certain situations, aiding in the formulation of future marketing strategies.

Right here! Just scroll up to read 9 case study examples of digital marketing tactics!

Otherwise, marketing case studies can be found across various platforms and publications, both online and in print, including:

• Business Schools and Academic Journals: Many leading business schools publish case studies on marketing strategies and business management. Journals such as the Harvard Business Review are renowned for their extensive collection of case studies.
• Company Websites: Businesses, especially digital marketing agencies, often publish case studies on their websites, showcasing successful campaigns or strategies they’ve implemented for clients.
• Marketing Blogs and Websites: Websites dedicated to marketing and business strategies, such as HubSpot, MarketingProfs, and Forbes, frequently feature case studies and success stories.
• Professional Associations: Organizations like the American Marketing Association (AMA) provide resources, including case studies, to their members.

Examples of case study topics in marketing could include:

• Launch of a New Product: Analyzing the strategy behind introducing a new product to the market.
• Brand Rejuvenation: A study on how a brand successfully repositioned itself in the market.
• Digital Marketing Success: Examining the digital strategies an agency used to increase its online presence and sales for themselves or their clients.
• Social Media Campaigns: Analysis of a campaign that leveraged social media platforms to achieve specific marketing objectives.
• International Marketing: How a brand successfully entered and established itself in a foreign market.

Again, just scroll up to read this blog in which we provide 9 examples of digital marketing case studies!

Here’s a quick example of a company using targeted social media advertising to increase brand awareness and sales. For instance:

• Objective: A small e-commerce brand aimed to increase its online sales by 30% over three months.
• Strategy: The brand decided to utilize Facebook and Instagram advertising, targeting users based on their interests, previous interactions with the website, and demographic information.
• Implementation: They created a series of engaging ads featuring user-generated content, reviews, and special promotions. The campaign also included A/B testing of ad copy and visuals to determine what resonated best with their target audience.
• Outcome: The campaign led to a 40% increase in online sales, exceeded the initial goal, and also grew the brand’s social media following significantly.

This digital marketing case study example showcases the power of a well-planned and executed strategy, highlighting the importance of targeting, content, and continuous optimization in achieving marketing goals.

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[Updated] 8 Best marketing case study examples

Social listening and consumer intelligence will knock your marketing campaigns out of the park. No question.

Don’t believe me?

The following types of case studies speak for themselves about why you should… listen. Show me the success stories!

Table of content

• Grubhub | Consumer insights feed the soul
• UNICEF | Fighting misleading information with conversational insights
• University of Sydney | Proves the value of social media
• Bella&Brava | Image recognition sees all 
• HelloFresh | Social listening is the secret ingredient 
• Hong Kong Airlines | How to turn a crisis into a soaring success
• Bonduelle | Breaking down data silos to make critical business decisions
• Lion & Lion and Rimmel | Changing the face of Malaysian makeup

Grubhub marketing case study | Consumer insights feed the soul

When the world went into lockdown, food delivery services became an essential part of all our lives. But how to do it safely?

Based in the US, Grubhub is a food ordering and delivery platform that connects consumers with local restaurants and takeaways. To understand what people wanted and meet their new demands, the brand turned to consumer insights.

COVID-19 brought the world to its knees. People feared for their health and for their income. The challenge for Grubhub was how to address consumer concerns with regard to a restricted household budget, disinfection protocols, the mechanics of safe food delivery, and more.

Using our consumer intelligence platform, the Grubhub team monitored for diners' negative experiences, and countered with positive experiences.

When Grubhub's Belly Dance ad first aired on TV, it fell below expectations, receiving low engagement. Suddenly, in January 2021, the commercial became a viral meme, receiving over 40K mentions on social media in one month.

Working with Talkwalker, the brand created a strategy as to how to join this growing conversation .

Think you can make a commercial better than us? Prove it. Add your own music to it or suggest a song, then tweet it with #DeliverTheRemix . You could have your song featured in our commercial and win a YEAR of free food. Ends 1/19. No purch nec. 50 US/DC, 18+. Rules in bio. pic.twitter.com/cRxIFKAji9 — Grubhub (@Grubhub) January 16, 2021

As the campaign became more successful, the team launched the #DeliverTheRemix contest, asking followers to help choose the next song in the “Belly Dance” ad. Consumers loved it, creating a ton of fun and creative pieces of content.

To understand how Grubhub was able to turn negative community sentiment and drive a brand-amplifying strategy , read the Grubhub marketing case study.

Download the Grubhub marketing case study

UNICEF marketing case study | Fighting misleading information with conversational insights

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we've been bombarded with misinformation about the virus and the various vaccines. As this case study shows, we look at how UNICEF MENARO developed a communication strategy to battle the fake news that threatened to undermine the vaccine program in the Middle East and North Africa.

The pandemic caught us by surprise, and we lacked a reliable source of truth. This issue was exacerbated with the release of the vaccine, when we suffered a further deluge of fake news that fed the rising anti-vaccine mood.

It became critical for organizations promoting the vaccine to understand the concerns of the public , enabling them to put peoples' fears to rest. And build trust in vaccines.

For UNICEF MENARO this meant using Talkwalker's consumer intelligence platform to track misinformation keywords , along with mentions of COVID-19 in online conversations in the MENA region to see just how serious the situation was.

Sentiment analysis was used to find the overall sentiment around vaccines, with results showing that net sentiment was low, proving vaccine hesitancy.

The net sentiment around vaccines from December 2020 - April 2021 demonstrated the overall negative view of vaccines.

To shift the sentiment, UNICEF in MENA activated the voices of community members to engage with people and allay their vaccine fears.

UNICEF'S communication strategy delivered a data-driven narrative using strategic partnerships, influencer marketing, and real-life testimonies. Short-form videos that were a strong part of the strategy, with the video for the #MaskUp campaign receiving over 136K mentions between April 2020 and May 2021.

Number of mentions of #MaskUp in the MENA region during the past 13 months.

UNICEF continues to play a key role in monitoring conversation around the pandemic, whether it's positive or negative. 

To understand more about how UNICEF used consumer intelligence to battle fake news , and the successful campaigns it launched, check out our UNICEF marketing case study.

Download the UNICEF marketing case study

University of Sydney marketing case study | Proves the value of social media

The secret to a successful social media strategy is ensuring it's aligned with your business goals.

This marketing case study explores how the University of Sydney used a combination of Hootsuite and Talkwalker and increased sentiment, engagement, and video views.

The university was looking to boost its reputation for research, entice a more diverse range of top-level students, and build a brand that would stand out in a crowd. A forward thinking university, social media would inevitably play a big part, so much so, it already had a Social Squad using Hootsuite, Talkwalker, and Adobe.

What did the squad do? Bringing the various faculty teams together, it created a social media strategy that aligned content, goals, and reporting across it's 36 official social channels.

Sentiment analysis and social media listening enabled the university to measure and manage its brand reputation . Collecting insights that informed the campaign strategy and boosted sentiment through social media communication.

When sentiment turned negative during the COVID-19 lockdown, the Stay Strong India campaign brought about a 30% increase in net sentiment score.

“The insights that Talkwalker provides us have been incredible and have really informed our campaign strategy. Providing these insights to our stakeholders demonstrates what social media can do for our brand and helps us secure investment to increase our budgets and grow our team.” Liz Grey | Social Media | University of Sydney

In the past, when content was shared across multiple channels without a plan, reporting results was hard. The introduction of Hootsuite Impact meant that the team could efficiently report on engagement, campaign performance, and ROI.

A year into its successful social media strategy, the university continues to collect student insights, and is looking to recruit influencers to meet new goals.

For more details on how the university used social media to improve its reputation, download our University of Sydney marketing case study.

Download the University of Sydney marketing case study

Bella&Brava marketing case study | Image recognition sees all

I love pizza, you love pizza. 

With a whopping 106.2K mentions on July 9th, 2019 on Twitter alone, it’s clear that everyone loves posting about pizza.

Data found using Talkwalker’s QuickSearch .

The most popular emojis used when it comes to discussing pizza.

When Venice-based pizzeria Bella&Brava wanted to open restaurants in new locations, it partnered with digital consultancy company OpenKnowledge to harness the power of social media.

Using Talkwalker’s proprietary image recognition technology , OpenKnowledge analyzed data from user-generated content - UGC - created by the consumers Bella&Brava were looking to feed. Their hip, young target audience.

Using image recognition, photos of pizzas posted on social media platforms - Instagram, Facebook, Twitter - were identified, along with background scenes and objects. 

The consumer insights collected from social networks helped Bella&Brava make critical business decisions . Which cities to open in? Which brand partnerships to explore? How will cultural differences influence the design of each new menu?

Read Bella&Brava’s marketing case study to see how social listening and consumer insights will put your brand ahead of your competitors, purely by listening to consumers and meeting their demands .

Download the Bella&Brava marketing case study

“In the digital age, there are two types of organisations: those that collect data and those that transform it into opportunities” Ilaria Baietti, Director - Brand Interaction, OpenKnowledge

Speed up the growth of your business by closing the gap between your brand and consumers. Boom!

HelloFresh marketing case study | When social listening is the secret ingredient 

When HelloFresh, the world’s leading meal kit company, was struggling with social media data, it was time to call Talkwalker. .

Previously, the brand had been manually collecting social media data. This was not only  time consuming, but vital information was being missed .

Humans are great, but when you consider the amount of social data out there…

It was time to freshen up HelloFresh’s marketing strategy with social listening.

“At HelloFresh, data is at the center of everything we do. It was only natural for us to turn to social listening to improve the performance and efficiency of our marketing and communications teams. Talkwalker has allowed us to unlock access to a much larger conversation around our brand than ever before.” Jordan Schultz, Social Media Manager, HelloFresh

Talkwalker’s consumer intelligence platform was able to identify consumer insights , then translate into meaningful data. Moving forward, HelloFresh identified more than 400% more mentions per month.

With all these new insights to hand, HelloFresh began to develop a crisis management plan.

Take a look at our HelloFresh marketing case study, for more details

Download the HelloFresh marketing case study

Hong Kong Airlines marketing case study | How to turn a crisis into a soaring success

This is a case study from a few years back, so pre pandemic. But it remains a landing page that converts, bigly.

What’s every traveler’s dream and every airline’s nightmare?

When a Hong Kong Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Shanghai was mispriced at $561, consumers rushed to make the most of this mistake, with the Hong Kong Airline marketing team scrabbling for their oxygen masks.

The buzz from the mispriced tickets caused a huge increase in mentions, engagement and reach.

What were their options in the face of this PR crisis ? Search for the nearest exit? Or, buckle up and go along for what was sure to be a bumpy ride? 

Hong Kong Airlines decided to take another route. They chose to breeze right through it.

Luckily, they were prepared because of social listening and consumer intelligence. By using the insights from Talkwalker’s social media data and sentiment analysis , they were able to plan accordingly and protect their brand reputation .

“When we see what is happening in “real time” on social media we are better prepared to make timely and informed decisions and communicate those decisions well. Social listening and analytics tools are critical to success. In this case, we managed to turn what could have been a damaging issue, into a fantastic PR opportunity. With 4,900% more engagements created in a one week period.” Dennis Owen, General Manager of Branding and Social Media, Hong Kong Airlines

Read the Hong Kong Airlines case study to learn how they used social media data from competitors, and sentiment analysis to inform their strategic decisions. All while keeping long term customers and potential customers happy.

Download the Hong Kong Airlines marketing case study

Bonduelle marketing case study | Breaking down data silos to make critical business decisions

Bonduelle, a major French brand in the FMCG/CPG industry, was in the grips of optimizing its online brand strategy. The company that specializes in providing frozen and canned vegetables daily to over 100 countries, wanted to ensure that all its consumer data was readily available across its entire company.

The problem?

Data silos in Bonduelle.

Each department was collecting its own data and interpreting it, without a platform from which to share the information with other teams. This is a common issue. The State of Social Intelligence Report points out that 31% of organizations offer their teams limited access to social data.

The crucial information was hidden away in the dark depths of the team’s computer folder – unable to be used across departments to identify added benefits.

Social listening held the key to knocking down these data walls. It brought together information from online, social media, and traditional press all on one platform . Allowing Bonduelle to find the topics that were being discussed alongside their products or services, images associated with the brand, their high-performing influencers, and how to protect their brand reputation from negative comments.

Talkwalker offered the perfect solution, giving the brand the opportunity to build their own dashboard and choose who would have access to the data.

Read Bonduelle’s marketing case study to learn more about how it...

• Determined positioning based on data maturity scale in report
• Identified its progress in terms of data maturity
• Created necessary systems and teams for scalable processing of data
• Introduced the chief data officer role to maximize the value of data as it progresses

Download the Bonduelle marketing case study

Lion & Lion and Rimmel marketing case study ­| Changing the face of Malaysian makeup

When faced with the relaunch of the British cosmetics brand Rimmel in Malaysia, the brand’s digital marketing agency, Lion & Lion, turned to social media.

With the increasing demand for authenticity and inclusivity, the beauty industry has been opting for social media and specifically, influencer marketing instead of traditional advertising methods. 

Makes sense!

It’s a trend that resonates with Gen Z . Econsultancy states that 65% of this group rely on social media to find and choose beauty products. 

Rather than listening to marketers telling you what to buy, social media, blog posts and influencers become the cool friend with the inside scoop on the latest makeup trend. So, it’s no surprise that cosmetics brands are turning to social media marketing and social listening for consumer insights into what people really want.

In a country where the k-beauty brands dominate the shelves, the first step was to make Rimmel stand out in the crowd. 

The data showed that consumers trust that beauty is more than skin deep. It’s all about being confident. It’s all about being confident. They want bold, experimental makeup to create distinctive looks.

Rimmel then launched the #MakeUpYourOwnRules marketing campaign which championed self-expression and all-inclusive beauty that radiates confidence.

“As a result, we saw an increase in branded search and share-of-voice, and gained around 3x of our initial market share target within the first year of launch” Cheska Teresa, Managing Director, Lion & Lion in Malaysia  

For more details on how Lion & Lion took full advantage of social listening and consumer intelligence for Rimmel, read Lion & Lion’s marketing case study.

Download the Lion & Lion and Rimmel marketing case study

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There you have it. 8 of our best marketing case study examples. Download them all to discover how some of the world's biggest brands use our consumer intelligence platform to drive their marketing strategies to success . Our industry-leading platform turns social and owned data into powerful and easy to action consumer insights. Don’t get left behind…

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5 Case Studies of Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns

Hold onto your hats, marketers!

Did you know digital marketing spending is set to explode, reaching a mind-boggling $ 786 billion by 2026 ? And with social media ad spend hitting over $70 billion in the US alone , there’s no denying the power of a killer online campaign.

But here’s the thing: it’s not just about throwing money at ads. Successful campaigns in 2024 are a strategic dance – they blend social media with a whole symphony of channels for a knockout customer experience.

Think of it like this: Personalizing your message? That’s the move that turns casual shoppers into loyal fans.

Ready to see how top brands are doing a successful digital marketing campaign? I’m dissecting 5 real-world campaigns that nailed this formula and reaped the rewards. Get ready for digital marketing strategies – inspiration and a blueprint for your own marketing success await.

• Beyond the Love Fest: Slack's Winning Formula

Ideas to Adapt This Digital Advertising Strategy

Tips to steal for your business, ideas for your business, lessons for your business, case study #1. slack.

Slack’s meteoric rise in the competitive business communication space can be largely attributed to their genius understanding of a simple concept: customers love to talk about products they adore. Here’s how they turned this digital marketing campaign into marketing gold:

• The “Wall of Love” Campaign: This brilliant tactic involved a dedicated Twitter account (@SlackLoveTweets) that amplified positive user testimonials. This effortless social proof machine did wonders for brand reputation and encouraged even more glowing commentary.
• Easy Sharing = Participation: Using X (formerly Twitter), a platform already beloved by users, removed any participation hurdles.
• Feedback Loop: Praise wasn’t just for show – the team used those rave reviews to refine their product and deliver what users really needed.
• The Power of Visuals: Tweets with included images got more traction and showcased how Slack integrates into people’s work lives.

Beyond the Love Fest: Slack’s Winning Formula

Slack’s success goes beyond a single campaign. Here’s why they continue to compete with giants like Microsoft Teams:

• Relentless Focus on User Experience: From its inception, Slack was built with the user in mind. Easy setup, intuitive design…it removes the tech friction that bogs down other platforms.
• Real-Time = Real Connection: In a world demanding instant communication, Slack delivers. This keeps teams on the same page and fosters a sense of camaraderie.
• Customizable and Integrations-Friendly: Slack’s open approach lets it play nicely with countless other tools, creating a tailored work hub. This flexibility is invaluable to businesses.

The Bottom Line: Slack proved that listening to customers and showing that they matter is the recipe for building not just a loyal user base, but passionate brand advocates.

Want to implement aspects of this for your own business? Here are some ideas:

• Run a testimonial campaign: It doesn’t need to be as fancy as “The Wall of Love.” A simple social media hashtag or even a dedicated landing page can get people talking.
• Turn glowing testimonials into visuals: Tweets, infographics…make that praise eye-catching.
• Pay attention to even the smallest bits of feedback. That’s where your next big feature idea might be hiding.

Case Study #2. UNIQLO

UNIQLO knew that to get people excited about their HEATTECH line, they needed to go beyond standard ads. Hence, an ingenious omnichannel experience was born:

• The Hook: Eye-catching digital billboards across Australia, plus videos online, dared people to snap photos of unique codes. This gamified the promotion, making it fun.
• The Reward: Codes unlocked either free t-shirts (who doesn’t love free stuff?) or tempting e-commerce discounts. Plus, a gentle push toward signing up for the newsletter for future deals.
• The Viral Touch: The experience was shareable on social media, letting satisfied customers spread the word and get their friends involved.

Why This Was Marketing Magic

• The Power of “Free”: Giveaways always pique interest, and those t-shirts were a brilliant way to get people to try the product.
• Bridging Online and Offline: The billboards drove people to the digital campaign, and the campaign funneled real-world shoppers into their online ecosystem.
• Beyond Just a Sale: While the initial goal was sales, UNIQLO also used this to build their email list, ensuring those new customers could be nurtured later.

The Impressive Results: 1.3 million video views, 25K new email subscribers, and a whopping 35K new customers speak for themselves.

• Gamifying the experience: Can you add a code-finding element, or a contest, to your campaigns?
• Freebies are your friend: It doesn’t have to be t-shirts; a free sample or exclusive content could work just as well.
• Think about the share factor: How can you encourage participants to organically spread the word?

Case Study #3. Airbnb

Airbnb understood that to stand out, they couldn’t just offer rooms – they had to sell the feeling of travel. Here’s how they did it:

“Made Possible By Hosts” Campaign: This heartwarming video used real guest photos and a nostalgic soundtrack to evoke that “remember that epic trip?” sensation. It subtly showcased great properties while focusing on the emotional benefits of those getaways. ( Watch Here )

“Belong Anywhere” Campaign: This was about ditching the cookie-cutter hotel experience and immersing yourself in a destination. Airbnb positioned itself as the key to local adventures, belonging, and transformation through travel. ( Watch Here )

Key Takeaways

• Video is KING: They invested in both short, shareable how-to videos and longer, emotionally impactful ones.
• UGC is Your Goldmine: User photos and stories provided powerful, free content while also building that vital trust factor.
• Sentiment Sells: Airbnb didn’t bog down ads with facts; they used music, imagery, and storytelling to tap into that wanderlust in viewers.

The Success: These campaigns weren’t just pretty to look at; those 17M views for “Made Possible by Hosts” and the global reach of “Belong Anywhere” translated into real bookings.

Why It Matters: Airbnb disrupted an entire industry by understanding that:

• Experience Matters More Than Specs: They sell adventures, memories, and that feeling of connection, not just a place to crash.
• Authenticity Wins: User-generated content is relatable and trustworthy, which is key in the travel industry.
• Don’t just show the product, show the FEELING: How will your product or service transform a customer’s life?
• Run Contests for UGC: Get those customer photos rolling in. Offer a prize for the most “adventurous” or “heartwarming” shot.
• Showcase Your Brand Personality: Was Airbnb’s tone all serious? Nope. They were fun, sentimental, and a little cheeky, which fit their brand image.

Could You Partner with Airbnb? This case study also begs the question: for businesses in the travel or hospitality space, an Airbnb collaboration could be marketing magic.

Case Study #4. Lyft

Lyft realized they already had a killer product – their challenge was getting MORE people to try it. Enter the power of referrals:

• The Hook: Simple referral codes were sharable via the app, email, or even text. This made it a snap for riders to spread the word.
• The Reward: Free or discounted rides. This wasn’t a measly $5 off; it was significant enough to make riders really want to tell their friends.
• The Viral Loop: Refer a friend, get a discount. Friend uses Lyft, they get a discount…you see where this is going.

Why This Was Smart

• Low-Cost, High-Yield: Traditional advertising is pricey. Referrals are fueled by happy customers, which is way cheaper.
• The Trust Factor: People trust recommendations from people they know infinitely more than some billboard.
• Scalability: This successful digital marketing strategy grows with their user base – the more satisfied riders, the more potential advocates.

The Bottom Line: Lyft didn’t just make a clever campaign; they built a referral system into the core of their app, ensuring growth wouldn’t be a one-time thing.

• What’s Your Incentive?: Freebies, discounts, exclusive content – what will actually make your customers want to share?
• Make It EASY: Don’t make them jump through hoops. One-click sharing options are essential.
• Track and Reward: Who are your top referrers? They deserve some extra love (maybe even a tiered rewards program).

Case Study #5. Sephora

Sephora understood a key weakness of e-commerce: you can’t try on a lipstick through a screen. That’s why they went all-in on innovative tech:

• The App as a Virtual Dressing Room: AI and AR are game-changers. Their app lets customers try on makeup from anywhere, boosting confidence in online purchases.
• Closing the Loop: Smart, eh? The app connects right to their e-store; a few taps and that virtual lipstick is in your real-world cart.
• Personalized to the Max: Using shopper data, the app tailors the experience, offering tailored recommendations that increase the chance of buying.

Why This Isn’t Just Cool, It’s Genius

• Overcoming Obstacles: They addressed a key pain point of buying cosmetics online. Less hesitation = more sales.
• Omnichannel FTW: They don’t just exist online; there’s an in-store connection too. That app? It helps you there as well.
• It’s about the EXPERIENCE: Sephora knows beauty is fun, and their digital strategy reflects that with virtual try-ons, quizzes, etc.
• Solve a problem: Don’t just add tech for the sake of it. Find a pain point in your customer journey and see if there’s a tech solution.
• The “Experience” Factor: Can you add interactive elements, gamification, or a personalized touch to your digital presence?
• Data Is Your Friend: If you’re collecting it, USE it. Tailored offers, recommendations…these keep customers coming back for more.

Final Thought on These Successful Digital Marketing Campaigns

These case studies showcase the importance of being adaptable, customer-focused, and not afraid to try new things. The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, but by understanding the core principles of what makes people tick, your business can craft truly impactful online marketing campaigns.

The Power of Emotion & Experience

• Best marketing campaigns aren’t just about features; they tap into feelings . Airbnb evokes the thrill of travel, Slack reminds us of the joy of smooth team communication, and Sephora makes buying makeup playful.
• Ask yourself: What does my product/service let customers feel and how can my content marketing capture that?

User-Generated Content is Marketing Gold

• The campaign featured like Slack’s “Wall of Love” and Airbnb’s focus on guest photos prove that real-world stories beat slick ads every time.
• This builds trust and provides endless free content.
• How to get started? Contests, easy-to-use “review” features on your site, and incentivizing social media platforms’ shares.

Omnichannel is the Future

• Both Sephora and UNIQLO masterfully blurred the lines between online and offline experiences.
• The target audience wants to engage with brands on their terms . Be present on social, have a mobile-friendly site, and if possible, find ways to integrate the in-store experience.

Word-of-Mouth Still Reigns Supreme

• Lyft’s referral program is a reminder that happy customers are your best salespeople.
• Don’t focus solely on gaining new customers; ensure your current ones feel so valued they can’t help but spread the word.
• Tips: Loyalty programs, excellent customer service that goes the extra mile, referral incentives

Tech is Your Tool, Not Your Master

• Sephora’s AI and AR try-ons are impressive, but the core goal is solving a problem for customers.
• Avoid using tech just to be trendy. Focus on how it can truly enhance your customer’s journey.

Related Content:

• Niche Website Builder: Your Profitable Niche Site From Scratch
• The Dark Side of Digital: 6 Worst Social Media Platforms In 2024 [Exposed]
• 10 Best Digital Marketing Niches in 2024 & 100 Profitable Sub-Niche Ideas
• How to Grow Your Business Online in 2024 (Entrepreneur Guide)
• 10 Best Facebook Niches: Goldmines for Unmatched ROI and Growth

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Home › Blog › Audience Ops Case Studies › Marketing Case Study Examples

Marketing Case Study Examples

Sara robinson.

If your business is going to invest the time and resources into creating case studies, you want them to be done well. 

Before you even start, it’s important to have a sense of how and where you’ll be using the case studies so that you know what to create and in what format. Know your audience, and understand what will appeal to them before you get started.

There are two general types of case studies that are used to help market your business and use in your sales efforts: written and video.

General Types of Case Studies

Case studies are often written and/or video. At Audience Ops, we’re partial to video case studies, supported by a written case study. Want more info about what a marketing case study is? Check out this post before diving into the examples).

1. Written Case Studies

Written case studies are just as they sound: the client or customer’s story is shared through writing, typically in a narrative/story-driven format or a more standard business format of background, challenges/opportunity, strategy and execution, results and client feedback. Before you get started, it’s ideal to know what your final deliverables will be.

Which written case study type should you choose? Go with what fits the voice and tone for your company and brand. You don’t want a case study that is too casual when your prospective customers will expect formality and if your brand is fun and edgy, then a traditional format just won’t do. We’ve got more depth on written case studies here .

2. Video Case Studies

Video case studies: these are not your typical 30-60 second video testimonials where someone gives a quote about your brand or product. Instead, these are visually designed stories, similar to what you’d find in a written case study. But instead of writing, you hear the person’s story and experience. We detailed video case studies in this article . 

Audience Ops has case study video producers who bring the client’s story to life with titles, highlighting of metrics and data, and adding in b-roll of your tool, product, or other video that will enhance the story. Our standard is a 3-4 minute video but can make these shorter or longer as needed.

Case Study Examples

Every company’s case study will look a bit different from the others, but you can use these examples to help inspire you and to share with stakeholders if you’re in need of getting the go-ahead to work on case studies for your company. (And remember that sometimes outsourcing the whole process leads to a stronger result and saves you time). 

Written Case Study Examples

The following written examples were all prepared by the Audience Ops team :

Narrative Written Case Study Examples

Narrative case studies are a story-driven format. They often use interview techniques and direct quotes to drive the heart of the story. You can read more about how to format a case study in addition to seeing the examples. 

• Neuralli – Personal stories in the health and wellness sphere can be particularly impactful as a narrative case study. In this example , the case study subject shares some very personal details about her journey which are very relatable to others who have had similar experiences. 

Mothership – This written case study example for Mothership paints a picture of the situation the client faced while setting up Mothership as the ideal solution. This narrative style includes more additional detail about the client in the story than a traditional written case study typically has.

Traditional Written Case Study Examples

Traditional written case studies tend to follow more of a “problem, strategy, results” format. They may or may not include first-person quotes from an interviewee – many are completely written in third-person. 

• Designed.Co – This example does have some first-person quotes from the case study subject. It’s a more traditional format in the sense that it is laid out as “problem, solution, results.”
• Timing – This case study follows a “who, problem, solution, results” format. It leans heavily on first-person quotes while maintaining a traditional format.

Video Case Study Examples

Video case studies can be used on several different platforms, including websites and social media. Here are some examples created by the Audience Ops team:

Video Case Study Examples on Websites

• Dockwa – This case study is effectively displayed at the top of the page alongside some key data to help entice people to play the video.
• Mothership – This Yard Mastery video case study is displayed above the written case study.

Video Case Study Examples on YouTube

• Timing for Mac has their case study with Toast Design on YouTube. Their description includes links where people can learn more and keywords that people can find them with. 
• Images are worth a thousand words and Swift is a tool that deals with plantar warts. The video case study we created includes before and after image as well as broll of the tool in use. The client loved this video case study, but if you’re not into feet, you may not want to click through (or stop watching at about 1:03).

Designed Case Study Landing Page Examples

When you have more than one case study complete, having a landing page or section on your website dedicated to these is helpful. That way you can send prospective customers this link. In time, as your library grows, you can organize them by use-case or type of client, making it even easier for potential buyers to see themselves using your solution or service. 

Here’s an example from Mothership .

Here’s ours– and notice how we slip in testimonials right below!

Repurposed Case Study Assets

In addition to the long-form case studies you create, you also want to think about repurposing those into other assets. These can be used in numerous ways and expand on the impact of your investment. Here are some of our favorite ways to repurpose case studies and examples.

Image carousel:

• Once you have information about a client or business, you can present that information visually. Image carousels do well on sites like LinkedIn and can be shared by the brand and team members from your company. Check out this image carousel we created for Delegated:

Social clips

• Take the longer video and edit it down into powerful sound bites. Be sure to add in captions because many people don’t have their volume up when they’re scrolling. Videos help people stop their scroll because they’re attention-grabbing. Even if the whole clip isn’t viewed, you’re building brand-awareness. Our clients at ARPU and Delegated both chose to create social clips from their longer case study. You can use these for organic and/or paid social.

Supercut Video Case Studies

• Once you have several case study videos complete, you can do what we call a “Supercut.” You choose clips from each case study and weave together to make another video that highlights why multiple people are fans of your company. You can organize these videos around value propositions, use cases, or get creative and use all of the fantastic content you’ve created. Create these as 2-3 minute videos and shorter social media posts for the biggest impact. Delegated asked us to create several supercuts designed as social clips. This one highlights the benefits of working with a VA. Similarly, ARPU wanted supercuts developed around specific value props of the app.

Charts and graphs or infographics

• If you’ve already created graphics as part of your written or designed case study, those may be able to be used as stand-alones for social media posts or callouts in a newsletter. You may want to do some additional design to give more context to the graph or data, but visuals of data, graphs and infographics tend to do well for both sales and marketing.

Designed Written Case Study Examples

These are a nice complement to the longer written case studies. These can be used as sales assets by sharing with prospective customers, as marketing assets for paid ads, or for PR purposes. This can also be a great option for a more narrative case study: You can make it more formal to share with stakeholders or investors, while your customers are interested in the more casual version. Delegated asked us to create a single page document and a longer version so that both sales and marketing would have what they need.

Final Thoughts

The power of case studies is in how you use them. Writing a case study or producing a video is a good first step. But if those merely sit on a webpage, you’re missing out. Take the time to develop your case study into multiple assets, using these case study examples as a guide. And, once you’ve created these assets, be sure to have them easily accessible to team members who will need them. That way, your sales team can easily add content to their emails: use-cases specific to their prospects or data that they’d find appealing. Your marketing team will be able to have content to use for social media posts and your PR team or agency will have content at the ready if there’s an opportunity for some media exposure. If you don’t have the internal team or bandwidth to make case studies happen, please reach out. Audience Ops helps to create written and video case studies and multiple assets from the long-form content. We’ll work with you to develop what your team needs while taking care of your customer throughout the process.

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100+ Case Study Examples for Sales and Marketing

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Imagine you come home after a long, tiring week of work, and you decide to satiate your taste buds by ordering a delicious, exotic dish. What would be your further course of action? Let us guess - you pull out your phone, log in to your favourite on-demand food delivery platform, search for the dish you're looking for, and hit the order button. Oh, wait! We missed out a crucial action that most of us perform while ordering a palate from a new food outlet – Rating & reviews!  

The first instinct that each one of us has when we subscribe to a new product or service is to get validation or proof from others.

In this post, we talk about one such crucial marketing collateral that provides  proof  to your prospects – Case Studies.

What is a Case Study?

Case studies are an indispensable tool for providing proof of quality and utility. They help demonstrate exactly what you have done to help other customers or clients attain their goals. They're sure to draw potential clients because they establish the factor of faith in the ability of your products or services.

To some, case studies may seem dull and boring, but it remains an integral part of a content marketing strategy for almost every B2B company. A content marketing report states that 70% of B2B marketers believe case studies are an effective tool for the content marketing mix.

How long should your case study be? 

If you type this query into the Google search bar, the answer that pops up on your screen is 500 to 1500 words. Although this is fairly ideal, it is important to note that there is no hard and fast rule for the word limit of a case study. Like everything else in Marketing, the answer is - it depends. 

Depends on various factors like the industry you’re writing the case study for, the narrative you’re building, the audience you’ll cater to and the like. 

Case studies are primarily built to generate an in-depth understanding of why exactly prospects should choose your product. In today’s world, where all content consumers have an attention span of roughly 7 seconds (if not lesser) - getting them to read a case study that’s nothing less than 500 words requires skill, to say the least. 

The length of a case study depends on the following factors :

Target audience

Identifying the target audience for your case study is the first and foremost step of the writing process. Who will be reading this case study and how do you tailor it to fit their flow of reading? It’s no big secret that everyone’s attention span varies. (We hear you. Do people even have an attention span these days?) 

Thanks to the myriad of visual content available in abundance, going through a 50-word post, let alone a 500-word case study, might be an arduous task for most people. However, this massively depends on the target audience and the industry your client belongs to. 

Case studies provide deep insight into your product/service and give potential customers one, if not more, solid reasons to get onboard. 

Formulating your case study based on these parameters will result in the best outcomes. 

For example, if your product caters directly to the general public (B2C) , then your case studies have to be short, precise and to the point. It has to provide just the right amount of information to put forth about your company, the services you offer, its features and benefits. Hence, these case studies can be anywhere between 100-300 words. 

On the other hand, formulating a case study for a B2B audience will require more detailed insights, examples, solution-oriented steps, and overall contain highly compelling research. This is solely because the individuals reading our case studies will be established business professionals looking to invest a good amount in your product . These case studies can extend up to 1500 words . 

Purpose of the case study 

The second factor/question to keep in mind is, “Why are we writing this case study?”. Here we cannot help but think of the famous quote - “You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” 

It’s safe to say that this quote is applicable to almost every situation in life. Especially while selling a product. Or, attempting to do so. In this stage, you need to take into consideration 3 very important factors :  

At which point of the sales process are we sending out this case study?

For starters, case study content changes according to the various points of the sales process it is being sent out during. The content required for a case study at the beginning of the sales process differs from the content required for a case study when the deal is about to be closed. 

Case studies sent out at the beginning of the sales process focus on the following :

• Recognition of your company/brand  
• An insight into your company & what you do 
• A generic overview of what your product offers 

Hence, these case studies can range anywhere from 300-500 words.

Case studies sent out at the end of the sales process focus on the following :

• Presenting a precise problem faced by a client
• Presenting how your company provided a solution for the same 
• The process
• Use-case specific insights

Hence, the sky’s the (word) limit with these case studies. The length that narrates to your prospect that your company is the best solution is the length you stop at. 

What do we want our readers to take away from this case study?

The length of your case study also majorly depends on the point you want to put forth in your case study. Are you trying to simply establish brand identity? Are you talking about a new campaign run by your company? Or is it a case study showcasing the work you did for a specific client? 

What medium are we sending the case study via? 

The medium through which your case study is being sent is a key point while determining the length of your case study. 

Let us throw in a quick example here. We are in the midst of our relentless online shopping phase and our package has finally arrived. Obviously, we can’t wait to go through the contents of the package (Because which order even is this?) - Doesn’t it make the unpacking process much easier when the packaging is precise and easy to open? Who wants loads of duct tape and clunky wrapping? It instantly puts us off, and we might even decide to open it later.  Similarly, the medium via which you send your case study and the presentation of it matters a lot. 

Here are some of the methods through which you can send your case study :

A good ol’ fashioned e-mail

“I’ll send across an email” is a phrase most of us have probably used more than our names. And, that’s fine. 

Sending your case studies and other documents through email has unmistakably been the go-to method for the longest time. Even so, sending your documents and case studies via email have its pros and cons. 

If you include a number of attachments, your prospects might have a hard time going back and forth between the document and email to open it up. The best option, in this case, is to include a single case study and make it crisp & concise in order to avoid shuffling between tabs. So, we’d say a single case study, about 500 words. 

A personalized storyboard

Personalized. Pretty. Extremely easy to go through. Nothing against emails, but imagine sending your case studies in a personalized collection that is exclusive to your reader, gives them a binge-worthy experience with your case studies, enables them to pick up exactly where they left off and much more. 

With a presentation like this, we’re sure the length of your case study isn’t going to stop readers from going through the contents of your case study.

Types of Case Studies

Case studies can be broadly classified into the following categories:

1. Third-Person Case Studies

An external agency primarily publishes this type of case study. This external research & consulting firm validates the solution provided by your company to your customers and publishes the same on its website.

2. Explanatory Case Studies

Explanatory case studies are primarily descriptive studies. They typically use one or two instances of a phenomenon or event to show the existing solution. Explanatory case studies primarily exist to familiarize the unfamiliar situation to prospects and give them a brief overview of the subject.

3. Instrumental Case Study

To gain insight into a phenomenon, an instrumental case study is deployed. The focus of this type of case study is not on the results but on the phenomenon. It tries to make the prospects discern the relationship between the phenomenon and its solution.

4. Implementation Case Study

This is perhaps the most important type of case study for a content marketer. It encompasses how your business went about executing the solution of a customer's challenge.

Case studies are the best example of marketing collateral used during the consideration stage and are used to showcase the success stories of your company. They can be written as single-page or multi-page documents.

Steps to writing a case study solution

Crafting the headline.

Headlines are the hellos in the world of writing. Just as a simple hello can help gain surface-level insight into a person, a headline establishes just that about a piece of written content. 

The first step to drafting a case study is also to pick a suitable headline. 

The headline of a case study has to include the following elements :

• The name of the company
• The use case
• The results
• Quantitative data (all about the numbers)

Let’s go with a fictional take on this - 

Let’s say you have a company, “Mattleberg Associates."

Mattleberg Associates offer consultative tools and guidance to understand, buy and adopt marketing technology tools for an enterprise. If Mattleberg Associates is to write a case study on how their product benefited a client of theirs, Acme Corporation , and upped their sales turnover by 70% , 

This is how the case study should ideally be titled : 

Acme Corp’s Sales Turnover Increased by 70% - Meet the Mattleberg MarTech Tool that made it possible. 

By glancing at this case study title, the reader gets an insight into the company (Mattleberg), the client (Acme Corp), the use case (Increasing sales turnover), the industry (Sales and Marketing) and the outcome (A 70% increase). 

Highlighting the challenge/situation 

In this part of the case study, the problem is made aware to the reader. This is where we let the reader know that “Hey, there was a grave situation taking place, and this is how it played out.”. 

In this part, you have to mention : 

• The challenge that was present
• The root cause of the problem 
• Statistics about the same 

Arriving at the solution

This part of your case study has to be your company’s stellar introduction.

In this part of the case study, you will include :

• How the client arrived at your company 
• The process of how the client fixed on your company (yay!)
• The executives involved in the process 

Behold! The results

Quantitative results .

This indicates the end of the case study. This is the part you indicate that Happily Ever After was made possible. Here is where you include all of the magical numbers that were a result of your company’s product/service, the remarkable results of the process and the outcome. 

Qualitative results

Remember when Spotify allowed 6500 of their employees to work from anywhere in the world? 

Now, fast forward to a year later; Spotify has released a statement saying their turnover rate dropped and they’re doing great! 

Here’s another example of how a qualitative result approach can be included in your case studies. This is the tie between quantitative and qualitative results. They go hand in hand. 

Tying this back to the topic, while writing a case study and mentioning the end results, it is important to also mention how the process eased the lives of the team, resulting in joy in the workplace and so on. This, in return, can directly result in quantitative results. :)

Best Practices to implement while writing a Case Study

More often than not, content marketers find it a herculean task to create a case study that is intriguing for their prospects. Here are 5 easy tips to make your case studies less boring, and more engaging.

1. Incorporate visuals in your case study

Multimedia can make your case studies more engaging and provide you with a means to connect with auditory and visual learners. Here are two ways in which you can incorporate multimedia in your case study:

• Include pictures, charts, and infographics to interpret a story out of the content-heavy data.
• Incorporate videos in your case studies and use them throughout your integrated marketing communication.

2. Prioritize firsthand knowledge over second-hand evidence

Case studies are stories. And stories can be narrated aptly only when you get real firsthand insights from the customer. Hence, to write a good case study, all you need is an excellent customer interview. Refrain from writing case studies based on resources such as testimonial quotes, videos, email, and so on.

It will only make your case studies time-consuming and difficult (or dare we say boring?).

3. Use slide-in call-to-action in lieu of pop-ups

Huge pop-ups can be annoying to the readers. Hence, marketers should try to use slide-in call-to-action that does the same job without distracting your prospects.

4. Don't be keen on listing the problem statement/challenge

Get into the shoes of your prospects while writing the challenge section. Most businesses often commit the mistake of writing the problem of a case study that caters to a narrow audience. To effectively hook a broader target audience , you should address the problem by considering the perspective of different prospects and write a detailed and compelling challenge . Your case study's first sentence should always address a broad business issue, and provide the reader with context.

5. Improve the tone of the customer quotes

Being a case study writer, you should not be transfixed on strictly reproducing all the customer quotes as it is - that is what a reporter does. As a case study writer, you should embellish the customer quotes in a way that makes their point effective. However, the altered quote should not drift away from the actual customer quote and should live up to the spirit of the customer's statement.

Examples of Case Studies

Here is a list of the finest examples of case studies across each sector with our commentary on a handpicked few to further ease your process of writing a case study.

To give you a holistic understanding of different types of case studies, we have collated the best templates from each industry.

• Aviation and Defense 
• Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI)
• Energy & Utility
• Healthcare and Life Sciences
• Manufacturing
• Technology and Services
• Telecommunications

Best Case Study Examples for Aviation, Aerospace & Defense Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Aviation, Aerospace and Defence sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Electromagnetic Solutions | Leonardo

Type of case study : Explanatory

Leonardo, first, defined their electromagnetic solutions and then furnished an explanatory case study to further enlighten their target audience to the solution they offer. They provided their prospects with a lucid explanation of the phenomenon with their solution in this case study.

2. Indira Gandhi International Airport | Collins Aerospace

Type of case study: Implementation

This case study is one of the best templates you will find in the aviation & defence sector. Two reasons make it exceptional. First, Collins has tailored the case study in a way that it can collaborate with direct marketing efforts . The case study is brief, yet gives a clear explanation of how it went about executing the solution. Also, the testimonial Collins took from Delhi International Airport Ltd., explained in a nutshell, the outstanding results they produced.

Best Case Study Examples for BFSI Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the BFSI sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Implementing a Complete Target-Date Fund Solution |  JPMorgan Chase

Type of case study: Explanatory

Writing a case study in the sector of financial services is tricky, to say the least. If you are looking to benchmark a case study, this should undoubtedly be the one. JPMorgan deep-dived to explain the needs of the client and listed out the top investment priorities. After that, the cast study introduced the unique solution offered to give their prospects a gist of the same. 

2. Global Inventory Management | Broadridge

Broadridge created a stellar case study by incorporating a testimonial, visuals, and an elaborate solution together. The cast study went one step ahead by talking about how it will utilize this opportunity to build Broadridge's future solutions.

Best Case Study Examples for Energy & utilites Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Energy & Utilities sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Creating Value through Technology and Innovation | Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL)

Type of case study: Instrumental

This case study focuses more on the different technologies offered by CNRL. What makes this case study unique is that the brand has included various collaborations for each technology and clearly demarcated the status of each technique. The usage of visuals and quantifiable results is spot on!

2. City of Monterey Park | Engie

Engie has produced a phenomenal template for a case study in the energy sector. Prospects could better relate to this kind of a case study because it includes multiple testimonials alongside the images of the solution which can serve as the best catalyst for prospects in the consideration stage of the buyer journey.

Best Case Study Examples for Healthcare & Life Sciences Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Healthcare and Life-sciences sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. BD Vacutainer | Becton Dickinson and Company

BD did a fantastic job of quantifying its success in solid numbers. They have incorporated the same in their headline to make it a worthy read for a prospect. Furthermore, they included a separate "results" section which listed out the benefits and illustrated the same using a bar graph. These best practices help a prospect digest text-heavy content easily.

2. Helping Biopharma Companies Unravel the Many Facets of the Oncology Market | McKesson Corporation

This template is an excellent example of an instrumental case study in the healthcare sector. McKesson takes the onus on them to educate the healthcare industry on the oncology market. It provides vital insights into how the biopharma industry can leverage McKesson's resources and excel in oncology.

Best Case Study Examples for Logistics Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Logistics sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Inventory Optimization Case Study | Neovia Logistics

Type of case study: Third-Person

This case study serves as a great template of collaboration with other organizations to deliver a customized solution for your customer. Neovia Logistics and SAP Service Parts Planning worked in unison to provide a top-notch solution for inventory management. This template makes a brilliant usage of coloured theme and an engaging dashboard to display the results lucidly.

2. Building a better distribution model to accommodate rapid growth | FedEx Corporation

FedEx adopts a customer-centric approach in this case study and explains the challenges faced by the customer in detail. It elaborately explains how the problems of temperature-sensitive products of the clients were dealt with. This type of case study can prove to be very useful as a marketing communication  for a client dealing in a similar sector.

Best Case Study Examples for Manufacturing Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Manufacturing sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Twilight River Cruises | Mitsubishi Electric

The testimonial and the embedded hyperlinks (that redirects to their product range) make this case study stand apart from others. Mitsubishi Electric has ensured that the client furnishes a well-crafted testimonial that makes the prospects acquire faith in their prowess.

2. Danfoss' Digital Journey and Strategic Approach to MES | Siemens

This is, by far, the best template we have discovered in the manufacturing sector. It ticks all the boxes for writing a stellar case study – slide-in CTAs (call-to-action), integration with social media, an excellent testimonial, captivating visuals, and a consistent theme. You do not want to miss this out!

Best Case Study Examples for Technology & Services Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Technology & Services sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. FreshDesk - Case Study | Chargebee

The best thing about this case study is that Chargebee incorporated testimonials from different departments and individuals. The case study uses crisp headlines and explains the challenge in detail before jumping the gun to mention the results.

2. Aspire Systems Provides Data Integration Services  | Aspire Systems

For a technical product/software, it is important to know where to use technical keywords and where to use plain, simple language. Aspire Systems did a fantastic job of creating different sections for a summary (in plain language) and a tech snapshot (where they mention the suite of data management products). It also included an image of the system architecture to educate their prospects on the process and solutions.

Best Case Study Examples for Telecommunications Sector

While there are over 10+ example case studies that have been handpicked for the Telecommunications sector, we are highlighting only about 2 of them for a quick reference on why it works and most importantly, we like them.

1. Managed Network Services | Telkomtelstra

Incorporating video testimonials in the case study is one of the best practices to be followed to create a compelling case study; and, Telkomtelstra has done that precisely. The practice of integrating social media in your overall content marketing strategy never fails to fetch you brownie points!

2. Supporting the community with a mobilized workforce | Rogers Communications Inc.

Rogers Communications has adopted the strategy of assigning a dedicated page for case studies. It has also integrated social media and slide-in CTAs buttons, in this case study, for enhanced engagement. A unique practice that Rogers embraced in this case study was to mention the details of the current services with that particular client. You may want to consider this strategy while writing your upcoming case study!

Strategies to leverage the power of Case Studies 

On the same lines, let us now deep-dive into how content marketers can leverage the power of case studies to their full potential. Mentioned below are some of the strategies you can use to incorporate case studies into your organization's overall integrated marketing communications strategy.

1. Highlight the case studies on a dedicated page

When B2B customers search online for your goods and services, they will search for your company's websites as well as your rivals' websites. So make sure the case studies on your website are easy to find. Refrain from categorizing them in the section of "downloads" or "resources" list, or hiding them so profoundly that visitors need to find them on your search facility.

Offer multiple paths that will lead them directly to the stories of customers that most interest them. Feature your homepage with a recent case study. Ask your webmaster to set up a display that will generate a different case study each time the visitor clicks on a new page or returns to a given page.

Be sure to provide a link where more case studies can be found by the visitor, in case the story does not match the interests of the visitor.

2. Include case studies in white papers

Do you have a case study showing how a client used your product or service to solve a widespread problem in the industry? If so, you have the building blocks for an effective white paper . Case studies and effective white papers share the same basic structure: challenge/solution.

You will need to develop the problem section further, examine previous solutions and why they are not working, and present your solution as part of a generic class.

However, once you have described your solution, you can introduce your particular product by means of an abbreviated version of your case study.

3. Include case studies in press releases

The company press releases are the perfect platform to share customer stories with prospects, customers, partners, and employees. The case studies in your prospect press releases allow you to highlight your solutions and the different verticals that you represent.

This helps to develop trust over time. In addition, case studies are great for keeping partners informed about how customers use your solutions. You'll support their sales efforts by providing customers with new ideas that they can present. You'll also keep them excited about your partnership, as well as about your products and services.

4. Collaborate your direct marketing efforts with case studies

Many of the most popular all-time direct mail promotions start with a story. Stories are enthralling. They promise entertainment and news. Of course, they gain our attention. Hence, a well-written case study for a newsletter or a direct mail campaign can be an excellent lead material.

Moreover, with a lead drawn from a recent case study, you'll not only get the attention of your prospects right away but also establish credibility with a real-world illustration of what your company has done for others already.

5. Consolidate your SEO strategy with case studies

Case studies can be among the best content types to attract attention from search engines. Phrases of keywords are the SEO currency . And if well-written, it is most likely that your case studies will include several instances of keywords and phrases relevant to the product or service they feature.

Make sure you incorporate the links and meta tags to boost the search engine rankings. Google attaches great importance to links, so be sure to link back to your case studies from press releases, blog posts, and discussion forums that refer to them. Encourage your clients to link your website to their success stories.

Even meta tags can improve your search rankings. Ensure that the title and description tags are used well by including your target keywords in them.

6. Collaborate your case studies with your social media marketing strategy

Social media provides a range of platforms to distribute case studies to your target audience. You can post a link to your latest case studies on Twitter, LinkedIn, and other platforms. Forums are another excellent platform way to promote your customer success.

Trade associations and LinkedIn Groups provide thousands of tightly focused discussions across the entire spectrum of interests in the industry. And most of these forums will let you post links, making it easy to reach specific audiences.

Case studies are vital building blocks for your brand’s social currency. With the right balance between data and a compelling narrative, case studies go a long way in positioning your brand as the ideal choice in the minds of your prospects.

So before you rule out this collateral as mundane and boring, ask yourself again - would you order from a restaurant that is not backed by good reviews and ratings?

Other interesting blogs that might help bolster your content marketing strategy:

100+ Best Examples of Press Release Templates

100+ Brochure Examples for Sales and Marketing

100+ Testimonial Examples for Sales and Marketing

The Best White Paper Examples for B2B Marketers      

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• Case Studies
• Marketing Collateral
• Content Marketing

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What Is A Marketing Case Study? See Examples And Write Yours

• by Ranu Kumari

There are several instances in life when a person can learn from observing the world around him, which also applies to organizations. When a firm wants to understand a product’s or strategy’s success or failure, they turn to case studies. There are several types of case studies out there. Some of them are – a marketing case study, a finance case study, or a case study in innovation.

What Is a Case Study?

A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject. This could be a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are prevalent in social, educational, clinical, and business research.

Also, they are helpful in a variety of fields. These include psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work. However, we will look at the different elements of a marketing case study in this article.

Case studies are based on evidence; they begin with a question or problem that requires an answer through research. The researcher then collects information using interviews or observations.

The researcher might even conduct an experiment to test an idea related to the case study. After this data is collected and analyzed, the researcher writes up their findings in an article called a case report or case study report.

Also, a case study focuses on a detailed description of an individual or group experience from beginning to end. A case study does not provide generalizations about the larger population but rather focuses on how an individual or group responded to an event.

Case studies may also involve multiple individuals or groups with similar experiences. Case studies are used for:

• Testing Hypotheses
• Exploring an Issue
• Developing new ideas, theories, Models, or, Concepts
• Helping you understand specific individuals or groups in detail

What Is a Marketing Case Study

The marketing case study is a persuasive document that uses real-world examples to demonstrate the value of your product or service. It’s a powerful tool for marketing, sales, and customer support teams as it enables them to share the results of their work and how it helped solve a customer’s problem.

A marketing case study is basically a good story. Like all good stories, it needs to have the following elements:

• A Hero – This is the main character who is the good guy.
• The Problem – A situation that puts our hero in a difficult situation.
• The Solution – The product or service that saves the day. Also, it makes the hero happy.

Approaching a case study like a story is something that will be exciting for marketers. This is because marketers are fond of creating memorable stories for their brands.

However, it is essential to remember that the readers of the case study must be able to connect with it. This also means that they should be able to visualize themselves in the main character’s shoes.

Why Should Companies Write a Case Study?

Writing a marketing case study is hard work. It is not as simple as writing a blog post. This is because a case study has a large number of data points. All of them have to be accurate. Also, when a firm intends to mention a client by name, they need the necessary approvals. This can be a time-consuming process.

However, there are many compelling reasons to create a marketing case study. Here, we look at those reasons in some detail.

Demonstrate the power of your product.

Case studies can be effective marketing tools because they show your audience what your product or service can do for them and are much harder to ignore than an ad or blog post.

Build customer loyalty.

Keeping in touch with happy customers will allow them to voice their opinion about your business. However, it will also allow them to reaffirm why they chose your business in the first place.

Enhance Sales.

When a salesperson has case studies to share, it’s an opportunity for them to talk about the benefits their product or service can have for the customer. Also, they can speak about the resounding reception of the product . This, in turn, leads to an increased volume of sales.

Multi-Format and multi-purpose content.

Testimonial quotes and data snippets from your customers make great calls to action on various pages of your website. These could be your homepage, product and service pages, landing pages, etc. You can also repurpose these into PDFs, ebooks, videos, and infographics.

An opportunity to tell your story.

Case studies allow you to share your story, showing readers that your products and methods are effective. This makes for a fantastic form of advertising because it’s not pushy or over-the-top.

Earn Trust.

Case studies help convert positive customer opinions into tangible data that prove your value. In fact, a vast majority of marketers trust this type of content.

How to Write a Marketing Case Study

This section will look at how to write a high-impact and persuasive marketing case study.

Clear Headline.

The headline should share the most critical information about the case study. It should be able to capture its essence in a single sentence.

Write about someone your customer can relate to.

One should know their target audience before working on a marketing case study. They must know the industry the readers are a part of.

Ultimately, the audience must understand that the author is knowledgeable about the industry. Also, they must understand that he knows the customer’s pain points and can provide a solution for them.

Provide a summary.

A marketing case study should start with a crisp summary. The history of the firm, the industry it is a part of, and its leading products or services must also be covered in the summary. Also, the summary should introduce the client.

Narrate the complete story.

You must have got the gist by now. A marketing case study is a fantastic opportunity to tell your story. Furthermore, it is essential to tell it well. As always, one can rely on the STAR framework to make a good business story.

S – Situation: What was the situation that your brand was facing? How did it affect the customer? And, how did it affect you?

T- Task: What did you have to do to fix the situation?

A- Analysis: What approach did you use to analyze the problem? Also, what are the steps to solve it?

R – Result: What were the results of your efforts? To what extent did you solve the problem?

One can also report aspects such as improvement in customer satisfaction. Also, regular follow-ups with a select group of customers can get their feedback on after-sales service. It helps to focus on the long-term and emotional benefits as well.

The case study should be easy to read.

A marketing case study cannot be in the form of continuous text. Otherwise, people will doze off while reading it.

Rather, it should contain a small paragraph, and one must make sure that the case study includes headers, tables, images, and text. This will help improve SEO. It will also make the case study easy to read.

One can include short videos, infographics, and other multimedia to make the case study even more compelling.

Use actual facts and figures.

When writing case studies, it is always better to use actual data . This lends credibility to a person’s work instead of vague terms like ‘increased sales’ or ‘tripled footfall.’

One must mention whether the footfall has grown from 100 to 300 or from 2000 to 6000. Also, one must use charts and graphs to convey the meaning and scale of the data. Finally, any number is meaningless without context. Always remember to present the data points with some reference to the context.

Outline clear strategies

When an organization sets a challenging goal and achieves the target, it calls for a celebration and a marketing case study.

One should always substantiate strategies when discussing the reasons behind the firm’s success. For instance, targeting only the middle of the funnel, customers saw conversions increase from 50 to 75 per month.

Experiment with different formats

Case studies need to be put into text formats all the time. One can play around with different formats to see what works best. It could be a video interview where the customer talks about his challenges.

However, the end objective of the case study remains the same irrespective of the format.

The problems of the customer and how your product solved them for him.

Case studies can also be in the form of brochures, webinars, or podcasts. Another advantage of different formats is that the content will appeal to a wider audience.

Case studies must be easy to find

The case studies must be presented in a prominent section on your website. Further, they have to be optimized for search. Also, all case studies must be promoted on social media and by email.

Marketing Case Study Examples

In this section, we will look at some case studies examples. These case studies demonstrate how to present a sticky situation and its solution in a wonderful manner.

Porch case study

This case study details a year of content marketing that resulted in 931 unique domain links, 23,000 monthly organic visits, and more. The content marketing agency Fractal worked with Porch to achieve these results.

This is a great way to demonstrate your ability to deliver the desired results without disclosing confidential information. Also, these case studies give confidence to other companies in the same industry. You can read the case study here.

IDEO case study

This case study shows that IDEO aims to transform the airport experience by putting passengers first. They have presented the facts exceptionally well. The case study explains how the firm helped Pearson International Airport respond to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The entire case study is divided into three parts: the challenge, the impact, and the outcome.

Another good thing is that there are visuals and images to break the flow of text. You can find the case study here.

Chevrolet DTU case study

This case is an excellent example of how a well-known brand fuels the reader’s curiosity. Here, the initials DTU are used. Everybody was interested to know what the abbreviation stands for. Well, DTU is ‘Discover The Unexpected.’

A mix of images, videos, and bullet points sustains the reader’s interest. One of the best things about this case study is that only the name of the brand is used to catch the audience’s attention. You can read this case study here.

Omnichannel Challenge – Bitly Case Study

Bitly uses a PDF format for all its text-heavy case studies. The case study in question is one of an e-commerce company, Vissal. The entire case study consists of different sections, such as ‘The Goal’, and ‘Top Omnichannel Obstacles.’

Also, it includes images in ‘The Set Up’ and ‘The Launch.’ The PDF is available for download and opens up in a separate window.

The colors and text used follow Bitly’s brand guidelines. It shows that a PDF is an excellent format for a case study. However, it is essential to keep the case study short. This case study is available here .

Some disadvantages of case studies

People write case studies so that learning from one situation can be applied to other similar situations. However, that does not always happen. This is because each situation has its unique nature.

Also, case studies can become theoretical in nature. This is even though they are based on real situations.

Marketing Case Study Examples: Best 15 to Learn From

Do you want to showcase your products and services to prospects? A pleasant and appealing website and engaging videos are a good start, but is it enough? To find out, consider examining some marketing case study examples and determining if there are additional strategies you could use to showcase your offerings to potential customers better.

A great website, social media presence, and targeted messaging are all essential to growing your business. But gradually building authority in your niche by boosting your credibility is an altogether different affair. You need to spice things up to make a super impression on your future customers.

And that you can do with a convincing case study!

But simply finding a basic template online and duplicating it for your case study can never be enough. This article will give you the top 20 marketing case study examples that masterfully communicate with your audience, driving your message home.

What is a Marketing Case Study?

A marketing case study contains various information, quotes, statistics, etc. It is like telling a story of how your agency helped a brand solve a problem or excel in the market. In fact, a good case study must be filled up to the brim with quality research. Every result or quote must have a fact or statistics backing it up.

Furthermore, a marketing case study must not be unnecessarily elaborate. In other words, every sentence you put in it must be relevant to the target audience. If it is on point and precise, it is sure to rope in new customers for you.

Marketing case studies can be displayed on your company’s website. It works as proof of what you’ve done, how you’ve done it, and so on. Some companies also choose to make their marketing case studies a part of their sales presentation while pitching to new customers.

Either way, you choose to use it, a case study is an essential customer acquisition tool you must operate properly.

Why Are They Important?

• It provides formidable social proof to your company.
• It gives your target customer the complete picture of what to expect from your brand.
• A case study is a perfect tool for your company to build trust, as statistics and quotes from previous customers support it.
• There’s a range of different ways you can prepare a case study, from text-heavy and video-based to infographics.

At a time when 9 out of 10 consumers look for customer testimonials or other kinds of social proof before making a purchase, case studies are immensely vital.

Want to know how to create a great one? Here are some examples of a marketing case study done right!

Top 15 Examples of Marketing Case Study

1. the whole package by ideo.

IDEO is a design company that partnered up with H&M to help the latter remove plastic from their packaging. Their case study , ‘The Whole Package,’ is quite simple and direct. But when it comes to driving the point home, you can say it ticks all the boxes.

Furthermore, this IDEO case study has been neatly categorized into sections. Coupled with the masterful use of visuals with crisp and convincing copy, this marketing case study is an excellent example of a comprehensive one.

2. Chevrolet DTU by Carol H Williams

When your client is a world-renowned name, why hide it? That’s what this case study teaches us. In fact, what better social proof than showing the world look “the brand that billions of consumers trust chose us, why can’t you?”

Engaging subheadings throughout this Carol H Williams case study further make it a convenient read.

Remember, no matter how convincing your statistics or facts are, try not to intimidate the reader. Feel free to have many sections; prefer crisp pointers over fluffy paragraphs.

3. In-Depth Performance Marketing Case Study by Switch

When it comes to performance marketing, many abbreviations and jargon are involved. Some readers might find it a major turn-off. This marketing case study by Switch masterfully shows how you can avoid sounding scary in this way.

This one dedicates a page to each of the results they got for their client. For instance, the Facebook Ads results have their own page, and it has been so simplified that even a non-marketer would understand. That’s what makes this case study stand out.

4. Gila Rivers by OH Partners

A picture speaks a thousand words. And this case study shows just how you can use pictures to prepare the perfect case study. Using pictures, OH Partners have communicated what they’ve done for their clients and what their future customers can expect regarding results.

The marketing case study is visually appealing, thanks to elegant pictures that make it easy on the eyes. Even if you have no prior knowledge of marketing or OH Partners, the case study’s style is backed up by convincing statistics, which helps to make it one of the top examples in the field.

5. Capital One on AWS by Amazon

This case study is for companies working for clients for a long time. This Amazon case study features several articles detailing how Capital One benefitted from AWS over the years.

Starting from 2016, these articles elaborate on every aspect of Capital One being on AWS. So, is there a client you have been serving for years? Have they benefitted from your services or product in various ways? If yes, this is an approach you can take.

6. Acoustic by Genuine

Simplicity, as they say, is often all you need to make a lasting impression. And this case study by Genuine is truly a masterpiece in simplicity. First, it goes directly to the point and uses minimal text to drive the message home.

With neatly divided sections, this marketing case study is as simple in the text as in the visuals. Neither the colors nor the visuals are shouting at the reader from the screen. What it teaches us? Well, you don’t need to write a lot or use loud visuals to communicate effectively with the target audience.

7. Customer Success Case Study by Convoso

This one might not be as simple in name or feel as the previous one, but it is as effective. How? Because as soon as you lay your eyes on this Convoso case study , you notice the 300% boost. And if you’re a potential customer looking for a similar, you can hardly ignore it.

Another striking characteristic of this one is its vivid use of colors. Even though this 11-page PDF might seem a bit lengthy to some, the easy-on-the-eye color palette makes it quite readable. So, don’t ignore the visual aspect is what this marketing case study example teaches us.

8. The Hunt Club Case Study by Happeo

This is a case study written entirely from the perspective of the customers. Yes! Every paragraph in this Happeo case study contains quotes from Hunt Club, the company that chose Happeo’s solution.

An elaborate embedded video further does the trick for this one. But if we were to glean one thing from this case study, it has to be the fact that Happeo has told its own success story in the words of the customer.

Can a case study be any more of a social proof? We think not!

9. NetApp Case Study by Evisort

The unique thing about this one is that it starts with an overview of the client. Evisort sets the groundwork for its message right at the beginning. Once they’ve informed us about their client’s nature, they gradually move on to the problem solved.

For one, this follows the marketing case study thumb rule of always focusing more on the client. Secondly, it prepares a solid base for the reader, helping her clearly understand what has been discussed in the coming segments.

But there’s another important thing about this Evisort case study . It tells the story of the solution focusing on a particular era, the pandemic in this case. You can also employ this strategy and give more context to the solution you provided to your client.

10. The Met by Fantasy

A complete redesign of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

How to showcase a nice and responsive website you created for a client? The simplest way is to put snaps of the website in your case study. And that’s what this Fantasy case study has done so masterfully.

What this case study teaches us is that you don’t have to write a bunch of stuff or put in statistics everywhere. If the result you provided to your client can be showcased visually, why not use the case study to do just that?

In Conclusion

Marketing case studies are one of the best ways to build credibility and trust with potential customers. They also help you generate leads by showcasing your expertise and proving that you can deliver results. Most importantly, they can help you win over new clients by showing them what to expect from working with you — and how much better things will be when they do.

So, these were a range of marketing case study examples and what we can learn from each. Which one was your favorite? Is there a pattern you identified? To be clear, each of these examples was unique and innovative in its own way. You can go ahead and pick a style and focus for your case study.

In a nutshell, relevancy matters the most if you want your case study to expand your business. So, instead of blindly following any of the examples we have listed, make your own mark with a compelling marketing case study.

We wish you all the best in your customer acquisition and expansion efforts. And we hope this article was of great help to you.

Related posts:

Ranu Kumari is a Professional Writer and a Marketing enthusiast who currently runs her own Marketing Consultancy, LatitudeBOX. She has written promotional articles for multiple brands and has published her work in Scopus indexed journals. She is passionate about expressing her thoughts and ideas to connect with her readers in a voice that they understand.

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16 Important Ways to Use Case Studies in Your Marketing

Updated: September 08, 2020

Published: July 30, 2020

When you're thinking about investing in a product or service, what's the first thing you do?

Usually, it’s one or both of the following: You'll likely ask your friends whether they've tried the product or service, and if they have, whether they would recommend it. You'll also probably do some online research to see what others are saying about said product or service. Nowadays, 90% of consumers used the internet to find a local business in the last year , and 82% of consumers read online reviews. This shows that the majority of people are looking to peers to make a purchasing decision. Most customers know that a little online research could spare them from a bad experience and poor investment of your budget.

What Is a Marketing Case Study?

A case study is the analysis of a particular instance (or "case") of something to demonstrate quantifiable results as a result of the application of something. In marketing, case studies are used as social proof — to provide buyers with the context to determine whether they're making a good choice.

A marketing case study aims to persuade that a process, product, or service can solve a problem. Why? Because it has done so in the past. By including the quantitative and qualitative outcomes of the study, it appeals to logic while painting a picture of what success looks like for the buyer. Both of which can be powerful motivators and objection removers.

Why Use Case Studies?

In essence, case studies are an invaluable asset when it comes to establishing proof that what you're offering is valuable and of good quality.

According to HubSpot's State of Marketing Report 2020 , 13% of marketers name case studies as one of the primary forms of media used within their content strategy. This makes them the fifth most popular type of content, outshined only by visual content, blogs, and ebooks.

Okay, so you know case studies work. The question is, how  do they work? And how can you squeeze the most value out of them? 

When to Use a Case Study

Here are the ways you can market your case studies to get the most out of them.

As a Marketing or Sales Asset

1. use a case study template to create pdfs for email or downloads . .

Do not underestimate the value of providing social proof at just the right time in order to add value and earn their business. Case studies are extremely effective in the consideration stage of the buyer's journey when they are actively comparing solutions and providers to solve a problem they're experiencing. 

For this reason, case studies in an independent PDF format can be helpful in both marketing and sales. Marketers can use these PDFs as downloads in web content or email campaigns. Sales reps can utilize these assets in demonstrations, in a follow-up, or to overcome objections. 

The easiest way to create PDF case studies is by using a case study template . Doing so can decrease the amount of time you spend creating and designing your case study without sacrificing aesthetics. In addition, you can ensure that all your case studies follow a similar branded format. 

We've created a great case study template (and kit!) that's already locked and loaded for you to use. All you have to do is input your own text and change the fonts and colors to fit your brand. You can download it here .

On Your Website

2. have a dedicated case studies page..

You should have a webpage exclusively for housing your case studies. Whether you call this page "Case Studies, "Success Studies," or "Examples of Our Work," be sure it's easy for visitors to find.

Structure on that page is key: Initial challenges are clear for each case, as well as the goals, process, and results.

Get Inspired:  Google’s Think With Google is an example of a really well structured case study page. The copy is engaging, as are the goals, approach, and results.

3. Put case studies on your home page.

Give website visitors every chance you can to stumble upon evidence of happy customers. Your home page is the perfect place to do this.

There are a number of ways you can include case studies on your homepage. Here are a few examples:

• Customer quotes/testimonials
• A call-to-action (CTA) to view specific case studies
• A slide-in CTA that links to a case study
• A CTA leading to your case studies page

Get Inspired: Theresumator.com incorporates testimonials onto their homepage to strengthen their value proposition.

Bonus Tip: Get personal.

Marketing gurus across the world agree that personalised marketing is the future . You can make your case studies more powerful if you find ways to make them “match” the website visitors that are important to you.

People react to familiarity -- for instance, presenting someone from London with a case study from New York may not resonate as well as if you displayed a case study from the U.K. Or you could choose to tailor case studies by industry or company size to the visitor. At HubSpot, we call this "smart content."

Get Inspired: To help explain smart content, have a look at the example below. Here, we wanted to test whether including testimonials on landing pages influenced conversion rates in the U.K. The landing page on the left is the default landing page shown to visitors from non-U.K. IP addresses. For the landing page on the right, we used smart content to show testimonials to visitors coming from U.K. IP addresses.

4. Implement slide-in CTAs.

Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying, but there are ways to implement that that won't irk your website visitors. These CTAs don't have to be huge, glaring pop-ups -- instead, relevant but discreet slide-in CTAs can work really well.

For example, why not test out a slide-in CTA on one of your product pages, with a link to a case study that profiles a customer who's seen great results using that product?

Get Inspired:  If you need some help on creating sliders for your website, check out this tutorial on creating slide-in CTAs .

5. Write blog posts about your case studies.

Once you publish a case study, the next logical step would be to write a blog post about it to expose your audience to it. The trick is to write about the case study in a way that identifies with your audience’s needs. So rather than titling your post “Company X: A Case Study," you might write about a specific hurdle, issue, or challenge the company overcame, and then use that company's case study to illustrate how the issues were addressed. It's important not  to center the blog post around your company, product, or service -- instead, the customer’s challenges and how they were overcome should take centre stage.

For example, if we had a case study that showed how one customer generated twice as many leads as a result of our marketing automation tool, our blog post might be something along the lines of: "How to Double Lead Flow With Marketing Automation [Case Study]." The blog post would then comprise of a mix of stats, practical tips, as well as some illustrative examples from our case study.

Get Inspired:   Check out this great example of a blog post from Moz , titled "How to Build Links to Your Blog – A Case Study."

6. Create videos from case studies.

Internet services are improving all the time, and as a result, people are consuming more and more video content. Prospects could be more likely to watch a video than they are to read a lengthy case study. If you have the budget, creating videos of your case studies is a really powerful way to communicate your value proposition.

Get Inspired: Check out one of our many video testimonials for some ideas on how to approach your own videos.

7. Use case studies on relevant landing pages.

Once you complete a case study, you'll have a bank of quotes and results you can pull from. Including quotes on product pages is especially interesting. If website visitors are reading your product pages, they are in a "consideration" mindset, meaning they are actively researching your products, perhaps with an intent to buy. Having customer quotes placed strategically on these pages is a great way to push them over the line and further down the funnel.

These quotes should be measured, results-based snippets, such as, “XX resulted in a 70% increase in blog subscribers in less an 6 months” rather than, “We are proud to be customers of XX, they really look after us."

Get Inspired: I really like the way HR Software company Workday incorporates video and testimonials into its solutions pages.

Off Your Website

8. post about case studies on social media..

Case studies make for perfect social sharing material. Here are a few examples of how you can leverage them on social:

• Share a link to a case study and tag the customer in the post. The trick here is to post your case studies in a way that attracts the right people to click through, rather than just a generic message like, “New Case Study ->> LINK." Make sure your status communicates clearly the challenge that was overcome or the goal that was achieved. It's also wise to include the main stats associated with the case study; for example, "2x lead flow," "125% increase in X," and so on.
• Update your cover image on Twitter/Facebook showing a happy customer. Our social media cover photo templates should help you with this!
• Add your case study to your list of publications on LinkedIn.
• Share your case studies in relevant LinkedIn Groups.
• Target your new case studies to relevant people on Facebook using dark posts. ( Learn about dark posts here. )

Get Inspired: MaRS Discovery District posts case studies on Twitter to push people towards a desired action.

9. Use case studies in your email marketing.

Case studies are particularly suited to email marketing when you have an industry-segmentable list. For example, if you have a case study from a client in the insurance industry, emailing your case study to your base of insurance-related contacts can be a really relevant addition to a lead nurturing campaign.

Case studies can also be very effective when used in product-specific lead nurture workflows in reactivating opportunities that have gone cold. They can be useful for re-engaging leads that have gone quiet and who were looking at specific areas of your product that the case study relates to.

Get Inspired: It's important that your lead nurture workflow content includes the appropriate content for where prospects are in the sales cycle. If you need help on how to do this, check out our post on how to map lead nurturing content to each stage in sales cycle .

Pro tip: When sending emails, don't forget about the impact a good email signature can make. Create your own using our free Email Signature Generator .

10. Incorporate case studies into your newsletters.

This idea is as good for your client relations as it is for gaining the attention of your prospects. Customers and clients love feeling as though they're part of a community. It’s human nature. Prospects warm to companies that look after their customers; companies whose customers are happy and proud to be part of something. Also, whether we are willing to admit it or not, people love to show off!

Get Inspired: Newsletters become stale over time. Give your newsletters a new lease of life with our guide on how to create newsletters that don't suck .

11. Equip your sales team with case studies.

Tailored content has become increasingly important to sales reps as they look to provide value on the sales call. It's estimated that consumers go through 70-90% of the buyer's journey before contacting a vendor. This means that the consumer is more knowledgeable than ever before. Sales reps no longer need to spend an entire call talking about the features and benefits. Sales has become more complex, and reps now need to be armed with content that addresses each stage of the buyer’s process. Case studies can be really useful when it comes to showing prospects how successful other people within a similar industry has benefited from your product or service.

Get Inspired: Case studies are just one type of content that helps your sales team sell. They don't always work by themselves, though. Check out our list of content types that help sales close more deals .

12. Sneak a case study into your email signature.

Include a link to a recent case study in your email signature. This is particularly useful for salespeople. Here's what my email signature looks like:

Get Inspired: Did you know that there are lots more ways you can use your email signature to support your marketing? Here are 10 clever suggestions for how you can do this.

13. Use case studies in training.

Having customer case studies is an invaluable asset to have when onboarding new employees. It aids developing their buy-in, belief in, and understanding of your offering.

Get Inspired: Have you completed our Inbound Certification course yet? During our classes, we use case studies to show how inbound marketing is applied in real life.

In Lead-Gen Content

14. include case studies in your lead gen efforts..

There are a number of offers you can create based off of your case studies, in the form of ebooks, templates, and more. For example you could put together an ebook titled “A step-by-step guide to reaching 10,000 blog subscribers in 3 months…just like XX did.” You could create a more in-depth version of the case study with access to detailed statistics as an offer. (And don’t forget, you can also u se quotes and statistics from case studies on the landing page promoting the ebook, which adds credibility and could increase your conversion rates.) Or, you could create a template based on your customer's approach to success.

Get Inspired:   If you think you need to be an awesome designer put together beautiful ebooks, think again. Create ebooks easily using these customisable ebook templates .

You can also use case studies to frame webinars that document how to be successful with X. Using case studies in webinars is great middle-of-the-funnel content and can really help move your leads further down the funnel towards becoming sales qualified leads.

Get Inspired: Webinars are really effective as part of a lead nurturing workflow. Make sure your next webinar is spot on by following these simple webinar tips.

15. Create a bank of evergreen presentations.

It’s important to build up a bank of evergreen content that employees across your organisation can use during presentations or demos. Case studies are perfect for this.

Put together a few slides on the highlights of the case study to stir people’s interest, and then make them available to your sales and customer-facing teams. It's helpful if the marketer who created the presentation is the one who presents it to anyone who might use them in the future. This ensures they can explain the presentation clearly and answer any questions that might arise.

Get Inspired: What to create presentations people want to use? Here's a list of tools to make your presentations great.

16. Create SlideShares based on case studies.

Following on from a few short slides, you could also put together a more detailed presentation of the case study and upload it to SlideShare. After all, not only is SlideShare SEO-friendly (because Google indexes each presentation), but there is a huge pre-existing audience on SlideShare of over 60 million users you can tap into. SlideShare presentations are also easy to embed and share, and allow you to capture leads directly from the slides via a lead capture form.

Get Inspired:   Want to generate more leads with SlideShare, but not sure how to get started? Check out this blog post .

Now that you understand the value of a marketing case study and the different ways that they can be used in your content marketing (and even sales) strategy, your next step is to think about what would convince your target audience to do business with you. 

Have you recently accomplished something big for a client? Do you have a process or product with demonstrable results? What do your potential clients hope that you'll do for them? 

The answers to those questions will help you craft compelling content for your case study. Then, all that's left is putting it into your audience's hands in formats they want to consume.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2015 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Top 5 Marketing Case Studies from Fortune 500 Companies to Inspire Your Marketing Initiatives

Introduction .

The era of the consumer is here—and it's here to stay. It has somehow made brands worldwide revisit their roots and adjust to the changing marketing ecosystem. Product-centric strategies have a limited scope; brands today go the extra mile to reach their target audience innovatively. Let's find out how.

Case Study 1: Intel

Intel, one of the most popular technology brands worldwide, ranks 7th on the Fortune 500 list . With their marketing strategies, it's no wonder that the organization enjoys massive customer loyalty.

Intel was already a trusted technology partner for many computer manufacturers. However, they wished to establish a positive brand image in the business world and the public eye.

They began by strategically leveraging co-op advertisement campaigns targeted toward OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). It helped them put their products into mass-produced PCs, ultimately meant for the public.

The arrangement was simple: Intel agreed to pay for their OEM partners’ advertising as long as they got to stick their logo on OEM products. Do you remember your first PC with an “Intel Inside” sticker on the CPU?

This “Intel Inside” campaign was a stellar success, not just figuratively. There are numbers to prove it. In 1991, before the campaign began, Intel stood at a market capitalization value of about $1 billion. After implementing this strategy, their market cap rose to $5 billion by 2003.

Since then, the phrase “Intel Inside” has been associated with reliability and is proving to be a tough climb for Intel’s competitors like AMD. 1 .

The Takeaway : Partnerships can be fashioned into marketing for brand awareness and trust.

Case Study 2: IBM

IBM—the “Big Blue”—is ranked 5th on the Fortune 500 today, and very understandably so. IBM adopts a long-term, defensive marketing strategy that focuses on self-improvement and has its customers waiting for new launches eagerly.

IBM’s defensive marketing tactic is “Self-attack.” Whenever the brand is about to develop a new product, its advertising campaigns attack its products and call them obsolete. It helps showcase IBM as a constant, consistent innovator that launches improved technologies and services that are cheaper and better than its previous versions. However, that's not all.

IBM also leverages a second key marketing strategy focusing on product differentiation and value delivery. It advertises its specific products based on target consumers’ needs by leveraging a user-benefit-based positioning through its value distribution chain. It achieves this by investing millions in acquiring a high-performing, world-leading sales team to run the show 2 .

The Takeaway : Marketing should showcase the innovative value of a product to the customers who need it and use it.

Case Study 3: Microsoft

Microsoft ranks 14th on the Fortune 500 list. This brand’s marketing strategies are unique and resonate well with its vision, making them more effective.

Microsoft positions itself as a business enabler by constantly providing functionality and variety in its products and services; all targeted toward making business easy. Its marketing strategies draw heavily from corporate cultures and are dynamic according to trends.

Microsoft leverages the GD&I (Global Diversity and Inclusion) to inform its marketing strategies to advertise its products in a community and business-friendly light.

This marketing strategy stands on three core pillars:

• Representation

Microsoft embodies 'representation' by bringing into its employ the best talents from around the globe, regardless of the societal constructs they hail from. Furthering this marketing strategy, the brand focuses on 'addition' by upskilling and training its workforce to innovate and lead.

Microsoft, as a technology brand, showcases the third pillar, 'invention,' by constantly striving to produce products that improve a business by recognizing the needs of both the business and society 3 .

The Takeaway : Marketing strategies must evolve with time and communities—there must be a resonation between a brand and the people.

Case Study 4: Apple

Apple ranks 1st on the Fortune 500 list, and the way it markets itself has an immense bearing on making it the most successful company in the world.

Apple keeps it simple: create a revolution of people who believe in something, and deliver products that ride that wave. This strategy has stood the test of time and helped Apple rise to the top.

Think of it like this: which gadgets do people line up for overnight before the morning of its launch? The iPad, the latest iPhone, and Air Pods are the names that come to mind—all Apple.

By focusing its marketing campaigns on integrating its products into people’s daily lives, Apple simplifies how the public views these products. To enhance the inherent value—the “You-can’t-live-with-out-this-iPhone” factor—Apple leverages the power of forming communities.

You may have noticed how Apple has created a “tribe” of Apple users. The brand has achieved this by packing high-quality standards under the hood with each device it launches and advertising how this quality factor brings people together.

Of late, and in line with the renouncement of third-party cookies, Apple has leveraged the privacy revolution for marketing and further solidified its position in people’s hearts 4 .

The Takeaway: Build your strategies and products on what the people want to believe in.

Case Study 5: Dell

Dell ranks 31 on the Fortune 500 list of technology companies. The marketing strategy Dell adopt derives keenly from its founding father—Michael Dell’s—reasons for establishing the business.

Dell started with $1,000 in capital, aiming to eliminate the intermediaries involved in selling custom computers to the public. It then extended this vision into its brand ethos that focused on eliminating unnecessary steps, which it also adopted for its marketing strategies. 

Under this 'direct model' of business and marketing, Dell exclusively paid attention to its consumers and fostered an uninterrupted relationship with them over the years. They removed retailers and resellers from the equation, giving them a first-hand understanding of consumer needs. Thus, they could act on this consumer insight and deliver relevant products directly to the buyers.

By building the company on the direct model alone, Michael Dell was able to grow his company five times faster than the industry average 5 .

The Takeaway: There is no guesswork in marketing: you either know what your consumers need or don't know.

Lessons Learned

• Partnerships can be fashioned into marketing for brand awareness and trust. The case study showcases how Intel leveraged partnerships with computer manufacturers to promote its microprocessors, which helped create brand recognition and consumer trust.
• Marketing should showcase the innovative value of a product to the customers who need it and use it: IBM’s defensive marketing strategy of self-attack and focus on product differentiation, and value delivery helped position the brand as a consistent innovator that launches improved technologies and services.
• Marketing strategies must evolve with time and communities. There must be a resonation between a brand and the people: Microsoft’s focus on Global Diversity and Inclusion (GD&I) and its three core pillars of representation, addition, and invention helped the brand resonate with its target audience.
• Build your strategies and products on what the people want to believe in: Apple’s focus on creating a revolution of people who believe in something and delivering products that ride that wave has helped the brand stay on top.
• There is no guesswork in marketing: you either know what your consumers need or don't know: Dell’s direct model of business and marketing, which eliminated intermediaries and gave the brand a first-hand understanding of consumer needs, helped the company grow five times faster than the industry average.

Personalization is one approach to tackle the problem of product-centric marketing and leverage the power of customer customer-centric marketing. The website personalized messaging system we have can help you create a unique personalized experience on your website. You can read more about it on our martech personalization blog .

Wrapping Up

Marketing strategies aren't complex—surprisingly, they draw from the simplest concepts. What do your consumers want? Can your brand reach them where they are?

These technology companies have become leaders in their respective industries by adopting innovative marketing strategies. From direct-to-consumer models to community-building campaigns, their approaches have allowed them to connect with customers and build lasting relationships based on trust and value.

Attempt to understand your ideal consumer and fashion a simple campaign that strikes the right chord. You can take inspiration from the five fortune 500 companies listed above. Ready to create your successful marketing campaign? Let our team of experts guide you! Contact us today, and let's work together to achieve your marketing goals. If you are a Small and Medium Business (SMB) looking for examples from the Fortune 500 companies marketing strategies, checkout 7 Marketing Strategies SMBs Can Borrow from Fortune 500 Companies

• 1 Author unspecified, MBAKnol (online), “ Case Study: “Intel Inside” Campaign by Intel, ” Dateline not provided, Link retrieved 2023 January 18. https://www.mbaknol.com/management-case-studies/case-study-intel-inside-campaign-by-intel/
• 2 Author unspecified, MBAKnol (online), “ Case Study: “Marketing Strategies of IBM ” Dateline not provided, Link retrieved 2023 January 31. https://www.mbaknol.com/management-case-studies/case-study-marketing-strategies-of-ibm/
• 3 Aditya Shastri, IIDE (online), “ Detailed Marketing Strategy of Microsoft ” Published on 2021 September 2,   Link retrieved 2023 January 31. https://iide.co/case-studies/marketing-strategy-of-microsoft/
• 4 Gabriele, EOS Marketing (online), “ Case study: Apple's Marketing Strategy ” Published on 2022 January 13,   Link retrieved 2023 January 31. https://eosmarketing.it/en/apple-case-study-marketing-communication-strategy/
• 5 Author unspecified, MBAKnol (online), “ Case Study: “Case Study of Dell: Simple but Effective Marketing Strategy ” Dateline not provided,   Link retrieved 2023 January 31. https://www.mbaknol.com/management-concepts/case-study-of-dell-simple-but-effective-marketing-strategy/
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5 Examples of Partner Marketing and What We Can Learn From Them

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• partnership marketing

Chrissy Kammerer

Director of Content

In today’s fast-paced digital marketing landscape, businesses are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to expand their reach and grow their customer base. Partner marketing has emerged as a powerful marketing strategy that allows companies to collaborate with like-minded organizations to make marketing partnerships that achieve mutually beneficial goals.

In this article, we will delve into five compelling partner marketing examples and extract the valuable takeaways from each of marketing strategies.

Partner Marketing Strategy Examples We Can Learn From

Partner marketing, also known as partnership marketing or co-marketing, involves two or more brands collaborating to promote each other’s products or services. This strategy can lead to significant benefits for two brands, including expanded reach, increased brand visibility, and access to new customer segments. Let’s explore five partner marketing case studies to gain insights into how this approach can be leveraged effectively.

Lucky Brand Partnering With MERGE

While fashion retailer Lucky Brand was operating in the affiliate channel, they were lacking a holistic strategy to accelerate new customer acquisition through that channel. The fast-growing fashion brand knew that its target shoppers included free-thinking and optimistic women that are inspired by American-heritage styles. Up until this time, they had primarily partnered with coupon and deal sites and were looking for ways to expand their partnerships to include top-of-funnel partners including bloggers, influencers, mass media publications and loyalty partners that were aligned with their brand and could introduce them to new audiences. To turn their plans on paper into action, Lucky Brand partnered with MERGE to expand its partnership program on the Partnerize platform. MERGE is a full-service digital marketing agency, providing strategy, planning and execution for growing brands while Partnerize is a partnership management software solution. In partnership with MERGE, Lucky Brand aimed to build close relationships with affiliate partners to deliver high-converting traffic and high-quality revenue.

MERGE conducted a full audit of Lucky Brand’s affiliate program and created a new partnership plan and program design that identified high-value partners, focusing on influencers, bloggers, major fashion publishers and loyalty sites that could introduce the brand to new audiences and deliver net new customers. Discover, the Partnerize platform’s recruitment and activation engine, helped MERGE to cultivate relationships with targeted content and loyalty partners. These relationships resulted in high-value partnerships with publications that attracted an audience to Lucky Brand’s eclectic Americana style. MERGE leveraged Partnerize’s dynamic commissioning tool to track new customer orders and adjust commission rates to reward partners specifically for driving new customers. With Partnerize, MERGE could review the data and raise commissions for high-performing partners to further incentivize the results.

The Results of the Partnership

Affiliate marketing has become one of Lucky Brand’s most effective and efficient new customer conversion channels. In collaboration with MERGE and Partnerize, they developed new content partnerships and optimized existing partner strategies to increase new customer revenue.

As a result, they increased the number of active partners by 34% YOY and increased active content partners by 142%. This led to a 38% YOY increase in Lucky Brand’s affiliate channel new customer rate. They have achieved an ongoing new customer rate of 60%+ from the affiliate channel.

Mitchell Gold Partners With Bob Williams

Like many brands across varying verticals, artisans of comfort and luxury brand, Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams (MG+BW) were looking to drive new, diversified revenue streams. New to the affiliate channel, MG+BW sought education and expertise when it came to working specifically with content partners inside a pay-for-outcome model. As a high-consideration purchase where quality matters and the relationship is long-term, MG+BW sought those attributes in a partner with channel expertise and know-how who can expedite results through advanced technology.

The Partnerize treatment: Delivering a thoughtful, bespoke affiliate experience through the combination of software and service.

Leveraging the platform’s partner discovery tools, the team was able to deliver on expanding the affiliate program through targeted recruitment and activation. They easily identified and targeted a diversified array of partners with the greatest potential to drive revenue through the platform’s discovery tools and rewarded specific content partners through dynamic commissioning and attribution functionality.

The affiliate channel remains MG+BW’s strongest channel for return on investment (ROAS). In fact, their success in the affiliate channel has prompted an exodus from their other channels to increase their affiliate channel investment. They’re now strategically working with diversified affiliate partner types including content, and influencers in conjunction with lower-funnel partners.

• 56% Content partners
• 74% Traffic growth driven by partners
• 32% Total revenue growth from partners
• 12:1 Return on ad spend (ROAs)
• 150% Increase in AOV from content partners overall

Pizza Hut Partners With Navigate Digital

The COVID-19 pandemic brought tremendous disruption to the retail and restaurant industries. For Pizza Hut, this meant the temporary closure of its dine-in outlets. However, given the nature of their business, its delivery arm was fortunate to continue trading during lockdowns. To counteract the business effects of restaurant closures, Pizza Hut Delivery needed to establish new ways to drive awareness of its delivery sector.

As they looked to identify effective methods to promote delivery, Pizza Hut and their agency, Navigate Digital, evaluated the strong growth potential of the partnerships channel. They recognized that partnership is highly scalable, provides a diversified revenue stream and its pay-for-performance compensation model meant that they could field programs with minimal risk.

The Adapted and Targeted Approach

The newly enhanced, user-friendly Partnerize interface empowers clients to automate previously manual tasks and speed execution. This allowed Navigate Digital to quickly make changes and optimisations to programs, adapting creatives across multiple partners to align brand messaging for Pizza Hut Delivery during these unprecedented times. Partnerize’s unique API-based platform equipped Navigate to pivot in response to unpredictable market changes in realtime, resulting in a 45% increase in partner website clicks (March-July 2020 versus March-July 2019).

The creation of closed-user groups in the platform further accelerated this growth. Pizza Hut Delivery sought to “give back” to emergency workers in the form of discounts, driving incremental sales and consumer value. Working with partners such as ‘Blue Light Card’ allowed Pizza Hut Delivery to thank key workers for their service while advancing brand perception and ultimately sales. During March and August 2020, the closed-user groups accounted for 15% of partner sales and Pizza Hut Delivery is now looking to create new closed-user groups with other audiences, such as students.

For Navigate Digital, Partnerize’s exemplary levels of service from both Support and Customer Success Teams have helped drive speed to market and optimisation. Navigate has also increased partner onboarding by 28% thanks to their use of Partnerize’s innovative AI-powered Partner Discovery marketplace.

• 28% Increase in onboarded partners
• 15% Total partner sales from targeted audiences

Otrium Partners With AMPC

Online Fashion Outlet leader, Otrium, is no stranger to success, however, they understood well that the affiliate channel was a necessary lever they needed to engage yet was the missing vehicle in their marketing strategy that could catapult them even further. They began their affiliate program on the Partnerize platform set-up and managed by the consultants from AMPC. Right out of the gate there were some major and distinct components that needed to be satisfied to signal channel success.

To begin, Otrium built a channel Incrementality Score to identify the most valuable markets, segments, partners, even promotions, forcing the channel to be first-interaction driven by being the introducer/creator of customer journeys as well as the ability to reach new customers with both being generated exclusively from affiliate partnerships. They also stipulated that the click to conversion period needed to be a certain amount of minutes to differentiate quantity from quality traffic and finally, they needed to eliminate duplicate data to rely on clean, accurate insights and revenue streams.

Being new to the affiliate category, Otrium defined clear objectives to achieve success on their terms. The primary focus from the start was to identify and drive incremental business while relying on the traditional last-click tracking model but instead, applying “attribution thinking”. Sounds simple, but there is a notable difference between employing “attribution thinking” compared to widely available yet limited attribution commission technologies.

Models where brands face cross-channel insight limitations, have no guarantee that ‘incremental partners’ will run the extra mile and often have limited insights on when/which placements are being executed by which partners. AMPC helped Otrium to identify their incremental partners and placements with its uniquely built Incrementality Score and accelerated the performance with tailored fixed-fee investments based on a market-winning, cost-of-sale (COS) strategy

From plans on paper to a multi-million dollar revenue generating business just four months later, Otrium now has 250+ key partnerships in 9 different markets across the globe–with most launched in just 45 days.

The success and milestones achieved during that 4-month time was the result of a combined commitment, strategy, and execution of individuals working on one account across both Europe and North America. The market-winning strategies deployed resulted in four times 100% month-over-month (MoM) channel performance growth. Furthermore, the Incrementality Score built by the AMPC consultants integrating and combining data from three different sources showed a 75% channel incrementality in the first months with the affiliate channel now being one of the most efficient marketing channels in Otrium’s digital mix where its cost of sale (COS) is concerned. Affiliate is also a key channel accelerating local market growth through highly incremental platforms, as identified by the Incrementality Score. Finally, the affiliate marketing model and its technology are a crucial asset in optimizing other digital activities within the organization such as influencer campaigns and B2B partnerships. Lowering fixed fees and leveraging from hybrid reward models enables more focus on performance.

M.J. Bale Partners With Silverbean

M.J. Bale is a premium male fashion brand, and a renowned Australian brand, producing clothes with integrity for men with character. While M.J. Bale understood the value affiliate partners could drive for the business, their existing channel performance was not hitting target and channel revenue was concentrated on a small group of last-click publisher partners. They selected the Partnerize technology alongside the support of specialist agency Silverbean to help them unlock the true potential from their partnership program.

Pandemic aside, M.J. Bale knew it needed to diversify its partner portfolio, and execute on its strategy more effectively to achieve revenue and growth targets. However, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, M.J. Bale had to quickly adapt business objectives, and for logistical reasons, had to prioritise particular products and SKUs, and needed partnership technology to be able to support that strategy.

The Partner Marketing Strategy

• Implement more flexible commissioning to incentivize partners towards target SKUs and product categories.
• Diversify its partner mix utilizing Partnerize’s Partner Discovery Tool ensuring an even mix of partners across the customer journey – Silverbean was able to implement its tiered publisher approach and find partners to fit each tier through the Partner Discovery Tool.
• Leverage the channel to support wider business objectives, such as incentivizing sales of overstock items, without discounting. This was particularly important during COVID-19 when stock levels were lower.
• Put profitability at the center of its partnerships, by optimizing individual affiliates to maximize the performance from each.
• 185% Increase in partner revenue
• YoY 384% increase in transaction YoY
• 743% Increase in target SKU sales YoY

The Key Takeaways

Partner marketing can be a potent strategy for expanding reach and increasing brand visibility.

Shared goals and a commitment to customer satisfaction are crucial for successful partnerships.

Integrations and added value for customers can create mutually beneficial outcomes.

Partnerships can extend beyond external collaborations to include partners within your own ecosystem.

Consistency and trust are essential for maintaining long-term partnerships.

What is partner marketing? Partner marketing involves two or more brands collaborating to promote each other’s products or services for mutual benefit.

How can I find the right partner for my business? Look for partners with complementary products or services and a similar target audience.

Is partner marketing only for big businesses? Partner marketing can benefit businesses of all sizes, as long as the partnership aligns with their goals.

What are some common challenges in partner marketing? Challenges may include alignment of goals, resource allocation, and measuring the success of the partnership.

Can partner marketing help with brand awareness? Yes, partner marketing can significantly enhance brand visibility by tapping into the partner’s customer base.

Partner marketing is a dynamic marketing strategy that can yield remarkable results when executed effectively. The case studies discussed in this article demonstrate the potential of collaboration in partnership marketing strategy for achieving common goals and driving business growth. As you consider incorporating partner marketing into your strategy, remember the key takeaways and lessons from these successful partnerships. By doing so, you can unlock new opportunities and expand your brand’s reach in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

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