First, a few general reminders:

1 — You’ll want to keep your case study short.

Use it to drive people to contact you for more information.You want the case study to start a conversation so that you can learn more about the person you are talking with and what you can do to be of use to them.

2 — It’s not about you.

It’s natural to want to talk about all the things you can do for potential clients or customers. Fight that urge. We all face dealing with too much information. Your story should be about meeting specific needs. Everything else is just noise that detracts from your message.

3 — Commissioned photography can help make your case study more believable.

A photo of your customer or client interacting with you or your business goes a long way toward making your case study real. While stock photography has gotten better, unless you buy the rights to the image, you still run the risk of seeing your photos appear on competitors’ or others’ ads or websites.

4 — Illustrations or diagrams can make difficult points easier to understand.

Think of the clearest way to present what you have done; maybe a small diagram would work better than 350 words.

5 — Design your case study so that a quick glance gives a reader the whole story.

If they want to take time to learn more, they can, but if you make the headlines and subheads bold and clear, a reader can learn what you’ve done in just a few seconds.