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- What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods

What Is a Case Study? | Definition, Examples & Methods
Published on May 8, 2019 by Shona McCombes . Revised on January 30, 2023.
A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.
A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods , but quantitative methods are sometimes also used. Case studies are good for describing , comparing, evaluating and understanding different aspects of a research problem .
Table of contents
When to do a case study, step 1: select a case, step 2: build a theoretical framework, step 3: collect your data, step 4: describe and analyze the case.
A case study is an appropriate research design when you want to gain concrete, contextual, in-depth knowledge about a specific real-world subject. It allows you to explore the key characteristics, meanings, and implications of the case.
Case studies are often a good choice in a thesis or dissertation . They keep your project focused and manageable when you don’t have the time or resources to do large-scale research.
You might use just one complex case study where you explore a single subject in depth, or conduct multiple case studies to compare and illuminate different aspects of your research problem.
Once you have developed your problem statement and research questions , you should be ready to choose the specific case that you want to focus on. A good case study should have the potential to:
- Provide new or unexpected insights into the subject
- Challenge or complicate existing assumptions and theories
- Propose practical courses of action to resolve a problem
- Open up new directions for future research
Unlike quantitative or experimental research , a strong case study does not require a random or representative sample. In fact, case studies often deliberately focus on unusual, neglected, or outlying cases which may shed new light on the research problem.
However, you can also choose a more common or representative case to exemplify a particular category, experience or phenomenon.
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While case studies focus more on concrete details than general theories, they should usually have some connection with theory in the field. This way the case study is not just an isolated description, but is integrated into existing knowledge about the topic. It might aim to:
- Exemplify a theory by showing how it explains the case under investigation
- Expand on a theory by uncovering new concepts and ideas that need to be incorporated
- Challenge a theory by exploring an outlier case that doesn’t fit with established assumptions
To ensure that your analysis of the case has a solid academic grounding, you should conduct a literature review of sources related to the topic and develop a theoretical framework . This means identifying key concepts and theories to guide your analysis and interpretation.
There are many different research methods you can use to collect data on your subject. Case studies tend to focus on qualitative data using methods such as interviews , observations , and analysis of primary and secondary sources (e.g., newspaper articles, photographs, official records). Sometimes a case study will also collect quantitative data.
The aim is to gain as thorough an understanding as possible of the case and its context.
In writing up the case study, you need to bring together all the relevant aspects to give as complete a picture as possible of the subject.
How you report your findings depends on the type of research you are doing. Some case studies are structured like a standard scientific paper or thesis , with separate sections or chapters for the methods , results and discussion .
Others are written in a more narrative style, aiming to explore the case from various angles and analyze its meanings and implications (for example, by using textual analysis or discourse analysis ).
In all cases, though, make sure to give contextual details about the case, connect it back to the literature and theory, and discuss how it fits into wider patterns or debates.
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6 Excellent Product Designer Case Studies & 8 Tips for Yours

What is the recipe for perfect product design case studies? The dozens of design leads and HR managers we’ve interviewed say that they expect a blend of
- storytelling
- stunning visuals and
- personality.
This article will guide you through the steps of creating case studies that check all those marks, and more! This is your one-stop source of tips and steps based on actual research, and real-life examples.
Let’s be honest: putting together a case study can be rather difficult. However, there are some techniques and tools that can help you along the way. One of those tools is UXfolio , our portfolio builder that makes the whole process faster and easier. Obviously, these 8 tips apply regardless of the tool you are using to build your product designer case studies.

1. Inject your personality into your case studies
Showing personality in a product design portfolio , case study, or resumé can be challenging. Finding the balance between just enough and too much takes time and experimentation. Still, if you want to set yourself apart, you have to find ways to inject your personality into everything you submit with an application.
Here’s a pro tip: whenever you relate something back to yourself, to your personal experience with the project, you’ll allow a small bit of your personality to shine. If you don’t go overboard, you will show just enough of yourself for recruiters to see the type of person and designer you are.
Define what you do
There are ways to sprinkle tidbits of your personality into everything you make. Start by clearly defining what you do. Do this in your portfolio and at the beginning of every case study: In what quality were you part of the project?
Find personal connection to the product
Next, you can share your connection with the product. Your case study intro is perfect for this. Answer questions such as:
- How did it relate to you (if it did)?
- Did you have any experience in this niche before?
- Were you using similar products before?
Talk about your experience throughout the process
In the body of your case study go on and talk about your experience throughout the project. Maybe this was your first time using a specific UX method. Let your readers know! Then go on and share what you liked about it, and what you didn’t.
Juniors have it easier

Leslie’s Meal Planner case study is the perfect example of a product designer case study based on a mock project. Putting together a portfolio as a junior designer – who doesn’t have real-life projects yet – is challenging to say the least. Most design leads advise juniors to build a portfolio based on
- internship experiences ,
- mock projects, or
The secret is to treat these mock-projects exactly as you’d treat real-life projects. Put in the research, testing, and the same effort you’d put in a real-life project. The best thing about mock-projects is that they provide plenty of room for your personality to shine. Just base them on topics or apps that interest you and let your readers know.
Check out Leslie’s introduction:
“I’ve been struggling with food allergies for years, so it seemed obvious that I will try to find a solution to this common problem.”
Immediately in her intro, we learn something personal about her. It is easy to see why she’s passionate about the topic. By kicking it off on a personal note, she pulls in the readers immediately.
This approach aligns with the advice that Marc Greenberg , UX lead of Robotics at Postmates, gave to junior designers:
“Start close to you. Everyone can identify where their own frustrations, troubles, and difficulties lie. The first step is to design solutions to those things.”
2. Put everything in context
Both HR managers and design leads list ‘lack of explanation’ as a common reason for rejection. Our experience through expert reviews supports their statement.
Stop defining UX methods in your case studies
Many designers will list the methods they have used during a project. They do a good job of explaining the general purpose of said methods. The only problem is that both HR managers and design leads are aware of what ‘A/B testing’ is and what purpose it serves. What they don’t know is:
- Why did you choose that method for that specific project?
- What did you learn (or did not learn) by using that method?
- How did your findings influence the project?
By failing to answer those questions, your case study will fail to fulfill its purpose. The key is storytelling. In the context of UX portfolios, the word storytelling refers to the story of a specific design project and not the story of UX design in general. Storifying your design process is not that hard of a task. Just follow the golden rule:
Whenever you mention something in a case study, explain why it’s relevant to the project at hand and how it influenced your process.
Better Cover, a product design case study by Joanna Yoon, illustrates how to place research in context. Joanna lists the methods she used, then goes on to provide numbers and results. She presents the results in a visual way, which makes it even easier to digest all the data. And this takes us to our next tip: visuals.

3. Keep it visually consistent
Your taste level will be judged based on your portfolio and case studies, and not only the products that you’ve designed. Ideally, while working on something, you think in personas, mood boards, and design systems. Do the same when putting your portfolio together! After all, it’s a product designed by you.

Stop over-designing
Don’t go overboard with your portfolio design. The more stuff you add, the higher your chances of not matching the tastes of others. What’s even worse, you’ll ruin the UX of your portfolio. Check out what Spotify’s Paul Farino had to say about over-designed portfolios:
“I see some portfolios that may take ten seconds to load and it’s very flashy and there’s a lot going on on the screen. But those animations and that extra flare don’t contribute to the story you’re trying to tell. It actually just makes it a poor experience.”
You might think that things floating into the screen left and right show that you are tech-savvy and on-trend, but you are actually over-designing, which ruins an experience that would be seamless otherwise.
There are many well-written product design case studies out there that fail because of presentation. Design is the easiest part of case studies, especially if you are working from a template, such as the templates that you can generate via UXfolio .

Be mindful of colors
Keep in mind: your case study will already include some colors from the product itself. The safe thing is to use matching colors. Introducing new colors on top of what you inherit from the product is a risk that you should not take. It creates a mess, especially if your viewer doesn’t have the time to take it all in. Focus on keeping your fonts and colors consistent throughout the case study, portfolio, and resume.
Make it easy to skim
UX/UI Recruitment Consultant, Joe Jackson , advises UX designers to
“Make it digestible, skimmable, and impactful.”
Your case studies’ users – recruiters and design leads – spend a maximum of 3 minutes with one portfolio. If you have 3 case studies, that’s less than a minute per one. This means that you have to prioritize visual hierarchy.
Take the text of your case study, and see how it would work without the images. Did you use enough headings? Are they applied consistently for the same type of content? Can you organize some of your data into tables or illustrations? Did you use matching colors on your visuals?
Visual consistency checklist:
- Is my content organized into logical chunks consistently?
- Are my fonts consistent throughout the case study?
- Do I have a good text-to-image ratio?
- Is the style of my illustrations and images consistent?
As you can see the keyword here is ‘consistency’
4. UIs matter

When you ask HR managers whether UIs matter in UX portfolios, the answer will be ‘yes’. They know that UI and UX design are not the same. But that doesn’t change the fact that having stunning UIs in your case studies will increase your chances of landing a job. It’s not right, but it’s true. If you want to maximize your chances of success, accept the fact that UIs matter.
Here’s what Tony Aube , Google AI’s Sr. Product Designer had to say about this:
“I believe UX portfolios have too much text and explanation about the design process, while they don’t have enough visuals. The truth is — and I have learned this the hard way — recruiters respond a lot more to visuals than to text.”
The thinking process behind this is very simple:
“If you can’t figure out something as simple as proper drop shadows, I doubt you will do a good job on a multimillion-dollar purchase flow redesign.”
Reasonable.

Just leave them out
If your UIs are not yet polished, it’s better to leave them out of your case studies. Remember: you will be judged on everything you present. It doesn’t matter if you explain right next to it that you have just dipped into visual design. The image will linger. If you don’t do UIs, stick to wireframes and protos, otherwise, you risk shooting yourself in the leg.
5. Deliver on the promises you made in your resume
Your resume, cover letter, about page, and case studies must be aligned both visually and content-wise. If you promise serious research-game in your resume, your case studies should stand proof for that. This way, by the time the HR manager finishes with your submission, they will be convinced that you are indeed big on research. But for this to happen, your entire application must reinforce the statements you make.
Make everything match
When you are eyeing one specific position at a company, align everything you submit with the job description. From your resume to your case studies, everything should support the fact that you are the best candidate. It might seem like too much effort, but in the end, it’ll be worth it. The least, you’ll end up with a brilliant portfolio.
There are plenty of UXfolio users who make great use of the multiple portfolios feature. They create different (password-protected) portfolios, tailored for different applications, and even different positions, such as product designer and UX writer. They understand the impact of a customized application.

6. Show your best work only
If you do a bad job with your own ‘product’, how could they trust you to do a good job with theirs?
Avoid showing mediocre or unfinished work. As mentioned before, you will be judged on everything you present, regardless of any explanation you provide. If your case study is still “in the works” or “coming,” do not feature it in your portfolio! If a case study doesn’t feel right to you, it won’t feel right to the HR manager either. And so on. You get the message: if it’s shaky it doesn’t have a place in your portfolio.
Apply this to everything
The same applies to the visuals you present. If they are shabby, you will be the applicant with the shabby visuals. You must treat your portfolio like you would treat a client. If you do a bad job with your own ‘product’, how could they trust you to do a good job with theirs?
Ask your teacher, your peers, or literally anyone to give feedback on your portfolio. Spam hundreds of Facebook groups with your case study, ask your teachers to review it, send it to HR managers for review. In UXfolio , you can request peer reviews as well as expert reviews. The latter will be given by our designers, who have seen thousands of portfolios.
Here’s Trevor Denton’s advice on the matter:
“Quality over quantity. Many designers oversaturate their portfolio with projects. You don’t need to show me every single thing that you’ve done. Show me the things that you’re most proud of!”
7. Reflect and plan

Close your case studies with reflections and learnings. We work in an industry that evolves at a rapid pace. We must do the same to keep relevant. And openness to learn new things is at the core of evolution.
Mention what you’ve gained professionally from each project, even if it’s a mock-project.
Even the most mundane projects can bring something that contributes to your professional growth. It’s all just a matter of perspective. So, mention what you’ve gained professionally from each project, even if it’s a mock-project.
End with ‘Next steps’
As a product designer, you are well aware that a product is rarely finished. There are always tweaks that could make it even better. There are things that you find important but you couldn’t accomplish. Collect all of these into a ‘Next steps’ section, to show your awareness. Such a section also proves that you think ahead.
So, give your reflections and lay out your plans and ideas for future improvements.

8. Give credit for good karma
Paul Farino , Spotify’s Sr. Product Designer put it best:
“A lot of times we see case studies at a large company and you know they had a ton of other designers, whether researchers or product folks involved. It usually makes for good karma to give credit.”
Not only is it good karma, but it is also extremely beneficial for you. Most positions require the candidate to be a good team player. What better way to show that you fit that criteria than giving credit to the people that have contributed to your work? However, there is a way to do this right.
Let’s say, you have been working closely with front-end developers. When you mention this, describe what type of a collaboration it was. What did it involve? How did you make it work? Maybe you had a dedicated researcher to help you collect all the data. Mention how did you align the research and design. How did the researchers’ work influence yours? It’s all about giving context.
Take the advice of Google UX Design Lead, Koji Pereira :
“No good product gets created by one person. So you don’t have to mention names, but it makes for good practice to just say, ‘In this project, I had two designers and five engineers working with me.’ (…) We at Google want to know if you’ve ever worked with a researcher. Have you ever worked with an engineer or a PM?”
Build meaningful case studies with UXfolio!
UXfolio is a powerful portfolio and case study building tool that’ll save you hours of work. Our pre-made case study sections come with image ideas and text prompts that’ll guide you through the entire process. Your only job is to focus on the content! Try UXfolio for free!
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Top companies want to see your design process and decisions in your portfolio

A typical mistake I see in UX portfolios is lack of content explaining their contribution to the effort, the images are only the final product and not the process to get there.
UX is very much about strategy and if the person is not showing how they got from A to B, they appear to be another UI trying to move into a UX role.
Start creating a UX portfolio , that gets you hired

Want to Make Better Products? Build Better Case Studies With This Method.

Robert Cialdini’s book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion , first released in 1984, popularized the concept of social proof. This phenomenon consists of individuals copying the actions of others around them in order to acclimate to a system. People are subconsciously influenced by the behavior of other people within a given environment. Although this idea is simple, Cialdini’s book radically changed my mind with respect to how I interacted with the content that my product team and I produced.
Why was this theory so profound? Well, the book helped me understand why people were ignoring almost everything that we gave them. As it turned out, everything that we wrote was focused on ourselves and not on our customers.
We weren’t influencing. Instead, we were just talking.
Cialdini’s work gave a conceptual framework to something that the best marketers already subconsciously knew: Nothing sells better than reflecting the customer’s own actions back at them.
For example, say you want to buy a shirt. Which of these pitches is more likely to make you buy?
Option A: This shirt is made of polyester, washes well and makes you look professional.
Option B: This shirt is built for the product manager on the go. When you’re sweating the details and pacifying the battle between sales and engineering, you’ll want a shirt that stays tucked in as you rush from meeting to meeting.
Option B draws on social proof to reflect actions that you’ve experienced back at you.
Product management (PdM) is about helping the team improve decision fitness. That includes how we influence our customers to use our products, especially if we’re confident that our product is the right one for them. Social proof helps us accomplish this goal.
Before we can use social proof, however, we need a way to get the information that we want to reflect back to the customer. In other words, how do we come to see the world as our customers see it? How might we put ourselves in their headspace?
Sure, you can scan different websites, browse social media, or even look at your competitors to see what they’re doing. With any of these strategies, however, you’re only getting part of the picture. Like almost anything dealing with product development, talking to your customer directly is going to get the best results.
So, for PdMs to get the data they need to gather social proof and understand how customers see the world, we can rely on case studies. Let’s talk about what exactly these are and how you can use them to help you influence your customers and help other teams, like product marketing and sales, make better decisions.
3 Key Steps To Building a Product Case Study
- Make an outline.
- Ask the right questions.
- Analyze carefully.
More Product Advice From Adam Thomas How To Improve Your Product Research
What Is a Case Study?
For our purposes, a case study is an in-depth conversation aimed at understanding how a customer uses our product. We want to get to know who they are, why they use our product, and the context in which they use it.
This technique is how you get inside of your customer’s head. When you have multiple, deep customer conversations over a period of time, you’ll get a better understanding of what drives them. You’ll also be able to target your marketing so that it makes sense to them.
How Do You Build Case Studies?
Building case studies is no different than doing any other interview . When conducting a proactive conversion with customers, you need to understand what you want, use open-ended questions, and analyze everything carefully.
Make an Outline
You can go in a bunch of different directions when you talk to your customers. In fact, if you’re like most PdMs, this is an easy trap to fall into. Everything that the customer says may seem like gold, and it’s easy to follow any string in hopes of chasing down an insight.
So, how do you avoid that trap? You’ll need to write an outline to keep yourself on track. A case study outline is simple and has three components.
Hypothesis. You need a clear hypothesis whenever you talk to a customer. What question are you trying to answer by talking to the customer? Why are they important? Note this information upfront, and derive the questions from the hypothesis. Consider it your anchor.
Goal. What type of assets are you planning to create from this interview? Who wants this information? Having this in the form of an aligning statement, something that helps the team know what you are looking for and what you want to build, will help with analysis. Do it now so you won’t have to think about it later.
Questions. These are based on both the hypothesis and the goal.
Those three components will help you avoid the trap of letting the interviews meander. Now, let’s talk a little bit more about those questions.
Ask the Right Questions
Your question set should be short, with no more than five max.
You want to follow up on your initial questions to get as many stories as possible. If you have more than five, you risk letting the interview get rigid since you’ll feel pressured to get to as many questions as possible. Further, asking fewer questions will make sure you have some uniformity to the answers.
Even though you’re just asking a few questions, you’ll want to keep them open-ended. An open-ended question like “Walk me through your shirt purchase. What drove this decision?” is better than “Did you like our service?” The latter could too easily elicit just a yes or no response while the former invites the customer to provide more detail.
You want to have a free-flowing conversation, which means focusing on the customer. Conversations are going to give you the information you need to build that social proof. Once you’ve acquired that information, you can analyze the material and create the case study.
Analyze Carefully
Before conducting an analysis, make sure you sit with these conversations for a while.
Take the time to find good quotations that are interesting and align with your values by transcribing the interviews. Check to see if the language in your marketing materials matches how your customers talk. The closer your work matches their worldview, the more they will trust the product.
This process may seem simple at first. As you start to put this plan into action, however, you’ll see how much data you can collect and how closely you can tailor your product to match the mental model of your customers.
You’ll eventually be able to see if the plan is working when you make changes and hear from the customer again. The next time you talk to them, you want to hear something along the lines of, “Your [page/feature/tool] described my issue exactly, and that’s why I bought the product.”
Build Artifacts To Put Case Studies to Work
When you have the data from the interviews, you’ll be able to build artifacts that match your customer’s mental model.
What are some artifacts that can come from doing a case study?
Testimonials. These are short-form statements, usually a paragraph or less, that come directly from the customer and attest to the value of your product or service. During the interview, the customer may offer a bite-sized anecdote that sums up a feature or your product in a helpful way. These statements are great to use on a sales or product page to give your work more credibility.
Articles. These interviews create the kernel of an article for your writers. If your team has a blog, use it to underscore the high points that customers report or spotlight a particularly well-liked feature. Writing an article based on the case study conversation can help customers see, in a more relaxed context, how your product will work for them.
White Papers. A white paper is a one-page selling document highlighting the technical side of a product. For more technical products, you must give potential custoemrs a look at how the product functions in a more structured, quasi-academic format. Your case studies will allow your team to write a white paper by giving you anchor points led by the customer.
Customers want to tell their stories. When your product is great, rest assured they are doing it anyway. Most of the time, they are happy to spend time with you and your team and give you good feedback. More importantly, you’ll get the social proof you need to stand above the rest of the marketplace.
Built In’s expert contributor network publishes thoughtful, solutions-oriented stories written by innovative tech professionals. It is the tech industry’s definitive destination for sharing compelling, first-person accounts of problem-solving on the road to innovation.
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What is a case study in marketing?

Asya Bashina
A case study is a testimonial outlining your customers’ success with using your product, explaining how your product’s key features led to benefits for your customer such as productivity and through increases and time and cost savings. Case studies often serve as your products’ calling card, highlighting how a customer successfully used your product.
What is the purpose of a case study?
Case studies in marketing are used as social proof. This gives buyers more context to understand if they are making a good choice. Showing case studies to customers who are on the fence about your product could convince them to make a purchase.
What is the difference between a case study and a customer story?
A case study is a more in depth look at the customer’s thoughts and results from your product than a customer story.
The customer story paints a picture of the problem, solution and results. A case study will include all of this information plus a more detailed explanation of how the solution was delivered and the key measurements that show the product's effects.
What makes a good case study?
A good case study can usually be broken down into the following elements:
- Challenge: Your customers’ challenges before using your product
- Solution: How your product solves these challenges
- Benefits: Key performance indicators highlighting the benefits your customer received from using your products. KPIs include:
- % increased productivity
- X in cost-savings
- Y amount of time saved doing Z task
- B times increase in throughput
- Products used: Which of your products did your customers use to experience this success? Which features benefited them the most?

What should a case study include?
Case study formats.
Case studies usually come in a variety of formats such as written documents, third-party reviews either on your product page or a third-party site, videos, or even a customer presentation on your product at a live event.
Here’s the breakdown of each type of case study:
White papers

Case study white papers are usually written documents that provide a full overview of how your customers succeeded with your products.
These documents usually detail everything from your customers’ decision to use your products versus the competition, their implementation, their day-to-day, and key performance indicators.
Usually, case study white papers are great for your sales team to use as leave-behind collateral.

A video case study is a great way to highlight your customers using your product in addition to discussing their success with your product.
Typically, the best videos blend an organic customer interview with shots of your customers using your products in their environment. The best length to target for these is about 3 to 5 minutes at most.
Third-party websites

Third-party sites such as G2 Crowd and TrustRadius are also great sources for customer testimonials. Customers tend to be candid on these sites and, in addition to getting great customer quotes which you can repurpose on your website, you can also get valuable product feature requests and ideas, or information on what’s not working so well with your product.
Presentations at live events

Customer presentations highlighting your products and your customers’ success with your products also case studies.
If your customer is willing to go on stage at your event or a relevant industry event and discuss how they’ve used your products and how they’ve been helpful, that’s probably one of the best testimonials you can get, especially with other prospects in the room. Your customers become instant lead magnets and can attract new users to your company through their presentation.
To help your customers be successful with advocating for your products, arm them with tools that they can leverage if they need or offer to support them during their presentations!
Customer advocates

The same customers who are willing to go on stage and present about your products on your behalf are also great customer advocates for your Sales team to use to help your company sell your products.
As part of the sales process, you can provide your salespeople with a list of customers who are willing to connect with curious prospects. Hearing an opinion for an existing customer can help convert a prospect to a customer.
Adam Thomas, PM expert, shares some case study formats:
Testimonials
"When talking to your customer doing the case study, they may say a bite-sized anecdote that sums up a feature or your product in a helpful way. These are great to use on a sales page or product page, as it gives your product more credibility."
"Your blog, if you have one, can highlight users. Writing an article or using the case study conversation as a post can help customers see, in a more relaxed context, how your product works for them."
How to build a library of customer case studies
Poornima Mohandas, Director of Product Marketing at Birdeye, shared her advice for building a library of case studies.
"First things first, before you start cranking out case studies, find out what your salespeople really want. Are they after desirable logos from select verticals? Start with a long list of happy customers and narrow it down with appropriate filters such as length of customer relationship."
Talk to sales, map the need
"Talk to your sales leaders and a handful of sales folks across enterprise and SMB teams to figure out their needs. Ask them:
- Will customer case studies be valuable to you?
- Ideally, which brands would you like case studies on?
- What verticals, geographies, size of companies are you most interested in?
"These answers coupled with the strategic direction of the company will map out your targeting strategy."
Prepare a long list with customer success
"Consult with your customer success team to get a list of happy customers. Forward-looking customer success teams will have colour-coded and complete lists, just waiting for you to run with it!
"This is your long list. Now go ahead and trim it down to:
- Recognisable logos
- Target verticals, geographies, and company size
- Customers who have been with you for > a year
"If your list still has over a 100 names, narrow it down to customers who have been with you for five years. That is a lifetime in the SaaS business and it will speak volumes to what a great partner you make. And just like that, you have your shortlist of case study candidates."
Reuse conference sessions
"On the other hand, if you don’t have the time to shortlist customers and interview them, a shortcut is to tap into your company’s user conference recordings. If you have recordings of customers sharing their stories in a breakout session, simply transcribe it and repurpose it as a customer case study."
Tips for startups to get case studies
"Startups often struggle to find willing customers, some of them even offer discounted product prices as an incentive. I don’t recommend that as it dilutes your value.
"If you find that you don’t have many happy customers, then your problems may be more fundamental like a product-market misfit. Now, that’s a totally different beast for another blog post.
"Here are some tips you can try to get more case studies, faster:
" Offer a sales incentive – Involve your sales folks to solicit case studies, after all, they own the relationship. If budget permits, announce a spot bonus for every sales person who brings in a case study, I have seen this work wonders. Share the shortlist of case study candidates and ask sales to check in on the customer’s willingness to do an external-facing case study.
" Use the circumstance to your advantage – Under the current economic climate, your customers are most likely delaying payments. Now is as good a time as any to ask for something you want — a case study.
" Look for the right moment – Always be on the lookout for the right moment. Perhaps, it’s after a Customer Advisory Board session or after the customer has significantly broadened product usage. When the customer is mighty pleased with you, pop the case study question.
" Look for ambitious champions who like publicity – Look for outspoken, ambitious customer champions who want to be seen as driving change. So you may ask, how will I find them? Typically, they will be seen speaking at industry events and will in all likelihood be active on LinkedIn. If such champions benefit immensely from your product, they will more likely than not want to share their story. Your case study should capture the transformation they have been able to bring about in their organization. Make the customer the hero in your case study rather than your product."
Do the leg work
"Reach out to five companies to get one to convert. So if you are aiming for a modest library of 10 case studies, reach out to at least 50 customers.
"At the outset, take permission for a public-facing, named case study. Recently, I wasted about 60 minutes doing research and interviewing the HR manager of a large retail brand only to receive a frantic phone call 30 minutes later saying, “Please don’t publish anything I said. I got a call from my boss saying that we cannot do case studies with vendors.”
"Simultaneously, work with your demand gen team to work out a promotion plan for each of your case studies. Here are some easy-to-implement ideas:
- Write a customer-focused blog post
- Post the case study both as an HTML page as well as a PDF
- Create a banner on your customer webpage featuring the latest case study
- Send an email to your prospects featuring the latest case study
- And of course, broadcast on social media"
How to get the full customer story
"Say you have a customer interview scheduled, as a product marketer, be sure to attend the interview even if you have a content writer to write up the case study. You will be able to probe much deeper and uncover a story that syncs with your positioning. Plus, you will learn yet another valuable customer story that can come handy in your next customer demo or analyst presentation.
"In the interview:
- Let the customer talk and don’t interrupt
- Ask open-ended questions
- Ask for anecdotes, examples, and all relevant details
- Probe deeper for quantitative benefits
- Gather more information that you need
"Find out which departments use and benefit from your product. Interview people across departments and hierarchies so you get the full perspective. Get a benefit-oriented quote from the senior most buyer persona.
"For instance, if you sell to the operations team, interview the director of operations, an operations manager, and a warehouse manager, then get a quote from the COO."
Once the customer story is ready
"Share the final version of the case study with the customer for review. Be ready to accommodate some edits. Once approvals are in, design, execute on the promotion plan and press publish.
"Send your customer a thank you note, try the snail mail variety on your company letterhead, also be sure to thank them on social media.
"Rinse and repeat to build up your library of case studies."
Adam Thomas, PM expert, also shares some tips for building a a case study library:
Open-ended questions
"Your question set should be short - no more than five questions. Make sure that there is no way someone can give a one-word answer - these questions need to be open-ended. You want to have a conversation, one that is free-flowing and that means focusing on the customer and the environment."
Analyze carefully
"Make sure you sit with these conversations for a while. Take the time to get good quotes that are interesting and align with your values. Check to see if the language on your marketing materials match how your customers talk. All of your customers belong to some sort of “world” everything that comes from this.
"It may seem simple from what we’re discussing, however, as you start to put this plan into action, you’ll see how much data you’ll collect, and how closely you can match the mental model of your customers."
Product Marketing case study examples
Companies often use case studies on their website to demonstrate how their products have helped a previous customer. Here is a selection of some of the examples out there:
Boston-based company Drift specializes in helping their customers generate qualified leads, using chatbots and conversations within their website.
When software company Zenefits encountered huge marketing growth, the large amount of traffic being diverted to the company’s website resulted in problems such as inefficiencies in the SDR channel, lack of buyer centricity, and prospective customers slipping through the net.
Drift provided a solution for the Zenefits, by introducing buyer-centric conversations, as well as time-saving automation. The company not only optimized the SDR channel, but put contingencies in place to provide Zenefits’ customers with access to around the clock support.
As a result, the customer experience improved, the win-rate increased, while the overall efficiency of the SDR channel was improved, and Drift did a great example of bringing all this fore with their case study page by:
Pulling out key stats:
Including clear quotes from satisfied customers:
Japanese consumer electronics and commercial electronics manufacturing giants Casio needed to find a way to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of inbound marketing efforts at the organization, as well as the communication between sales and marketing, to protect coveted leads.
In search of a solution, Casio turned to the HubSpot growth stack, which combines Marketing, CRM, and Sales software to support its clientele.
The decision to invest their faith in HubSpot has paid dividends, as highlighted on the case study page on the HubSpot site.
Performance statistics:
Like Drift, HubSpot have structured their case study in a way which draws the focus to the impressive results Casio has achieved since they received their support.
SolidWorks is a solid modeling computer-aided design and computer-aided engineering computer program.
The company was tasked with taking the development of humanoid robotics to a new level, with the design and creation of engaging, fun, and non-intimidating robots.
As part of the solution, the company combined several features, including SOLIDWORKS Premium design, SOLIDWORKS Simulation Premium analysis, SOLIDWORKS Plastics injection molding analysis, and SOLIDWORKS Enterprise PDM product data management software.
This helped form robots with human-like traits and movements - a significant development in treatment for people living with autism, with the case study page highlighting successes by including the likes of:
Positive quotes from key stakeholders:
Where to find your case studies
The best way to find a good case study is by asking your Sales, Customer Success, Support, and/or Product teams to source vocal, happy users. Case study customers are usually the ones that are happy with your products, constantly jumping at the opportunity to advocate for your products to their friends and colleagues, and ones who are willing to jump on the phone and be a sounding board for your team. Typically, these users provide a 4 or 5-star rating on third-party platforms like G2 Crowd, TrustRadius, Apple App Store, etc.
The best way to find these folks is to keep your ears to the ground by monitoring third-party review sites, listen closely to when your product managers or customer success folks rave about a particular customer, and look out for the users who are chomping at the bit to talk about you. You can also use Google alerts to source instances when your product name comes up online, you may find that a blogger online is a good testimonial customer.
Social media can also be a great resource for prospective case study candidates, especially if you’re finding that specific followers jump at the opportunity to share a screenshot of what they’re doing in your products or offer advice to other followers.
When you’ve found a great case study candidate for a video or a live presentation, you want to get a story from them as quickly as possible. However, some candidates and companies may be camera shy or may hesitate to go on record with their testimonial.
Use the circumstance to your advantage
One way to sway your prospects is by presenting a case study as an opportunity for your customers to showcase themselves as leading industry heroes for taking a fateful leap and using your products.
Look for ambitious champions who like publicity
Case studies are also a great way to highlight the interviewee and provide them with an opportunity to build their resume by saying they were featured in a case study.
Look for the right moment
Case studies can be a great source for product feature requests, customer feedback, and enhancement requests. When you interview your customers for a story, pay close attention to any side remarks they may make, some of these could potentially serve as good feedback for your product teams. You can also sprinkle in some customer research questions as well throughout the interview to surface some of that juicy feedback.
Offer a sales incentive
Additionally, you can offer to link back to their company site to provide them some SEO juice. Or, better yet, a coffee or a $25 gift card in return for a case study tends to go a long way!
Example questions
Which problems were you looking to solve when you went out searching for our product?
- What made you choose our product over other solutions? What other solutions were you considering?
- What is your favorite part about using our product?
- What was your experience implementing our product?
- Which benefits have you seen from implementing our product? Any time-savings, productivity gains, etc?
- What are you able to do with our product that you weren’t able to do before?
PMA has a lot of great case study questions you could ask as well:
Want to learn more?
Product marketing is and always will be a customer-centric role. A core part of your job is to value the voice of the customer and advocate for their wants, needs, and pain points. It’s your responsibility to make them feel heard. Therefore, customer marketing is an integral part of what you need to do to ensure that you’re staying true to this.
The Customer Marketing Certified: Masters course has been designed to give you invaluable, practical insights into streamlining your customer marketing approach so that you can ensure that:
- Your customers are happy,
- Your products are the best they truly can be,
- Your brand reputation is consistently positive, and
- That you bring in increased revenue for your organization.
So what are you waiting for?
Written by:
Asya Bashina is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at Humatics and Boston Ambassador at Product Marketing Alliance.
Get product marketing insights

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15+ Professional Case Study Examples [Design Tips + Templates]
By Alice Corner , Jan 12, 2023

Let me ask you a question: 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.
For businesses selling consumer goods, having raving reviews is a good way to get more customers. The same thing applies to B2B and/or SaaS businesses — but for this type of business, besides regular, short reviews, having a detailed case study can help tremendously.
Case studies are an incredibly effective form of marketing that you can use to help promote your product and plan your marketing strategy effectively. You can also use it as a form of customer analysis or as a sales tool to inspire potential customers.
So what does a case study look like and how can you create one? In this article, I’m going to list over 15 marketing case study examples, case study tips, and case study templates to help you create a case study that converts.

Click to jump ahead:
- What is a Case Study?
- Marketing Case Study Examples
Sales Case Study Examples
Simple case study examples, business case study examples.
- Case Study FAQs
What is a case study?
A case study is a research method to gain a better understanding of a subject or process. Case studies involve in-depth research into a given subject, in order to understand its functionality and successes.
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]
What is a marketing case study?
A marketing case study is a type of marketing where you use your existing customers as an example of what your product or services can achieve. You can also create case studies of internal, successful marketing projects.
Here’s an example of a marketing case study template:

Return to Table of Contents
Marketing case study examples
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.
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.

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.

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.
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
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.
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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What Are Product Management Case Study Interviews?

BY: Ellen Merryweather
Updated: January 9, 2023 - 11 min read
What is a Product Management Case Study Interview?
A case study interview, also known as a case interview, is a tool used by many companies to assess a candidate’s analytical, creative, and problem-solving skills. Similar to coding interviews for engineers, they allow the interviewers to simulate a situation that allows your skills to be put into practice.
Quite simply, you’ll be given a situation, and asked to make suggestions or come up with a hypothetical solution or improvement.
In product management, this can be about any number of things. The realm of product managers is vast, and covers many different aspects of product development. As product managers sit at the intersection of business, technology, and design, you could be asked case questions under these umbrellas.
This means that you could be given a case question based on product design, monetization, market research, user segmentation, trends, data, technical development, go-to-market , prioritization…pretty much anything product managers are into!
Example Case Study Interview Questions
What’s your favorite product? How would you improve its design?
Which company do you think we should acquire next?
How would you go about launching our product in an emerging market, say, India?
What new feature would you build for Instagram?
How to Ace a Case Study Interview
The product design case interview
No, they’re not going to hand you a wacom tablet and ask you to mock up an entire product in the room! Instead, you’ll be asked to think through some solutions to pretty common design problems. Things like:
How would you improve our in-app messenger?
If we tasked you with making our user interface more inclusive of those with disabilities, how would you approach that?
How would you redesign our homepage to make it more appealing for X demographic?
We’re finding that X number of users don’t make it through the entire onboarding process. What would you do/design to fix that?
The key when being asked a question about how you’d improve the company’s product is not to insult it too heavily. Remember, the people who built it are in the room with you, so if you come in hot with “well, for starters, your homescreen is absolutely hideous and needs a complete do-over”, you’re not going to endear yourself to them. A product manager is a diplomat, so be as diplomatic as possible.
Instead of focusing on how you’d fix what you see as glaring problems, try to come up with something that adds to the product. “I think a chatbot in your user onboarding process would help people to navigate through the process. Here’s where I’d implement it…”
How to ace it
Give your hypothesis:
Because everything in product starts with
Lay out your approach
: Briefly summarize what your approach would be, given your hypothesis. Include things like the research you would need to do, and the preparation the team would need to make.
Identify the user:
Companies want user-driven product managers, so definitely make sure you know which user you’re building for.
Describe the solution
: How would you actually build the solution? No need to get too technical if that’s not where your skills lie. If that’s the case, talk about how you’d lead the engineering teams to build the solution.
Suggest testing:
If you’ve got 2 ideas and you’re not sure which one is better, describe both and talk about the test you’d run to discover which one to roll with.
Prioritize features
: Show off your prioritization skills if you’re suggesting more than one feature.
Suggest features for an MVP and plans for a V1 launch:
Finish off by helping the interviewers to visualize what the finished MVP would be like, as well as the plans you’d have for a full release later down the line.
The business-thinking case interview
Business thinking is vital for product managers, as you’re the person that ties what’s being built to the needs of the business. This is why you may be presented with a business problem, so that the interviewer can assess your thought process, and how you approach product strategy.
Business case questions may include things like:
Management wants to build X because a competitor has launched something similar. How would you respond?
If we wanted to move more into the B2B market by launching X, what would you do first?
How would you increase customer adoption for the feature we released last month?
We want to become more product-led in our growth strategy. What recommendations would you make in terms of pricing structure/increasing customer adoption?
Establish market characteristics
: This is especially important if your case question is a go-to-market question. If you’re not sure what the market characteristics are, talk about what you would find out before starting the work.
Layout your approach:
Briefly summarize what your approach would be.
Prioritize your actions:
If you’ve been asked for a step-by-step approach, talk about why you’re doing things in that order.
Provide analysis
: Business decisions require a heavy amount of analysis, so be sure to include some competitor/customer/market analysis.
Make recommendations:
Talk about the end result in a business sense. Instead of getting into the weeds of feature building etc, give a step-by-step approach of how you’d take a new feature to market, or make business-oriented improvements to a product.
Remember that a business-thinking case question requires an answer that would make c-suite happy. Try to think through your answer for the eyes of management. Think about what they care about the most, and tailor your answer around that.
The technical interview
Here, by technical interview, we don’t necessarily mean the tech interviews that engineers can expect to go through. It’s very rare for PMs to be asked technical questions in an interview, unless they’re specifically applying for a technical PM role. You’ll usually get some warning in advance that your technical prowess will be tested, either by the recruiter or a hiring manager.
The chances of being given an in-depth technical case interview (aka, a coding interview ) is rare, so you’re more likely to be asked a few general questions to gauge your technical ability.
Things like:
What’s your experience with X or Y technology?
Do you feel comfortable managing a team of engineers?
Can you explain the most technical project you’ve worked on?
These are questions that you should be able to answer in the room, because they’re based on your direct experience. So you don’t need to put any special level of preparation into their answers.
You may also be asked some technical questions that allow you to show off your technical knowledge, but are open-ended enough that you can still answer even if you’re not very techy. The goal is to gauge how much technical know-how you already have, not to embarrass you and put you on the spot for not having a CS degree.
These questions might include:
What feature do you think we should build next? How should we approach building it?
Would you build X solution in-house, or would you outsource development elsewhere?
What partners do you think we should integrate with next? (eg. Slack, Trello)
These are questions that you can approach in your own way, from a technical perspective if you come from that background, or from a people-management/design/business perspective if you don’t.
Product Managers and Tech Skills…What’s the Deal?
It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be asked to go through a technical interview, as product managers aren’t the ones who physically build the product. They provide the direction and the insights, and the engineers provide the solutions and the finished product. So what’s gained by seeing how well you can code?
Well, some roles are more technical than others, so obviously in these roles you’d need either a CS degree or a proven record of technical work, like an engineering background.
But for a regular product manager, you’re less likely to be given a technical case interview, and more likely to just be asked a few very general questions to gauge your knowledge.
Check out our guide to coding interviews if you’re getting ready for this type of case interview. Or, if you want to brush up on your tech skills, check out Top 10 Courses for Product Managers .
Give yourself time to think
The worst thing you can do is panic, and rush in with an answer. It’s OK to give yourself time to think. An interview is not a first date, and silences don’t have to be awkward! So pause, and give yourself time to consider your answer before you start.
That’s much better than giving a sub-standard answer that you can’t take back. The interviewer will expect you to need a moment to gather your thoughts, so don’t stress.
Hack: The McKinsey Case Study
Now, you’re bound to go off and do plenty more research on case study interviews, wanting to find out everything you can. So let us give you this secret hack: check out materials for McKinsey case interviews .
“But I want to work at Facebook/Google/Amazon!” we hear you say. “Why would I prep for McKinsey?”
McKinsey is one of the most difficult interviewers out there. Reviews by some previous interviewees makes it seem like the process was designed to help choose the next ruler of Westeros. Their standards are incredibly high, and their case interviews are something that people prep weeks, even months in advance for.
This has a double result for you. One, there are swathes of resources out there specifically to prep for this behemoth of a case interview. Two, if you can give a McKinsey-standard answer to a case interview, you’ll outshine the competition easily!
Practice ahead of time
While you can’t be totally sure what you’ll be asked in a case interview, you can still prepare. They’re not going to ask you about something you know nothing about (eg, if you’re not going to be working on an AI product, they’re not going to ask you about AI.)
The smart thing to do is to practice case interview questions ahead of time. The way to do this is to pick apart the job posting you’re interviewing for, and identify what the main responsibilities are.
Case interview preparation is absolutely essential for acing PM interviews, as you’re bound to be asked a hypothetical question sooner or later in the interview process.
Don’t feel pressured to give a perfect answer
Companies know how much time, research, and information goes into making informed product decisions. So if they’ve asked you to propose a new feature for their product as part of your interview, they’re not looking for something they can actually implement from you. They just want to see how you think, and what your analytical and problem-solving skills are. It’s also a test of your communication skills, seeing how you present yourself and your ideas.
So don’t pressure yourself into giving an answer that’s on par with the work their existing product managers do. That’s like beating yourself up for not running as fast a Usain Bolt when you do your first ever 5K.
Prepping for Product Manager Interviews?
We’ve got you covered! Check out these great resources:
Master The Product Manager Interview Playlist
: We’ve collected together our best talks on acing the Product Management interview, from a look behind the scenes of recruitment, to how to break into the industry.
Check out the entire playlist here
, or enjoy this sample from Google’s Product Manager…
The Ultimate List of Product Manager Interview Questions:
Prepare yourself for every kind of question you could ever hope to be asked in a product manager interview!
Product School Pro:
If you really want to deep-dive into the best interview techniques, and become the master of any interview you walk into, you should check out the exclusive resources we have in our Product School Pro community. We’ve got cheat sheets, templates, and more!
Hired — How to Get a Great Product Job:
Tailored guide-to-go for PM positions in top tech companies. As this book will show you, some of the most successful product transitions originated from people in music production or finance, with full-time jobs or with no prior experience. The collection of stories of Product Management transition will show you how it’s done.

Updated: January 9, 2023
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10 Mobile Marketing Case Studies
Any marketing strategy that uses mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to advertise products or services is known as mobile marketing. Each company that wishes to remain competitive in today’s market requires to take maximum use of rending mobile marketing strategies.
01. Domino’s Pizza - Piece of the Pie Rewards
Source: Domino’s
Domino’s launched its Piece of the Pie Reward program ahead of the Super Bowl in 2019. The program allowed customers to earn points by scanning their pizzas using the Domino’s app. There were 10 points for every pizza purchased, and there were additional points for other Domino’s product purchases. Users just needed to earn 60 points in order to receive a free medium two-topping Domino’s pizza. The success of this program hinged upon one universal truth: Everyone likes free stuff, especially if it’s pizza. Domino’s offers apps for ordering pizza, both online and via mobile app or dedicated Apple Watch app. These apps increased sales by 19%.
Hence, if you’re launching a mobile marketing strategy, keep in mind to provide your clients with what they truly desire. Due to the fact that many people prefer to purchase pizza without talking to a person, Domino’s app became popular.
02. Ford - SMS text marketing campaign
Source: Tatango
Ford Motor Company ran an SMS (text message) marketing campaign in 2011 that had a remarkable conversion rate of 15.4%.
Newspapers carried a call-to-action asking readers to submit an SMS to obtain additional details about available auto loan choices. The next step was to invite respondents to text a nearby dealer their complete name, the vehicle model they were interested in, and their zip code.
Users were required to complete the process because if they didn’t, they would continue to get reminder texts until they submitted their information. This campaign was successful because Ford cut the entrance barrier so low for this campaign: What could be simpler than sending a single text message?
Be strategic if you decide to use SMS, though. If you handle it poorly, you risk annoying your potential client, which will have the opposite impact of what you want. Make sure there is a simple and obvious option for people to opt out.
03. Uniqlo - Check-In Chance campaign
Source: Uniqlo
In 2011, the Japanese apparel retailer Uniqlo started its annual sale and advertised it on Facebook. Customers were encouraged to “check in” on Facebook at any of Tokyo’s 62 Uniqlo locations during the sale and enter into a prize draw to win a 100 yen coupon. For the young target audience at that time, Facebook was the most popular social media platform.
The campaign generated 202,479 check-ins, 10,000 likes, and record-breaking store footfall. Around 10 billion Japanese yen (almost $93,000) worth of clothing was sold by Uniqlo in only three days. The lesson is to make things straightforward and provide rewards that motivate customers to take action.
04. Burger King - Burn That Ad
Source: Burger King
The use of augmented reality (AR) in marketing efforts has enormous potential. Fast-food chain Burger King used AR to great effect in its Burn That Ad campaign.
This is one of the very few cutting-edge mobile marketing initiatives that also incorporate aspects of augmented reality (AR), expanding the potential of mobile marketing.
To increase engagement and inspire customers to visit Burger King restaurants, this campaign made use of AR and brand familiarity. It was also used to introduce new customers to Burger King’s online ordering system, making it a profitable and effective campaign.
05. Starbucks - Shake to Pay
Source: Starbucks
Starbucks introduced a digital tipping feature called “Shake to Pay.” With this feature, users can simply shake their phones to view a barcode. After that, baristas may use mobile payment to take the tip by scanning this barcode.
Starbucks adopted a rewarding strategy to encourage its consumers, providing them with a Gold Status when they earned 30 stars in a year and a free beverage or food item for every 12 stars they earned.
Key takeaway…
06. L’Oreal
Source: L’Oreal
L’Oreal brings a whole fresh perspective to the table. As a well-renowned brand that keeps up current with technological advances, now makes use of augmented reality to provide its female target audience with a first-hand experience with its products.
Source: ikea
IKEA has an unbeatable ability to innovate among furniture brands. The company is renowned for being one of the first to incorporate augmented reality (AR) into mobile marketing campaigns shaping the future of mobile marketing to be the future of seamless device integration.
08. Coca Cola - Happy Flag campaign
Source: Coca-cola
The Coca-Cola “Happy Flag” campaign, which was one of the major sponsors of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, was launched with a digital and mobile-optimized campaign that was aimed at more than 170 global markets. The campaign was mobile-friendly, allowing people to register through popular mobile apps and SMS. Coca-Cola also made use of a mobile-specific site to provide the best user experience on a variety of devices.
TikTok's Extraordinary Journey | SuntechIT
Tiktok doesn't need any introduction. tiktok has successfully established its presence and grown to be one of the most….
suntechit.com.au
09. KFC - M obile location technology
Source: marcommnews
KFC launched a campaign using mobile location technology to drive foot traffic to their outlets. They discovered that busy parents with families were the demographic most responsive to location-based marketing.
You can reach the right audience at the right moment with the aid of precise location targeting. Reaching out to your most receptive customers where they are most inclined to interact with your brand can be rewarding.
10. Amazon - The smart keyword optimization strategy
Source: Amazon
Due to changes in Google Play store policies, Amazon’s app had to be rebranded after it was removed from the store.
Its success was mostly due to keyword optimization, as they found great success by including the term “shopping” in the app’s name. They only got 2.12% of the traffic before adding the keyword. But after adding it, it increased to 9.88% of global traffic, almost four times more than before.
Read more: 10 Mobile Marketing Case Studies…
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What Is a Case Study?
An in-depth study of one person, group, or event
Kendra Cherry, MS, is an author and educational consultant focused on helping students learn about psychology.
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Cara Lustik is a fact-checker and copywriter.
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Verywell / Colleen Tighe
Benefits and Limitations
Types of case studies, how to write a case study.
A case study is an in-depth study of one person, group, or event. In a case study, nearly every aspect of the subject's life and history is analyzed to seek patterns and causes of behavior. Case studies can be used in various fields, including psychology, medicine, education, anthropology, political science, and social work.
The purpose of a case study is to learn as much as possible about an individual or group so that the information can be generalized to many others. Unfortunately, case studies tend to be highly subjective, and it is sometimes difficult to generalize results to a larger population.
While case studies focus on a single individual or group, they follow a format similar to other types of psychology writing. If you are writing a case study, it is important to follow the rules of APA format .
A case study can have both strengths and weaknesses. Researchers must consider these pros and cons before deciding if this type of study is appropriate for their needs.
One of the greatest advantages of a case study is that it allows researchers to investigate things that are often difficult to impossible to replicate in a lab. Some other benefits of a case study:
- Allows researchers to collect a great deal of information
- Give researchers the chance to collect information on rare or unusual cases
- Permits researchers to develop hypotheses that can be explored in experimental research
On the negative side, a case study:
- Cannot necessarily be generalized to the larger population
- Cannot demonstrate cause and effect
- May not be scientifically rigorous
- Can lead to bias
Researchers may choose to perform a case study if they are interested in exploring a unique or recently discovered phenomenon. The insights gained from such research can help the researchers develop additional ideas and study questions that might be explored in future studies.
However, it is important to remember that the insights gained from case studies cannot be used to determine cause and effect relationships between variables. However, case studies may be used to develop hypotheses that can then be addressed in experimental research.
Case Study Examples
There have been a number of notable case studies in the history of psychology. Much of Freud's work and theories were developed through the use of individual case studies. Some great examples of case studies in psychology include:
- Anna O : Anna O. was a pseudonym of a woman named Bertha Pappenheim, a patient of a physician named Josef Breuer. While she was never a patient of Freud's, Freud and Breuer discussed her case extensively. The woman was experiencing symptoms of a condition that was then known as hysteria and found that talking about her problems helped relieve her symptoms. Her case played an important part in the development of talk therapy as an approach to mental health treatment.
- Phineas Gage : Phineas Gage was a railroad employee who experienced a terrible accident in which an explosion sent a metal rod through his skull, damaging important portions of his brain. Gage recovered from his accident but was left with serious changes in both personality and behavior.
- Genie : Genie was a young girl subjected to horrific abuse and isolation. The case study of Genie allowed researchers to study whether language could be taught even after critical periods for language development had been missed. Her case also served as an example of how scientific research may interfere with treatment and lead to further abuse of vulnerable individuals.
Such cases demonstrate how case research can be used to study things that researchers could not replicate in experimental settings. In Genie's case, her horrific abuse had denied her the opportunity to learn language at critical points in her development.
This is clearly not something that researchers could ethically replicate, but conducting a case study on Genie allowed researchers the chance to study phenomena that are otherwise impossible to reproduce.
There are a few different types of case studies that psychologists and other researchers might utilize:
- Collective case studies : These involve studying a group of individuals. Researchers might study a group of people in a certain setting or look at an entire community. For example, psychologists might explore how access to resources in a community has affected the collective mental well-being of those living there.
- Descriptive case studies : These involve starting with a descriptive theory. The subjects are then observed, and the information gathered is compared to the pre-existing theory.
- Explanatory case studies : These are often used to do causal investigations. In other words, researchers are interested in looking at factors that may have caused certain things to occur.
- Exploratory case studies : These are sometimes used as a prelude to further, more in-depth research. This allows researchers to gather more information before developing their research questions and hypotheses .
- Instrumental case studies : These occur when the individual or group allows researchers to understand more than what is initially obvious to observers.
- Intrinsic case studies : This type of case study is when the researcher has a personal interest in the case. Jean Piaget's observations of his own children are good examples of how an intrinsic cast study can contribute to the development of a psychological theory.
The three main case study types often used are intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. Intrinsic case studies are useful for learning about unique cases. Instrumental case studies help look at an individual to learn more about a broader issue. A collective case study can be useful for looking at several cases simultaneously.
The type of case study that psychology researchers utilize depends on the unique characteristics of the situation as well as the case itself.
There are also different methods that can be used to conduct a case study, including prospective and retrospective case study methods.
Prospective case study methods are those in which an individual or group of people is observed in order to determine outcomes. For example, a group of individuals might be watched over an extended period of time to observe the progression of a particular disease.
Retrospective case study methods involve looking at historical information. For example, researchers might start with an outcome, such as a disease, and then work their way backward to look at information about the individual's life to determine risk factors that may have contributed to the onset of the illness.
Where to Find Data
There are a number of different sources and methods that researchers can use to gather information about an individual or group. Six major sources that have been identified by researchers are:
- Archival records : Census records, survey records, and name lists are examples of archival records.
- Direct observation : This strategy involves observing the subject, often in a natural setting . While an individual observer is sometimes used, it is more common to utilize a group of observers.
- Documents : Letters, newspaper articles, administrative records, etc., are the types of documents often used as sources.
- Interviews : Interviews are one of the most important methods for gathering information in case studies. An interview can involve structured survey questions or more open-ended questions.
- Participant observation : When the researcher serves as a participant in events and observes the actions and outcomes, it is called participant observation.
- Physical artifacts : Tools, objects, instruments, and other artifacts are often observed during a direct observation of the subject.
Section 1: A Case History
This section will have the following structure and content:
Background information : The first section of your paper will present your client's background. Include factors such as age, gender, work, health status, family mental health history, family and social relationships, drug and alcohol history, life difficulties, goals, and coping skills and weaknesses.
Description of the presenting problem : In the next section of your case study, you will describe the problem or symptoms that the client presented with.
Describe any physical, emotional, or sensory symptoms reported by the client. Thoughts, feelings, and perceptions related to the symptoms should also be noted. Any screening or diagnostic assessments that are used should also be described in detail and all scores reported.
Your diagnosis : Provide your diagnosis and give the appropriate Diagnostic and Statistical Manual code. Explain how you reached your diagnosis, how the client's symptoms fit the diagnostic criteria for the disorder(s), or any possible difficulties in reaching a diagnosis.
Section 2: Treatment Plan
This portion of the paper will address the chosen treatment for the condition. This might also include the theoretical basis for the chosen treatment or any other evidence that might exist to support why this approach was chosen.
- Cognitive behavioral approach : Explain how a cognitive behavioral therapist would approach treatment. Offer background information on cognitive behavioral therapy and describe the treatment sessions, client response, and outcome of this type of treatment. Make note of any difficulties or successes encountered by your client during treatment.
- Humanistic approach : Describe a humanistic approach that could be used to treat your client, such as client-centered therapy . Provide information on the type of treatment you chose, the client's reaction to the treatment, and the end result of this approach. Explain why the treatment was successful or unsuccessful.
- Psychoanalytic approach : Describe how a psychoanalytic therapist would view the client's problem. Provide some background on the psychoanalytic approach and cite relevant references. Explain how psychoanalytic therapy would be used to treat the client, how the client would respond to therapy, and the effectiveness of this treatment approach.
- Pharmacological approach : If treatment primarily involves the use of medications, explain which medications were used and why. Provide background on the effectiveness of these medications and how monotherapy may compare with an approach that combines medications with therapy or other treatments.
This section of a case study should also include information about the treatment goals, process, and outcomes.
When you are writing a case study, you should also include a section where you discuss the case study itself, including the strengths and limitiations of the study. You should note how the findings of your case study might support previous research.
In your discussion section, you should also describe some of the implications of your case study. What ideas or findings might require further exploration? How might researchers go about exploring some of these questions in additional studies?
Here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind when formatting your case study:
- Never refer to the subject of your case study as "the client." Instead, their name or a pseudonym.
- Read examples of case studies to gain an idea about the style and format.
- Remember to use APA format when citing references .
A Word From Verywell
Case studies can be a useful research tool, but they need to be used wisely. In many cases, they are best utilized in situations where conducting an experiment would be difficult or impossible. They are helpful for looking at unique situations and allow researchers to gather a great deal of information about a specific individual or group of people.
If you have been directed to write a case study for a psychology course, be sure to check with your instructor for any specific guidelines that you are required to follow. If you are writing your case study for professional publication, be sure to check with the publisher for their specific guidelines for submitting a case study.
Simply Psychology. Case Study Method .
Crowe S, Cresswell K, Robertson A, Huby G, Avery A, Sheikh A. The case study approach . BMC Med Res Methodol . 2011 Jun 27;11:100. doi:10.1186/1471-2288-11-100
Gagnon, Yves-Chantal. The Case Study as Research Method: A Practical Handbook . Canada, Chicago Review Press Incorporated DBA Independent Pub Group, 2010.
Yin, Robert K. Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods . United States, SAGE Publications, 2017.
By Kendra Cherry Kendra Cherry, MS, is an author and educational consultant focused on helping students learn about psychology.
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How To Write a Product Design Case Study: Template & Guide
Learn how to write a product design case study that shows off your skills. Use our product design case study template to get started.

October 26, 2022
Art by Outcrowd
As a product designer, you spend most of your time focusing on user research, functionality, and user testing. But if you want to grow a successful product design career, you also need to present your work in a compelling way. This guide explains how to write a product design case study that makes other people want to hire you. It also includes several examples of amazing case studies to inspire you.
What is a case study in product design?
A product designcase study showcases your design skills to prospective clients, making it an important part of your product design portfolio . Whether you're a graphic designer or a UX design professional, you can benefit from showing clients how you think through tough design challenges and use your expertise to solve complex problems.
What is the goal of a product design case study?
The main goal of a product design case study is to share your design thinking process with hiring managers or prospective clients. Adding at least one case study to your product design portfolio can help you convince someone that you have the creativity and technical skills needed to solve their problems.
A well-written case study shows design managers that you have experience overcoming design-related challenges.
It's one thing to list on your resume that you're capable of designing high-fidelity prototypes, but it's another to show exactly how you've helped other businesses overcome design-related challenges. A well-written case study shows design managers that you have experience with prototyping, animations, wireframes, user testing, and other tasks, making it easier to land a product design interview , or even better, a job offer.
What makes a great product design case study?
To make your case study as appealing as possible, make sure it checks all the right boxes.
A great product design case study:
- Tells a story
- Makes text and visuals come together to show how you added value to the design project
- Shows that you made important decisions
- Gives readers an understanding of your thought process
- Clearly defines the problem and the result
- Shows who you are as a designer
Art by Laetitia Breedt
✏️ Product design case study template
If you're ready to add a case study to your portfolio, use this product design case study template to help your work shine in the best light.
Project Background
Provide some background on the client featured in your case study. If you didn’t actually work with a client and are showcasing a course project, you can still provide context about the product or user you are designing for.
Target audience
You should also include some information about the target audience for your work sample. This can help prospective clients or employers feel more comfortable about your ability to design products that appeal to their customers. If your case study focuses on a mobile app, for example, you may want to include some demographic information about the intended user base.
Design problem
The design problem describes what problem you were trying to solve for your client. For your description to be as effective as possible, it should answer the following questions:
- What is the problem? This sounds like a simple question, but the answer depends on your client, their target audience, and your approach to design thinking. In some cases, a problem is simply a task that needs to be accomplished. A problem could also be a struggle that someone is having with an existing product.
- Why is the problem important? For minor problems, it doesn't always make sense to spend time and money coming up with a solution. If you explain why the problem is important, you can show prospective clients or employers the value created by your services.
- Where does the problem occur? It's helpful to explain whether the problem occurs in the physical world or in cyberspace.
- Who is involved? Defining the target audience is important, but you also need to list who else is affected by the problem. If your client's target audience is consumers, for example, the problem could be affecting shareholders or company management.
After you answer these questions, write your design statement from the perspective of your client. Here's an example: "ABC Company was selling 10,000 subscriptions per month, but its churn rate was over 35% due to a design flaw that wasn't discovered during usability testing. The company needed to redesign the product to reduce its churn rate and increase user satisfaction."
Design decisions
This section of the product design case study walks readers through your decision-making process and shows them you understand how to apply advanced design principles to each product. Here are some examples of statements that product designers can use to explain their thought processes:
- I realized that several flaws arose from the original design team's decision to turn a digital product into a physical product without making any substantial changes to the product's visual design. To address this issue, I read case studies on how other companies in the industry made the transition from digital to physical. Then I made a list of features the client would need to address the existing flaws.
- I asked users to test several iterations of the design. Based on their feedback, I decided to make the buttons dark blue instead of teal.
- When users tested the first draft of the landing page, they indicated that it was difficult to find the call-to-action button. To address their feedback, I moved the button from the middle of the page to the upper-right corner of the page.
Add plenty of visuals to make your skills shine. When possible, include several versions of your design to show how your thinking changed as you got closer to delivering the final product. Side-by-side comparisons are especially helpful, as they eliminate the need for portfolio readers to scroll up and down to figure out what changed. Here are some examples of visuals that can help convince people they should hire you instead of some other designer:
- Screenshots
- Photographs
- Charts and graphs
- Flow charts and user journey maps
Create an interview-ready portfolio in Dribbble's Certified Course.
Product design case study examples
If you need a little inspiration, check out the product design case study examples below. The designers did a great job explaining their design decisions and showing off their skills.
Instabook App by Tiffany Mackay
Tiffany Mackay's Instabook case study starts out strong with a concise description of the client. She also includes a clear description of the design challenge: creating a social platform for authors, publishers, and readers. The case study includes wireframes and other visuals to show readers how Mackay developed new features and refined the tool's overall user experience.
- View the full case study
Art by tiffany mackay
Crypto App by Brittney Singleton
The Crypto App case study is an excellent example of how to create a case study even if you don't have much paid experience. Brittney Singleton created the Crypto App as a project for one of Dribbble's courses, but she managed to identify a problem affecting the crypto marketplace and come up with a solution. Singleton's case study contains plenty of visuals and explains the decisions she made at each stage of the project.
Art by Brittney Singleton
PoppinsMail by Antonio Vidakovik
Antonio Vidakovik's case study has some of the best visuals, making it a great example to follow as you work on your portfolio. His user flow charts have a simple design, but they feature bright colors and succinct descriptions of each step. Vidakovik also does a good job explaining his user interface design decisions.
Art by Micah Lanier
Super Walk by Micah Lanier
Micah Lanier offers a textbook example of an effective UX case study. It starts out with a quick overview of the client and a description of their problem. Micah also provides a detailed overview of the steps he took to identify user pain points, brainstorm solutions, and test several iterations before delivering a finished product. The Super Walk case study also includes plenty of visuals to show readers how the product evolved from the beginning to the end of the design process.
Art by Antonio Vidakovic
To the Park by Evangelyn
Evangelyn's case study is another example of how you can show off your skills even if you don't have years of professional experience. She created the To the Park app as a part of Dribbble's Certified Product Design Course, so she had plenty of opportunities to create appealing visuals and conduct user testing. Her product design case study explains exactly how her design solves the initial challenge she identified.
Art by Clara
How many case studies should I include in my product design portfolio?
If you have minimal experience, aim for two or three case studies. Like many junior product designers, you can use projects from a product design course you’ve completed if you don't have a lot of professional experience. More experienced product designers should have up to five. Too many case studies can be overwhelming for recruiters, so don't feel like you need to include dozens of projects.
Grow your product design portfolio
To get more product design jobs , try adding at least one product design case study to your portfolio website. Case studies include real-world examples of your work, making it easier for prospective clients and employers to assess your abilities. They're different from resumes because they show people exactly what you can do instead of just listing your skills, making it more likely that you'll get hired.
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What is a Business Case Study? 10 Tips for Creating Captivating Customer Stories
Case studies have been a staple of good small business marketing for decades. There is no doubt that they are effective – when they are done right.
So, what makes a good case study?
If we’re going to keep it real here, most case studies are, well, boring. I mean they are real snoozers.
Now, that doesn’t mean yours can’t be captivating and engaging page-turners, but you will likely have to work a little harder.
No sweat. That’s what this guide is all about. Here’s what you need to know to create a case study that will have your audience glued to the page.
Let’s do this.
What is a business case study?
A business case study is a summary of a real-life business scenario where steps are taken to solve a problem effectively. Case studies are not just for business school students. They can also be used to show how your business has made a real and significant impact on your customers. Also called customer stories, these scenarios can help show potential customers what your brand is able to do for them.
The biggest, most important thing you need to keep in mind when developing and creating a case study is that it is about your customer’s journey, not about your company. It needs to have impact, to be interesting, engaging, unforgettable. It needs to leave a lasting impression.
That sounds like a pretty tall order – and it is, but if you aren’t going to create marketing products that stand out and cause your brand to rise above your competitors, what’s the point? What are you even doing here if you aren’t interested in creating something special and lasting?
As special and lasting as your business – as your brand. It puts your product or service squarely in the hands of the person reading and walks them through how your company made a difference. It gives your brand life without ever tooting your own horn. It lets your satisfied customers do that work for you.
So basically, a case study is a story, your customer’s story about how they overcame certain problems or challenges thanks to your products or services. At its core though it is an in-depth analysis of problems and solutions. It examines the challenges and presents answers that tie back to your company.
To be honest, too many case studies miss the mark.
They are treated like advertisements or press releases which they definitely are not. While they can be used in a product launch, they are not intended to promotional in that manner. It brings us back to the focus. While advertisements and press releases focus on your company, case studies focus on your customer.
Just the fact that they focus on a real person with real problems should give you plenty to work with as you create engaging, enthralling content. After all, people make the most interesting stories!
What are the types of case studies for business?
Case study is not just a generalized term, a one size fits all marketing ploy. It is a highly specialized type of content that can breathe new life into your brand and become a vital part of your business strategy.
There are four main types of case studies:
- Critical Instance Case Study – This type of study answers cause and effect questions. It examines a situation in a very detailed manner with a key characteristic of avoiding generalization and universal assertions.
- Cumulative Case Study – This type of study aggregates information from several sources that occurred at different times.
- Exploratory Case Study – Also known as a pilot case study, this is a condensed version that precedes a more in-depth analysis. It is primarily used to aid in determining types of measurement and identifying questions before launching the main research.
- Illustrative Case Study – This type of study is mostly focused on being descriptive and is the type that is most commonly associated with case studies. It outlines the problem, usually one or two situations to illustrate the challenge, then move on to the solution.
Within each of these types, one or more areas of business may be explored, including:
- Growth Plan or Strategy
- Industry Landscape & Competitor Dynamics
- Market Entry or Expansion
- Merger, Acquisition, or Joint Venture
- New Product
- Pricing Optimization
- Profitability Optimization
- Start-Up or Early Stage Venture
There are also types of case studies that are developed internally and used to analyze various areas of the organization, market, or industry. They are used to assess problems within a company and find viable solutions. These are not used for marketing purposes. Instead, they are used as a way for a business to maximize profitability, optimize growth, and determine the suitability of an industry for entry or exit.
Business case studies used for marketing purposes are shared with the public. Marketing teams create these types of client stories specifically to show prospective customers how a business may solve their problems just like they did for the company in the study. This type of case study provides real-world illustrations of how a company’s product or service can solve a customer’s specific problem.
Advertisements tell people about a product or service. A case study puts that product or service in the hands of the customer and demonstrates how it can be used and be beneficial. The advertisement tells. The case study shows. And most consumers are more likely to be impressed or connect with a piece of content that shows the product or service in action.
How can case studies benefit your brand?
Consumers have become very savvy and today’s modern consumer wants to do their own research and make decisions without a salesperson or advertisement telling them what to think or what to buy. Around 96% of people in the U.S. shop online and more than 63% do online research prior to making a purchase . This opens the door for your brand to put educational material in the hands of consumers, providing them with the information they need to make informed decisions regarding your business.
Case studies can be extremely beneficial for this purpose in a number of ways.
They turn your product or service into a story .
That’s what case studies are, after all, a story about how your product or service solved a customer’s problem. While that is a very simplified version of what case studies do, it is still very accurate. The characters in your story are the customers with the problem. The case study walks the reader through the conflict the customer experienced, what they tried, and how they ultimately used your product or service to solve it. A good case study is an engaging story that is very relatable – and that is what makes it so effective.
They provide indirect endorsements of your company .
Testimonials are considered direct endorsements while case studies are indirect. Both are a type of peer review which is of interest to consumers. Of course, any type of endorsement has some value, and case studies are no different. The more details you provide, the more qualified leads you will attract, and the more customers you will have.
They help identify your brand evangelists .
When you begin the process of finding customers to participate in the creation of your case study, you will naturally discover which are your biggest fans. From there you can identify those who are willing to be your brand evangelists. Having customers who are excited about your company and are eager to speak out about your brand is a true testament to the quality of not only your product or service but of your business and customer experience as well.
They put your product or service value into action .
A case study takes your reader on a very specific journey that is centered around using a specific service or product. It takes that value and puts it into action. This is what your prospective customers need to see because they can then envision how your product or service will work for them.
They attract more qualified leads .
Research surrounding case studies and related types of peer recommendations shows that they are very effective in not only attracting customers but attracting the right types of customers. 97% of B2B customers rely on peer-recommended content, including case studies, citing them as the most reliable type of content. When it comes to consumers, 88% trust case studies and other types of peer-recommended material as much as they trust recommendations from their family or friends.
They provide the word of mouth validation .
The best marketing strategy that a business can have is word of mouth. Customers in the United States are far more likely to purchase from a brand that someone they know has recommended. Word of mouth marketing is what marketers work hard for, what they seek, and what can propel a brand from obscurity into a household name.
They are outstanding sales tools .
There are so many ways that you can use case studies as sales resources. Incorporating them into your marketing campaigns will allow your prospects to see real-world scenarios showing how your products are being used to solve real problems. If a customer or prospective customer is having trouble in a certain area, one of your representatives or salespeople can refer to the case study that lines up the best with the prospect’s problem. The prospect can then see how others have handled the problem utilizing your products or services.
They can boost SEO .
Case studies that are published on your company website or blog can give your site a solid SEO boost. Case studies are rich in relevant keywords and key phrases, making them an outstanding SEO tool. The beauty of this type of content is that it is naturally optimized so it will lead prospects right to you.
They allow you to highlight certain benefits and features of your product or service .
Nearly every product or service has several specific benefits and features. Each of our customers may use your product in a different way, taking advantage of those features and benefits. Case studies that are focused on a particular feature can show how your customer benefitted from it and how they used it. This gives you more real-world illustrations for the application of your product or service.
They open the door for conversations with the media .
Case studies have the human component in their corner. When an editor or journalist gets their hands on your case study, they can see your company from the human point of view. It’s a human story, not a business one. From there they can tell the human stories with your business as the hero. They can weave a story around the case study or include the information in a related story. Either way, it’s a win for you.
They elicit trust and credibility using peer influence .
This is probably the most significant benefit you’ll reap from using case studies. They put the focus on the customer, not your business. Many other types of content are typically self-serving, but case studies are all about the customer. While promotional content may be well received, there is still a degree of skepticism surrounding it. But when an actual customer opens their mouth, they become a third party brand endorsement which encourages trust and loyalty.
Case studies are very unique marketing and sales tools that can be very beneficial to your brand. They don’t operate like other marketing components and fill a distinctive role in the sales and marketing areas of your organization. When done well, they are absolutely invaluable.
The Anatomy of a Business Case Study
A business case study tells a story about your company. Now, like any story, there are all the usual elements. You have a beginning or introduction that draws the reader in and gives them an idea of where your story will go. There is the middle where the story itself is told, and the end or conclusion that sums up the whole story and tells readers what to do next (your call to action).
Also, as with any story, you have the protagonist which in this case is your customer, and they encounter a challenge or problem and eventually find a solution. Through the course of the story, the reader should be able to relate to your hero or heroine. They should be able to visualize themselves in that same position and see your products or services helping them achieve their objectives.
People love stories, especially with happy endings. And that’s what case studies provide, a good story. A successful case study goes something like this:
There once was a business owner who had a problem he (or she) needed to solve because it was impacting sales, production, or another area of business. This was costing them money and was hindering the growth of their company.
The business owner found a company that had the product or service that was exactly what they needed to solve the problem.
The business owner teamed up with the company and put the solution to work. It was very successful, increasing their profits and boosting their growth.
And they lived happily ever after.
The anatomy is simple. There are three parts to any story:
- Problem – An introduction that describes the problem
- Solution – A body that tells the story of how the customer utilized your product or service to solve their problem
- Results – A conclusion that ties it all up to show a successful outcome while specifically highlighting areas like profitability, production, or growth
Within that framework, there are several vital elements:
- Just be human. Toss out the business speak and buzzwords. Just talk like a human being. A language that takes on a business tone is off-putting to the consumer. It makes the content look like a piece of marketing material or an advertisement and that is the last thing that you want.
- The angle is also crucial. Think about your intended audience. What are their hot buttons? Speak to that as it relates to your product or service.
- Narrow it down. Identify one or two features of your products or services that would have the greatest impact on the problem or situation that is the basis of your study.
- Illustrate the success in detail. You want to showcase how your customer achieved success as the result of using your organization’s service or product. Pinpoint it and describe it in detail.
- Show value. Chances are, your product or services costs money so when a company chooses you to solve their problem, they must make that investment. Show the value in that investment that extends beyond the actual solution.
- Keep it focused. Identify up to three things that you want a prospect to learn about your company through the case study. Before you publish the case, make sure that these three things are clear after reading the story.
- Use dollar amounts and statistics. Numbers have a big impact. Anywhere you can include actual and verifiable dollar amounts, percentage of increase in profitability and other facts, you strengthen your case study and give it credibility.
- Show humanity. People have lives that include family, friends, even commitment to their job. Was the dad finally able to take his family on vacation because your solution provided that much efficiency? Was the team experiencing a drop in morale because they were working so hard to overcome their problem? Showing the humanity in the situation to draw readers in.
- Add quotes if you can get them. Quotes from the customer can bring even more of a personal element to your case study. It makes the story more tangible.
- Avoid direct praise for your company. Even if it is a direct quote from a customer that is praising your company, it still feels too salesy for a case study. Save it for a testimonial.
There are other elements that may be incorporated into the case study as is appropriate. As you may realize by now, a case study is not something you just throw together. It takes research, careful planning, and attention to detail in order to be a well-executed study.
10 Questions to Ask Before You Begin
Before you begin writing your case study, ask these ten questions.
1. Did you get permission from the subjects of the case study to use their names and information?
This is absolutely essential before you begin. While it may be tempting to move forward with your case study without first talking with the client, you should not. Talk to them first to ensure you have permission. This is also a good time to get a couple of quotes.
2. What steps do you need to do to prioritize the various areas of work?
Conduct an audit of your digital materials, research, and other components of your case study. Prioritize them and outline your layout.
3. Is it the right time to create and release this case study?
Look at what you are doing and where your company is going. Is this the right time to move forward with the study? Are your products or services ready? Would it be better served to release it at a different time?
4. Is your organization ready to release this information?
A well-placed case study can bring an influx of growth in production, sales, and expansion. Make sure that your organization is prepared to handle it.
5. Who are your stakeholders?
Analyze your stakeholders and advocates, subjects of your case study, as well as those who will be working on putting it together.
6. What are your objectives?
Define the objectives of your case study, identifying the scope, aim, and outline your content so that it supports your objectives.
7. What are the benefits of your product or service that you want to highlight?
Identify the product or service benefits that you want to bring out in the study. In other words, instead of simply citing your product or service, hone in on the specific feature or features that were key.
8. What additional information do you need to strengthen your case?
Analyze your research and supporting material to determine if you need any more information that will make your case study stronger.
9. How will you distribute the case study?
Decide how you will get your case study into your prospective customers’ hands. There are a number of potential ways to do it, as a free download, on your blog, or sent directly to your prospects are just a few of the distribution methods.
10. When will the information in your case study become obsolete?
Sometimes it is evergreen information, meaning that it is never outdated. Most of the time though, the study becomes outdated when a product is upgraded or changed.
Good organization is key for any marketing project, but because of the unique nature of case studies, it is essential. You have to get everything right, the voice, the tone, the angle, it must all be carefully analyzed.
12 Tips for Creating Captivating Customer Stories
As you dive into creating your case study, whether it is your first one or you have dozens under your belt, here are a few tips that will help you make it even better.
1. Write with your ideal customer in mind.
Create a profile of your ideal customer, the customer you are trying to attract. When you create your case study, write it for them. Consider what their pain points are and how your solution could impact their business. Consider what they might be thinking or feeling as they read your case study.
When choosing a customer to write about, choose someone your ideal customer can relate to. When people can relate to a person, they trust them a lot easier.
2. Identify your sample customer and create a profile.
The sample customer is the individual or business who appears in your case study. Once you have identified who you will use as the subject of your case study, create a profile about them including some basic details that you will be able to use in the customer story:
- Who are they?
- What do they do?
- What are their needs?
- What was their problem when they first encountered your company?
- How did you help them reach their goals by satisfying their needs?
- What was the result of the solution you created?
3. Make sure your study has a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This is a story, remember? Every great story has a beginning, middle, and end. You will need to make sure that your case study starts with an introduction to the subject business or individual and their problem. Then, show the steps they took to solve this problem and where your product or service fits into the solution. Then, make sure you conclude with details about the result of implementing this solution.
4. Keep it simple and easy to read.
Avoid flowery writing and business language. Real people don’t want to read romantic, flowery copy any more than they want to read dry, formal copy. Write for humans, but keep it real and keep it simple. Format the content so that it is easier to read, using short paragraphs and white space and images to break up the text. Also, utilize bulleted lists when applicable, and use italicized and bold text to create emphasis.
5. Use real numbers and statistics.
Numbers speak and people are attracted to them. Statistics and dollar amounts lend credibility to the copy and provide another level to the copy that gives it rich, engaging depth.
6. Be specific when describing the solutions.
Don’t gloss over any areas of the case study. Be as detailed and specific as possible, diving into the details, drawing a picture with the words you use. Your prospective customer (your reader) should be able to experience everything in your study because of the way you describe it.
7. Offer case studies in different formats.
While some people prefer to read content, others may prefer video or audio. Make sure that you creating your case studies in a way that appeals to the largest audience by using different formats. Create written documents, but don’t forget to also include video, audio, and images in your case study presentation.
8. Don’t skimp on the writing.
Case studies are highly specialized content and you can’t afford to skimp when it comes to writing it. Not just anyone has the skill or talent to write a great case study, so either, do it with great care or hire an experienced writer to do it for you. Investing in a content professional to create your case studies will more than pay off in the end when you see the leads start to roll in.
9. Make it easy for prospective customers to find your case studies.
Since case studies are a powerful way to show your products or services in action, it’s important that you make them easily accessible to your prospects. Many companies will have a separate page on their site just for case studies. Other companies might include case studies in the resources section of their site. You can also post them on your blog so that they are available to everyone. Wherever you decide to put your case studies, make sure that customers can access them without jumping through any hoops.
10. Repurpose your case studies.
Case studies don’t have to live in just one place. While you may have a formal web page dedicated to case studies, you should still make this information available in as many places as possible. Here are some ways you can repurpose your case studies:
- Write a blog post that tells the customer story in a different way. If your case study is short and to the point, you might use the blog to tell a more detailed story. Or vice versa.
- Take quotes from the case study to use as social media teasers. If you got quotes from your customer for the case study, you can post these quotes across your social media channels with links to the longer case study document.
- Create an infographic. Use the data and information from your case study to create an infographic that you can share across your channels.
- Turn it into an email. You can tease the case study in an email or tell the story over a series of email, targeting the email to your list segment that is most like the customer in the case study.
Using case studies is a wise business decision. They are great marketing tools but they do require a little more work and careful planning because while they perform like a marketing tool, they don’t look or act like one. Case studies provide an exceptional opportunity to tell stories about your products or services and tap into the human element of your organization and how you do business.
Attract more qualified leads and watch your brand grow. How will you tell your company’s story?
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Table of Contents
How to solve a product manager case study in 4 simple steps.
- August 12, 2020
Richard Chen

We cannot emphasize the importance of Product Manager case studies in interviews enough. Companies rely heavily on this step to assess your critical thinking and problem-solving skills as it closely mirrors the day-to-day activities. However, you don’t have to be a Product Manager with years of experience to come up with impressive case studies that will get you hired. Like the job itself, a Product Manager case study should be situational and contextual—getting it right is about tailoring your answer to the company you are interviewing for and the context behind the question.
So, how do you make sure you hit the nail on the head? There are four steps to solving the Product Manager case study. Our case study instructors recommend the following:
- Evaluate the need
- Validate the need
- Set a goal for the feature
- Decision making
From startup case studies to whiteboarding questions, this guide will take you through everything you need to know about tackling the notorious product management case study using these simple steps. Practice this approach with the various examples we provide and you should be ready to ace your next Product Manager case study interview .
How to Approach the Product Manager Case Study
Let’s say that an e-commerce furniture company wants to implement a feature: free returns. Take a minute to think about this case study question . How would you go about implementing this? What is your first step?
If there’s one thing we know from working with thousands of aspiring Product Managers, it’s that more than 90% of the candidates fail the product manager case study interview one way or another. And not because the candidates lacked the required skills! Like we mentioned above, a successful case study is tailored to the situation and context.
Before we dive in, here are some pointers you should remember to get you into the right frame of mind as you tackle the case study assignment you are given.
Ask Questions
This is where to start: Always approach a case study assignment with the assumption that you know nothing. Never dive into solving the problem with little to no information on it. Don’t be afraid to ask your interviewer everything you need to:
- Determine the user of the product
- Narrow down and identify which problem to solve
- Find out the specifics of the question to establish your edge cases
Making assumptions could lead you down the wrong path, but on the other hand, remember that being a Product Manager involves solving ambiguous real-life issues. Keep calm and creatively and strategically acquire more information for clarity of the situation. You’ll be one step ahead of fellow candidates.
Prepare for Anything
Many novice candidates believe that the case study round always involves a take-home assignment, which would allow them to do extensive research on the question at hand. But while take-home assignments do come up often enough, unfortunately, that’s not always the case. Prepare for your case study interview to involve on-the-go questions. You should also expect to whiteboard and solve problems on the fly during the interview. When that’s the case you’ll have only seconds — or minutes if you’re lucky — instead of days to tackle the problem.
There Is More Than One Correct Answer
The Product Manager case study interview is a way for companies to evaluate your problem-solving skills. They want to see how you identify product users, measure product performance, navigate technical aspects, and so on. You can demonstrate these competencies with a variety of answers.
Don’t Spend More Time Than You Need To
The take-home Product Manager case study can be especially time-consuming and you might spend all your time working on these assignments if you don’t have support . Remember that job hunting is a numbers game and allocate your time and effort accordingly.
Need more time to prepare for your next case study interview? Take your prep to the next level with this video by Product Gym co-founder Cody Chang:
How to Solve Any Product Manager Case Study in 4 Simple Steps
Without further ado, here are the four steps you need to follow to solve your Product Manager case study:
Step 1: Evaluate the Need
To understand the need in the Product Manager case study, you need to ask a series of questions. Here are a few of them to get you started:
- How did the company come up with this feature?
- Was it suggested by executives, or by customers?
- Is the goal of this feature to drive revenue or increase loyalty?
- Are we assuming that leadership has already signed on board to this feature?
- Or are we assuming that this is just a small product that we have been given to test?
Essentially, you need to figure out the bounds and constraints of this question.
You may not be an industry expert on the business that your interviewer is in, or you may lack that domain knowledge. So in order to create an informed answer, you have to know what your answer is not .
Step 2: Validate the Need
You have to start on the pre-question. Let’s take the example of a furniture e-commerce company.
Some of the questions you would ask yourself are:
- What are your assumptions, knowns and unknowns, and where is the data?
- Do we have data on this, and is the data right?
- On free returns, do we know how many people already trying to return?
- Are there specific types of products that we know customers return?
- Are there some parts of the world where customers expect free returns? Do we have data on that? (The company isn’t going to necessarily know that from the data because customers might not provide that feedback.)
- What do we not know?
When you focus on these unknowns, what you’re really focusing on is time and resources. This gets into the business side of asking questions. If you are not a domain expert in furniture e-commerce or are not familiar with their business model to give a nuanced response, what are these Product Managers looking for in your answer?
The company you are interviewing with is likely operating in another domain that you are not familiar with. That’s okay. As long as you can lay out the roadmap for your product with sound reasoning, you’ll be good to go.
Step 3: Set a Goal for the Feature
In this specific example, you want to focus on time and resources, which is money. This means explicitly profitability . What are all the areas that might factor into profitability? Here are some questions to consider:
- How much is it going to cost, and how do you evaluate that cost?
- Will priorities in regards to other features change?
- Would we have to focus on other resources?
- Would we have to deal with interstate laws based on shipping?
- How about shipping internationally or shipping interstate? Will it be taxed?
Check out these guides to help you determine the essential metrics for your company’s business and the product you are developing:
- 16 Startup Metrics by Adresseen Horowitz
- Startup Metrics You Need to Monitor
- Facebook Metrics: Key Benchmarks for PM Interviews

Step 4: Decision-Making
Based on the business requirements, how do you want to evaluate these unknowns? The rabbit hole of questions can go on and on. You may need to spend these resources and push back the engineering deadline. Is the company okay with that?
It also depends on how you communicate “Yes” or “No” answers. If you say, “Yes, I want to prioritize this feature,” then know your reasons:
- The manager has signed off on the strategy .
- I know who the customers are.
- I have the data to back it up.
- I have the stakeholder consensus to do it.
- I have a timeline that I feel confident executing on.
Or, if you say “No,” have your reasons why to address the same areas:
- No, I don’t have a clear strategy from management.
- No, the manager wants me to validate this before we spend extra resources on it.
- No, we don’t have enough engineers or resources for this.
- No, we have to use the sales cycle for another feature — if we try to implement this now, we will lose the seasonal sales cycle.
These are all moving parts that you want to evaluate and then communicate to the PM interviewing you in the Product Manager case study. The best thing to do when you ask these questions is to get specific. Use examples of times when you had to make these decisions yourself based on these factors.
Remember to communicate competency on how you evaluate whether or not you implement a feature. Ask questions to create constraints and boundaries to the case study, and control its scope. Once you have this information, you will know how to best approach the questions based on the Product Management knowledge you possess.
BONUS Step: Get Your Case Study Presentation Reviewed by a Professional
You’ve worked through the case study and put your solution into a slide deck to present to a panel of interviewers: congratulations! But if you want to go above and beyond to impress the hiring team, take some time to get your case study solution reviewed by a professional.
A fresh set of eyes may catch typos and grammar errors, but will also be able to point out the areas where you can improve the solution overall. A Product Manager who’s gone through multiple case study interview rounds is going to be able to assess your solution from the perspective of the interviewer and use their experience to help you polish it.
At Product Gym, our interview coaches routinely check over members’ case study presentations, offering insight, constructive criticism, and tips on how to make their technical interview round a success. Solving case studies isn’t just a good practice for acing your interview — it’s also an excellent way to develop applicable Product Manager skills. That’s why we include classes on case studies in our program. Our case study curriculum was developed and continues to be taught by Senior Product Manager for Atlassian, Roman Kolosovskiy .
Because we’ve been working with Product Manager job hunters for the past five years, we’ve had ample opportunity to test and perfect the case study strategy we teach our members. We’ve even compiled a bank of case study prompts that aspiring Product Managers have received in their interviews so that members can exclusively access to hone their problem-solving and storytelling skills.
What to Expect from a Product Manager Case Study at a Startup
The type of company you are interviewing for is a key consideration when determining the context for your case study. It’s highly likely that you will interview for a Product Manager position at a startup—there were 30.7 million startups in the US in 2019, and the numbers will only keep growing.
No doubt, the expectations, and responsibilities differ immensely in a startup role as compared to being an enterprise PM.
Here’s what you should keep in mind when interviewing for a PM position with a startup:
- Product Managers are expected to wear multiple hats : Startups, especially early-stage ones, don’t have all the resources they need. Because of this, your responsibilities may include roles away from the standard PM job description. It’s also likely that you will be responsible for more than one product.
- Be ready for some confusion : Many of these companies don’t have a recruiting team or a full-fledged HR strategy, and therefore chances are they are also exploring interviewing as they go.
- Prepare for niche markets : If the startup operates in a niche market, you might have little to no knowledge and resources for understanding the competitive landscape and creating a useful product. Our case study prep guide can help you sound like a seasoned expert no matter your background in such cases.
So how do you show your interviewer that you are ready to take on the challenge?
1. Demonstrate Fast Execution
First and foremost, you should show that you are quick when making decisions and taking action. Unlike established companies, you will not have many tools or practices to help you make decisions and organize your and your team’s tasks. You should be comfortable with communicating decisions and last-minute action items with the rest of your team.
2. Be Ready to Take Risks
Executing decisions takes a sense of responsibility and ownership, which brings us to our second point. As a Product Manager, you should be a leader who isn’t afraid of taking risks. When needed, you should be ready to take the driver’s seat. There is no doubt that your responsibility will exceed a single product, and you will soon be expected to come up with ideas that will impact the whole company.
3. Prove You Can Multitask
Limited resources mean you may find yourself wearing different hats. For example, you might not have a UX designer and end up designing the wireframes yourself. Regardless of the situation, get ready to prove to them that you can multitask. How do you show this skill in your Product Manager case study?
- By thinking about how this company can make money — or in Product Gym terms, by becoming a wartime Product Manager. Think about how the product in question will contribute to the company’s short-term and long-term goals.
- Many startups are still in the funding stage, so any work you design should generate revenue with minimal costs.
- Think about all the ways you can create a product that the market currently needs and lacks.
- Include wireframes in your case study presentation to show them that you already thought about how the product should look.
- In your documentation and presentation, describe the resources you will need and how you budget this product.
4. Learn About the Company
A case study assignment is a simulation of the real job, especially in startup interviews. Leverage it to learn as much about the company as possible. Assess how they treat you and try to figure out how the company culture is.
Are they ignoring your emails and acting like you don’t exist? Or are they making a genuine effort to make the interview work for you despite the lack of resources? Are you expected to solve a complex case study on the go during an interview?
Answering these questions can give you a good feel of your possible future employer.
5. Prioritize, Prioritize, and Prioritize
As we mentioned, startup companies operate with minimal resources and are under a lot of stress. So, remember to focus on the essential features needed to create a fully functional MVP ready for the market in the least amount of time.
Make some realistic estimations and come up with numbers to help your interviewers with the budget, resources, and time you need to create this product. Roadmap the steps required to get to the MVP and clearly define everybody’s responsibilities to build it.
How to Solve Whiteboarding Case Study Questions in 4 Steps
Along with the commonly assigned take-home assignment and the presentation that follows, the product management case study is notorious for its technical and whiteboarding interview questions. Here are four simple steps our instructors developed to help you master the dreaded whiteboarding interview questions in your case study round.
Step 1: Keep Calm and Embrace the Fact that You Know Nothing
Most aspiring PMs fail the Product Manager case study not because they do not have experience, but because they panic over a lack of information.
In practice, Product Managers rarely have enough information about the problem they were asked to solve. Having seen many candidates interview, we can confirm that interviewees often disqualify themselves by showing the interviewer that they are not ready to tackle ambiguous real-life issues.
So, remember to keep calm and accept the fact that you have insufficient information about the problem that’s thrown at you.
Step 2: Try to Understand What the Question Wants You to Achieve
Companies ask whiteboarding interview questions to see if you can create or improve a product that can accomplish a specific goal. When you take on any product management case study question, start by taking a step back. Think about what the question wants you to accomplish.
In most cases, you should be able to divine the purpose of the question from how the interviewer forms it. Our case study instructors have identified four specific purposes:
- Prioritization
- Product Design
- Target Market Identification
- Product Launch
Determining the purpose behind vague questions and finding the right approach to address them requires a lot of focused practice with real case study questions.
Step 3: Nar row Down the Question as Much as Possible
You need to narrow down the case study questions as much as possible to come up with some real and data-driven conclusions. Given that you have little to no resources available to you, you have to make some realistic estimations. Accurate estimations are only possible if you get to the heart of the question.
Think it through and ask as many questions as you need.
Step 4: Keep the Conversation Alive
Communication is an essential part of the case study interview: you should keep your interviewer informed about every aspect of your thought process. After you identify the whiteboarding question’s purpose, clearly inform your interviewer what direction you want to take and your reasoning.
Check your reasoning with your interviewer by asking them if this is something on their mind or if this is something they would consider. In most cases, they would either have an answer key or a direction on their mind and would be able to help you.
Once you agree on the direction you take, ask more specific questions to extract as much information as possible and get a confidence vote from the interviewer that you are on the right track.
Last but not least, make your interviewer’s life easier by suggesting options and giving details while asking questions. See how we used these four steps to work through a Facebook Product Manager Case Study question: Should Facebook enter the dating market?
Product Manager Case Study Presentation Best Practices
You have worked hard and finally finished your Product Manager case study assignment, but that doesn’t mean you can sit back and relax—your case study presentation is as vital as solving the question.
Not only is it the time to demonstrate your excellent communication skills, but a good presentation shows your interviewers how you collaborate. Here’s a breakdown of how to give a winning presentation:
- Design and Brand Your Presentation Materials: The best way to prove that you are a big fan of the company and have the spirit to join the team is to use company colors, logos, and any media related to them. A good design always draws attention, and you want to grab as much attention as you can.
- Have the Right Amount of Content: Have just enough content to ensure that people know enough about your product to be convinced that it has potential. Include all the relevant details about the fundamental aspects of the product. But, leave them curious about the finer details. This will keep them engaged throughout the presentation.
- Include Visuals and Media to Spark Feedback from the Audience: Activating the brain’s visual cortex will keep your interviewers engaged throughout your presentation. The best way to ensure that everybody understands your product is to include wireframes and preliminary designs in your presentation.
- Make Sure Everyone Has a Positive Experience With Your Presentation: A good rule of thumb is to make sure you can explain your product to a five-year-old and a Ph.D. simultaneously. Start simple and allow the audience to ask questions as you progress. Allocate a considerable amount of time to go over your designs and ask the interviewer for feedback: Ask them questions, see what they think, and learn about the things they would have done differently.
- Paint a Clear Picture of the Product With Your Wireframes: When you are sketching wireframes for your product management case study, be sure to include anything you can explain in terms of functionality. Given that many of the products are digital, it’s crucial to explain the transitions between one screen to another. For example, you should explain what happens when a user clicks on something and which screen comes next. If the next screen is an integral part of the feature, you should include it in your case study deliverables.
List of Product Manager Case Study Question Examples
Before we dive into the most common examples of Product Manager case study interview questions , let’s solve one together. Check out how our Case Study Instructor, Roman Kolosovski, tackles the popular FAANG case study question “How would you build a product for pet owners?”:
1. Product Design Case Study Questions
These are the most common types of questions. They range from designing a product from scratch to improving an existing product. Some questions will explicitly tell you to focus on a specific OKR, while others will leave everything ambiguous to challenge you to think more.
Product Design Question Examples
- Design a product to help users find doctors on Facebook .
- How would you improve Google Maps?
- You’re a part of the Google Search webspam team: How would you detect duplicate websites?
- Name any product you love and any product you despise and explain your reasoning for both cases. ( Amazon )
- You’re the Product Manager of a team that focuses on financial products for our Uber drivers. You’re tasked with designing a financial product (or suite of products) that addresses our drivers’ needs in Brazil.
2. Product Strategy Questions
Unlike product design questions, strategy questions require you to think about the bigger picture. You’ll either be asked to find ways to make a product better—and hence define success for the product, or to complete the overall organization more successfully.
To solve these questions, you need to be well informed about the company and its products or services. Consider the company’s business model, competitors, and the recent developments in that industry. The essential skill you need to demonstrate here is analytical thinking.
Product Strategy Question Examples
- If you were Google’s CEO, would you be concerned about Microsoft?
- How would you improve Google Maps? (Google)
- How would you set goals and measure success for Facebook notifications?
- How would you monetize Facebook messenger?
- How would you determine the right price and method to promote product XYZ, and why? (Amazon)
3. Estimation and Analysis Questions
These are used by interviewers to measure how comfortable you are making decisions with limited data, so show them how you use data to derive the KPIs you need for your product. These questions are mostly asked during the interview. To solve them without internet access is only possible by learning the fundamental values of the company beforehand. This includes the revenue it makes or the approximate number of users it has. You should also be able to calculate their critical KPIs.
Estimation and Analysis Case Study Question Examples
- How many queries per second does Gmail get?
- As the Product Manager for Google Glass ‘Enterprise Edition’, which metrics would you track? How do you know if the product is successful?
- How much revenue does YouTube make per day?
- How would you go about estimating the number of gas stations in the USA?
- How would you track user engagement in an app, and what KPIs would you use to improve it?
4. Scheduling/Operational Questions
These types of case study interview questions are few and far between. Interviewers ask these questions to assess the candidates’ ability to turn ideas into deliverable tasks. Note that for most operational Product Manager case study questions, the interviewer will require you to write a detailed delivery schedule and write user stories and tasks.
Scheduling/Operational Case Study Question Examples
- Write the Jira ticket(s) for engineering for the idea you want to execute. (Upwork)
- Outline a brief (1-2 page) launch plan that would cover the activities and tasks needed to launch the feature successfully. Be sure to touch on both internal and external stakeholders, and include potential launch goals. (Stitch Data)
Product Manager Case Study FAQs
The short answer is yes. You should always have a couple of screen designs ready for your case study interview. Why? It’s probably the best way to spark any reaction from the interviewing committee. Plus, it’s also way more comfortable for your audience to understand what your product looks like with a solid prototype.
Given that it’s not your job to develop the actual design, low fidelity seems more appropriate. That being said, the bar for low fidelity designs has been relatively high over the past couple of years. So, low fidelity designs are more than pen and paper sketches: they are expected to be digital.
Detail the solution you came up with a presentation that states: Here is what the solution is. Here is what the solution looks like. Here is how a user would go through the process within this solution.
There are four common types of Product Manager case study questions: Product design questions Product strategy questions Estimation and analysis questions Scheduling/operational questions
Unlike larger companies, startups do not have as many tools and resources at their disposal. This means that not many will have a recruiting team or a full-fledged HR strategy and are interviewing as they go. Many Product Gym members that have taken the startup route have noted how disorganized the Product Manager interview process can get at a startup, so prepare for some confusion. No matter the size of the company, be sure to assess how they treat you and try to figure out how the company culture is in the process.
Put Your Product Manager Case Study Skills to the Test
Put your case study skills to the test with our free online training course. Access to instructor-led whiteboarding sessions with real FAANG interview qu estions to take your prep to the next level.
Don’t forget to call us for free career coaching to learn more about how Product Gym can help you land the Product Manager job of your dreams!

The One Thing I Wish More Candidates Asked in Their Product Management Interviews

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Home Blog Business Case Study: How to Write and Present It
Case Study: How to Write and Present It

Marketers, consultants, salespeople, and all other types of business managers often use case study analysis to highlight a success story, showing how an exciting problem can be or was addressed. But how do you create a compelling case study and then turn it into a memorable presentation? Get a lowdown from this post!
What is a Case Study?
Let’s start with this great case study definition by the University of South Caroline:
In the social sciences, the term case study refers to both a method of analysis and a specific research design for examining a problem, both of which can generalize findings across populations.
In simpler terms — a case study is an investigative research into a problem aimed at presenting or highlighting solution(s) to the analyzed issues.
A standard business case study provides insights into:
- General business/market conditions
- The main problem faced
- Methods applied
- The outcomes gained using a specific tool or approach
Case studies (also called case reports) are also used in clinical settings to analyze patient outcomes outside of the business realm.
But this is a topic for another time. In this post, we’ll focus on teaching you how to write and present a business case, plus share several case study PowerPoint templates and design tips!

Why Case Studies are a Popular Marketing Technique
Besides presenting a solution to an internal issue, case studies are often used as a content marketing technique . According to a 2020 Content Marketing Institute report, 69% of B2B marketers use case studies as part of their marketing mix.
A case study informs the reader about a possible solution and soft-sells the results, which can be achieved with your help (e.g., by using your software or by partnering with your specialist).
For the above purpose, case studies work like a charm. Per the same report:
- For 9% of marketers, case studies are also the best method for nurturing leads.
- 23% admit that case studies are beneficial for improving conversions.
Moreover, case studies also help improve your brand’s credibility, especially in the current fake news landscape and dubious claims made without proper credits.
Ultimately, case studies naturally help build up more compelling, relatable stories and showcase your product benefits through the prism of extra social proof, courtesy of the case study subject.

Popular Case Study Format Types
Most case studies come either as a slide deck or as a downloadable PDF document.
Typically, you have several options to distribute your case study for maximum reach:
- Case study presentations — in-person, virtual, or pre-recorded, there are many times when a case study presentation comes in handy. For example, during client workshops, sales pitches, networking events, conferences, trade shows, etc.
- Dedicated website page — highlighting case study examples on your website is a great way to convert middle on the funnel prospects. Google’s Think With Google case study section is a great example of a web case study design done right.

- Blog case studies — data-driven storytelling is a staunch way to stand apart from your competition by providing unique insights, no other brand can tell.
- Video case studies — video is a great medium for showcasing more complex business cases and celebrating customer success stories.
How to Write a Case Study: a 4-Step Framework
Once you decide on your case study format, the next step is collecting data and then translating it into a storyline. There are different case study methods and research approaches you can use to procure data.
But let’s say you already have all your facts straight and need to organize them in a clean copy for your presentation deck. Here’s how you should do it.

1. Identify the Problem
Every compelling case study research starts with a problem statement definition. While in business settings, there’s no need to explain your methodology in-depth; you should still open your presentation with a quick problem recap slide.
Be sure to mention:
- What’s the purpose of the case study? What will the audience learn?
- Set the scene. Explain the before, aka the problems someone was facing.
- Advertise the main issues and findings without highlighting specific details.
The above information should nicely fit in several paragraphs or 2-3 case study template slides
2. Explain the Solution
The bulk of your case study copy and presentation slides should focus on the provided solution(s). This is the time to speak at lengths about how the subject went from before to the glorious after.
Here are some writing prompts to help you articulate this better:
- State the subject’s main objective and goals. What outcomes were they after?
- Explain the main solution(s) provided. What was done? Why this, but not that?
- Mention if they tried any alternatives. Why did those work? Why were you better?
This part may take the longest to write. Don’t rush it and reiterate several times. Sprinkle in some powerful words and catchphrases to make your copy more compelling.
3. Collect Testimonials
Persuasive case studies feature the voice of customer (VoC) data — first-party testimonials and assessments of how well the solution work. These provide extra social proof and credibility to all the claims you are making.
So plan and schedule interviews with your subjects to collect their input and testimonials. Also, design your case study interview questions in a way that lets you obtain the quantifiable result.
4. Package The Information in a Slide Deck
Once you have a rough first draft, try different business case templates and designs to see how these help structure all the available information.
As a rule of thumb, try to keep one big idea per slide. If you are talking about a solution, first present the general bullet points. Then give each solution a separate slide where you’ll provide more context and perhaps share some quantifiable results.
For example, if you look at case study presentation examples from AWS like this one about Stripe , you’ll notice that the slide deck has few texts and really focuses on the big picture, while the speaker provides extra context.
Need some extra case study presentation design help? Download our Business Case Study PowerPoint template with 100% editable slides.

How to Do a Case Study Presentation: 3 Proven Tips
Your spoken presentation (and public speaking skills ) are equally if not more important than the case study copy and slide deck. To make a strong business case, follow these quick techniques.
Focus on Telling a Great Story
A case study is a story of overcoming a challenge, achieving something grand. Your delivery should reflect that. Step away from the standard “features => benefits” sales formula. Instead, make your customer the hero of the study. Describe the road they went through and how you’ve helped them succeed.
The premises of your story can be as simple as:
- Help with overcoming a hurdle
- Gaining major impact
- Reaching a new milestone
- Solving a persisting issue no one else code
Based on the above, create a clear story arc. Show where your hero started. Then explain what type of a journey they went through. Inject some emotions in the mix to make your narrative more relatable and memorable.
Experiment with Copywriting Formulas
Copywriting is the art and science of organizing words into compelling and persuasive combinations which help readers retain the right ideas.
To ensure that the audience retains the right takeaways from your case study presentation, you can try using some of the classic copywriting formulas to structure your delivery. These include:
- AIDCA — short for A ttention, I nterest, D esire, C onviction, and A ction. First, grab the audience’s attention by addressing the major problem. Next, pique their interest with some teaser facts. Spark their desire by showing that you know the right way out. Then, show a conviction that you know how to solve the issue—finally, prompt follow-up action such as contacting you to learn more.
- PADS — short for P roblem, A gitation, D iscredit, S olution. This is more of a salesy approach to case study narration. Again, you start with a problem, agitate about its importance, discredit why other solutions won’t cut it, and then present your option.
- 4Ps — short for P roblem, P romise, P roof, P roposal. This is a middle-ground option that prioritizes storytelling over hard pitches. Set the scene first with a problem. Then make a promise of how you can solve it. Show proof in the form of numbers, testimonials, and different scenarios. Round it up with a proposal for getting the same outcomes.
Take an Emotion-Inducing Perspectives
The key to building a strong rapport with an audience is showing that you are one of them and fully understand what they are going through.
One of the ways to build this connection is speaking from an emotion-inducing perspective. This is best illustrated with an example:
- A business owner went to the bank
- A business owner came into a bank branch
In the second case, the wording prompts listeners to paint a mental picture from the perspective of the bank employees — a role you’d like them to relate to. By placing your audience in the right visual perspective, you can make them more receptive to your pitches.

Final Tip: Use Compelling Presentation Visuals
Our brain is wired to process images much faster than text. So when you are presenting a case study, always look for an opportunity to tie in some illustrations such as:
- A product demo/preview
- Processes chart
- Call-out quotes or numbers
- Custom illustrations or graphics
- Customer or team headshots
Use icons to minimize the volume of texts. Also, opt for readable fonts which can look good in a smaller size too.
Finally, practice your case study presentation several times — solo and together with your team — to collect feedback and make last-moment refinements!
1. Business Case Study PowerPoint Template

To efficiently create a Business Case Study it’s important to ask all the right questions and document everything necessary, therefore this PowerPoint Template will provide all the sections you need.
Use This Template
2. Medical Case Study PowerPoint Template

3. Medical Infographics PowerPoint Templates

4. Success Story PowerPoint Template

5. Detective Research PowerPoint Template

6. Animated Clinical Study PowerPoint Templates

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Business Intelligence, Business Planning, Business PowerPoint Templates, Content Marketing, Feasibility Study, Marketing, Marketing Strategy Filed under Business
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Case Studies

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- DOI: 10.1177/00222437221115616
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Writing A Case Study

A Complete Case Study Writing Guide With Examples
10 min read
Published on: Jun 14, 2019
Last updated on: Dec 19, 2022

On This Page On This Page
Knowing how to write a case study is one of the core skills you will need in college. You may feel overwhelmed when you have to write a case study analysis because it requires good analytical and writing skills. But, with practice, you can master this art easily.
If you have to submit a case study soon and you have absolutely no idea where to start from, then this is the right place for you.
Relax and read this blog post to learn how to write a case study assignment in an efficient manner.
Case Study Definition
“What exactly is a case study?”
A case study critically assesses an event, a place, personality, or situation to draw a conclusion. It uses all background information to identify the key problems and recommend further action.
However, you must polish your analytical skills to master case study analysis.
A good case study demonstrates the excellent academic skills of students. But, planning is an important step, especially if you do not want to get into any complicated situation.
To help you write the case study easily, we have explained everything in detail in this blog. Here, you can learn all about the types of case studies and how to write one properly and successfully.

Paper Due? Why Suffer? That's our Job
Types of Case Study
Here are different types of case study that you are most likely to deal with in your academic years.
- Illustrative case study
- Exploratory case study
- Cumulative case study
- Critical instance case study
No matter what type you are writing, you will need to present detailed answers and explanations about the case study questions.
How to Start a Case Study?
“How is the case study done?”
Here are the steps that you need to follow for a smooth start to a case study writing process.
1. Identifying the Problem
The very first step in starting a case-control study is to identify the problem. For example, examining the incompetence of KFC to bring a substantial rise in the revenue.
2. Ponder the Root Source
Problems may originate from an incorrect marketing strategy or the flawed structure of the supply chain.
3. Create an Outline
Ask yourself, what should be the main points of the case study. You shouldn’t keep mixing methods and solutions in the essay. Gather at least 3 to 4 main points to explain in your case study and form an organized outline.
4. Potential Solutions
If you are a student, brainstorm and propose a solution to a social issue or any relevant topic. Keep in mind that different case study subjects have different requirements.
For example, in the business world, the marketing and sales teams write case studies to analyze how their products and services could solve the problems of potential customers. Or how their product would affect their social media audience.
How to Write a Case Study?
After making a basic case study analysis, there are some specific steps that you need to follow for writing a perfect case study. These are given below:
1. Introduction
Identify the key issue and write a solid thesis statement in 1-2 sentences. As with any other paper, your case study introduction should serve as a roadmap for your readers.
Your introduction should not only identify the research problem and its significance. But also discuss why this specific case is being written and how it relates to addressing the problem.
A good introduction must answer the following questions:
- What is being studied?
- Why is the issue important to investigate?
- How will this research advance new knowledge or ways of understanding?
2. Background Information
Incorporate relevant issues and facts and conduct extensive research on the problem. This is the point where you need to demonstrate how well you have researched your problem.
3. Alternative Solutions
Highlight alternative solutions for the problem to come up with the best solutions. Don’t forget to briefly outline the most viable solutions and evaluate their advantages and disadvantages.
4. Main Answer
Always provide a realistic answer to the question asked in the case. Explain the rationale for choosing the solution and justify it. Explain why this solution is proved to be the best and support it with solid evidence.
You can also utilize concepts from class discussions, lectures, and text readings to help your view. Make sure you have incorporated outside research and personal experiences if necessary.
5. Recommendations
Locate specific strategies to accomplish the solution. Suggest further actions and then outline the implementation plan.
Here are the points that you need to focus on when writing recommendations
- Choose which of the alternative solutions should be adopted.
- Briefly write about your choice and explain how it will solve the problem.
- Integrate the theory and coursework here.
These are the basic steps that you need to follow for writing any type of case study. However, you can add or remove the sections depending upon the requirements of the case study you are working on.
Case Study Research
A case study is a detailed study of a person, group, event, place, phenomenon, or organization. Case study methods are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research.
A case study research design usually involves qualitative research methods, but in some cases, qualitative research is also used.
Case studies are great for describing, comparing, evaluating, and understanding different aspects of a research problem.
Case study research revolves around single and multiple case studies. It also includes quantitative evidence, relies on multiple sources, and benefits from the prior development of previous research.
Before starting writing your case study, research and think about what you want to learn or prove. You might be aiming to learn how a company develops a new product. You need to base your research questions around the purpose that you want to achieve.
Case Study Format
The only thing that matters, in the end, is the score. Figure out the required case study format and strictly adhere to it.
APA and MLA are the leading case study formats used in various institutions.
Writing a Case Study
Abstract adds to the spice of the paper. Try to craft a solid, brief, and sound abstract as it has immense power to impress or annoy your professors. A common reader also usually reads abstracts to decide if he wants to study the paper.
Have a look at the following components involved in proofreading. It can remove the mistakes and typos of your paper.
- Check for inconsistencies in the flow, structure, or content
- Check if the thesis statement is sound and clear
- Investigate the evidence to be relevant, productive, and credible
- Revisit formatting
How to Cite a Case Study?
Citing sources is an integral part. Four kinds of formatting techniques are used to cite case studies:
- Chicago style format
- Harvard style format
Case Study Outline
Let’s explore the way an outline is constructed in problem-oriented papers. Make sure that you outline your case study tactfully. You may find thousands of case study templates on the internet for your help.
Here are the main parts of mainstream educational case studies that you can follow.

Case Study Analysis
A successful case study analyzes a real-life situation and provides a great opportunity to gather evidence. It challenges existing assumptions about a problem and provides a new set of recommendations.
Critical thinking and analytical skills matter the most in case studies. They differentiate ordinary paper from outstanding one.
Ensure that your analysis goes through the following techniques.
Thoroughly read the case and brainstorm ideas for the different solutions. Do not rely on one solution.
Locate ideas that sound the most interesting, as they will form the solution. Be extra careful, as picking the wrong solution is the most common mistake.
Don’t rush to write the case study neatly in the first step. Take some time to build a neat one.
Case Study Examples
Examples are a great way to learn how to do a case study. That’s why we have also compiled a bunch of interesting case study examples that you can go through before starting writing.
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Case Study Introduction Example
The introduction is the first thing that your readers are going to interact with. So, it is important to formulate a captivating introduction to draw the reader’s attention. Make sure to include a thesis statement and summarize the outcome into 1-2 sentences.
You can also refer to the following example of a case study and learn how to write an interesting introduction.
UX Case Study Example
UX case studies are a great example of design work that designers include in their portfolios. To give you more insights, here is a UX case study design example that you can refer to.
Amazon Case Study Example
Are you looking for an Amazon case study example? Look at this detailed example and learn how to write a case study analysis.
Business Case Study Example
In particular, a business case study focuses on telling a story of how your product or service helped people in achieving their short or long-term goals. You can also read this example and understand the essential elements of writing a great case study.
APA Format Case Study Example
Wondering how to write a case study in APA format? Keep in mind that there are certain APA format guidelines that you need to follow throughout.
Refer to this APA format case study example for more help.
Psychology Case Study Example
A case study in psychology refers to the use of a descriptive research approach for an in-depth analysis of a subject such as a person, group, or organization.
Below we have provided a great example for you to learn how to write a case study in psychology.
Medical Case Study Example
A medical case study is a detailed report of the symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. If you need to submit a medical case study soon, the following example will help you start the writing process.
Get Expert Case Study Writing Help
We hope now the idea of making a case study would not haunt you. By now, you must be confident enough to take your pen and start working on your case study. However, it may take some time to develop and polish your craft.
Follow the rules defined in this guide and practice writing case studies.
Case study writing can be tricky as it is designed to help students demonstrate an understanding of a particular topic and how it affects the surrounding. Since it is such a difficult paper to write - an increasing number of students turn to case study writing services for help.
If you are also facing difficulty writing a great case study, then the best option is to hire an online writing service . Expert case study writers at MyPerfectWords.com can help you write your study according to your requirements and ahead of your deadline.
Hire our essay writer now to get a perfect case study on time!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of a case study.
The objective of a case study is to do intensive research on a specific matter, such as individuals or communities. It's often used for academic purposes where you want the reader to know all factors involved in your subject while also understanding the processes at play.
What are the sources of a case study?
Some common sources of a case study include:
- Archival records
- Direct observations and encounters
- Participant observation
- Facts and statistics
- Physical artifacts
What is the sample size of a case study?
A normally acceptable size of a case study is 30-50. However, the final number depends on the scope of your study and the on-ground demographic realities.
Barbara P (Literature, Marketing)
Dr. Barbara is a highly experienced writer and author who holds a Ph.D. degree in public health from an Ivy League school. She has worked in the medical field for many years, conducting extensive research on various health topics. Her writing has been featured in several top-tier publications.
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How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: January 12, 2023
Earning the trust of prospective customers can be a struggle. Before you can even begin to expect to earn their business, you need to demonstrate your ability to deliver on what your product or service promises.

Sure, you could say that you're great at X or that you're way ahead of the competition when it comes to Y. But at the end of the day, what you really need to win new business is cold, hard proof.
One of the best ways to prove your worth is through a compelling case study. In fact, HubSpot’s 2020 State of Marketing report found that case studies are so compelling that they are the fifth most commonly used type of content used by marketers.

Below, I'll walk you through what a case study is, how to prepare for writing one, what you need to include in it, and how it can be an effective tactic. To jump to different areas of this post, click on the links below to automatically scroll.
Case Study Definition
Case study templates, how to write a case study.
- How to Format a Case Study
Business Case Study Examples
A case study is a specific challenge a business has faced, and the solution they've chosen to solve it. Case studies can vary greatly in length and focus on several details related to the initial challenge and applied solution, and can be presented in various forms like a video, white paper, blog post, etc.
In professional settings, it's common for a case study to tell the story of a successful business partnership between a vendor and a client. Perhaps the success you're highlighting is in the number of leads your client generated, customers closed, or revenue gained. Any one of these key performance indicators (KPIs) are examples of your company's services in action.
When done correctly, these examples of your work can chronicle the positive impact your business has on existing or previous customers and help you attract new clients.
To help you arm your prospects with information they can trust, we've put together a step-by-step guide on how to create effective case studies for your business with free case study templates for creating your own.
Tell us a little about yourself below to gain access today:
And to give you more options, we’ll highlight some useful templates that serve different needs. But remember, there are endless possibilities when it comes to demonstrating the work your business has done.
1. General Case Study Template

Additionally, a backlink from you increases your subject's page authority in the eyes of Google. This helps them rank more highly in search engine results and collect traffic from readers who are already looking for information about their industry.
6. Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
So you know what you’re going to offer your candidate, it’s time that you prepare the resources needed for if and when they agree to participate, like a case study release form and success story letter.
Let's break those two down.
Case Study Release Form
This document can vary, depending on factors like the size of your business, the nature of your work, and what you intend to do with the case studies once they are completed. That said, you should typically aim to include the following in the Case Study Release Form:
- A clear explanation of why you are creating this case study and how it will be used.
- A statement defining the information and potentially trademarked information you expect to include about the company — things like names, logos, job titles, and pictures.
- An explanation of what you expect from the participant, beyond the completion of the case study. For example, is this customer willing to act as a reference or share feedback, and do you have permission to pass contact information along for these purposes?
- A note about compensation.
Success Story Letter
As noted in the sample email, this document serves as an outline for the entire case study process. Other than a brief explanation of how the customer will benefit from case study participation, you'll want to be sure to define the following steps in the Success Story Letter.
7. Download a case study email template.
While you gathered your resources, your candidate has gotten time to read over the proposal. When your candidate approves of your case study, it's time to send them a release form.
A case study release form tells you what you'll need from your chosen subject, like permission to use any brand names and share the project information publicly. Kick-off this process with an email that runs through exactly what they can expect from you, as well as what you need from them. To give you an idea of what that might look like, check out this sample email:

8. Define the process you want to follow with the client.
Before you can begin the case study, you have to have a clear outline of the case study process with your client. An example of an effective outline would include the following information.
The Acceptance
First, you'll need to receive internal approval from the company's marketing team. Once approved, the Release Form should be signed and returned to you. It's also a good time to determine a timeline that meets the needs and capabilities of both teams.
The Questionnaire
To ensure that you have a productive interview — which is one of the best ways to collect information for the case study — you'll want to ask the participant to complete a questionnaire before this conversation. That will provide your team with the necessary foundation to organize the interview, and get the most out of it.
The Interview
Once the questionnaire is completed, someone on your team should reach out to the participant to schedule a 30- to 60-minute interview, which should include a series of custom questions related to the customer's experience with your product or service.
The Draft Review
After the case study is composed, you'll want to send a draft to the customer, allowing an opportunity to give you feedback and edits.
The Final Approval
Once any necessary edits are completed, send a revised copy of the case study to the customer for final approval.
Once the case study goes live — on your website or elsewhere — it's best to contact the customer with a link to the page where the case study lives. Don't be afraid to ask your participants to share these links with their own networks, as it not only demonstrates your ability to deliver positive results and impressive growth, as well.
9. Ensure you're asking the right questions.
Before you execute the questionnaire and actual interview, make sure you're setting yourself up for success. A strong case study results from being prepared to ask the right questions. What do those look like? Here are a few examples to get you started:
- What are your goals?
- What challenges were you experiencing before purchasing our product or service?
- What made our product or service stand out against our competitors?
- What did your decision-making process look like?
- How have you benefited from using our product or service? (Where applicable, always ask for data.)
Keep in mind that the questionnaire is designed to help you gain insights into what sort of strong, success-focused questions to ask during the actual interview. And once you get to that stage, we recommend that you follow the "Golden Rule of Interviewing." Sounds fancy, right? It's actually quite simple — ask open-ended questions.
If you're looking to craft a compelling story, "yes" or "no" answers won't provide the details you need. Focus on questions that invite elaboration, such as, "Can you describe ...?" or, "Tell me about ..."
In terms of the interview structure, we recommend categorizing the questions and flowing them into six specific sections that will mirror a successful case study format. Combined, they'll allow you to gather enough information to put together a rich, comprehensive study.
Open with the customer's business.
The goal of this section is to generate a better understanding of the company's current challenges and goals, and how they fit into the landscape of their industry. Sample questions might include:
- How long have you been in business?
- How many employees do you have?
- What are some of the objectives of your department at this time?
Cite a problem or pain point.
To tell a compelling story, you need context. That helps match the customer's need with your solution. Sample questions might include:
- What challenges and objectives led you to look for a solution?
- What might have happened if you did not identify a solution?
- Did you explore other solutions before this that did not work out? If so, what happened?
Discuss the decision process.
Exploring how the customer decided to work with you helps to guide potential customers through their own decision-making processes. Sample questions might include:
- How did you hear about our product or service?
- Who was involved in the selection process?
- What was most important to you when evaluating your options?
Explain how a solution was implemented.
The focus here should be placed on the customer's experience during the onboarding process. Sample questions might include:
- How long did it take to get up and running?
- Did that meet your expectations?
- Who was involved in the process?
Explain how the solution works.
The goal of this section is to better understand how the customer is using your product or service. Sample questions might include:
- Is there a particular aspect of the product or service that you rely on most?
- Who is using the product or service?
End with the results.
In this section, you want to uncover impressive measurable outcomes — the more numbers, the better. Sample questions might include:
- How is the product or service helping you save time and increase productivity?
- In what ways does that enhance your competitive advantage?
- How much have you increased metrics X, Y, and Z?
10. Lay out your case study format.
When it comes time to take all of the information you've collected and actually turn it into something, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Where should you start? What should you include? What's the best way to structure it?
To help you get a handle on this step, it's important to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the ways you can present a case study. They can be very visual, which you'll see in some of the examples we've included below, and can sometimes be communicated mostly through video or photos, with a bit of accompanying text.
Here are the sections we suggest, which we'll cover in more detail down below:
- Title: Keep it short. Develop a succinct but interesting project name you can give the work you did with your subject.
- Subtitle: Use this copy to briefly elaborate on the accomplishment. What was done? The case study itself will explain how you got there.
- Executive Summary : A 2-4 sentence summary of the entire story. You'll want to follow it with 2-3 bullet points that display metrics showcasing success.
- About the Subject: An introduction to the person or company you served, which can be pulled from a LinkedIn Business profile or client website.
- Challenges and Objectives: A 2-3 paragraph description of the customer's challenges, before using your product or service. This section should also include the goals or objectives the customer set out to achieve.
- How Product/Service Helped: A 2-3 paragraph section that describes how your product or service provided a solution to their problem.
- Results: A 2-3 paragraph testimonial that proves how your product or service specifically benefited the person or company and helped achieve its goals. Include numbers to quantify your contributions.
- Supporting Visuals or Quotes: Pick one or two powerful quotes that you would feature at the bottom of the sections above, as well as a visual that supports the story you are telling.
- Future Plans: Everyone likes an epilogue. Comment on what's ahead for your case study subject, whether or not those plans involve you.
- Call to Action (CTA): Not every case study needs a CTA, but putting a passive one at the end of your case study can encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.
When laying out your case study, focus on conveying the information you've gathered in the most clear and concise way possible. Make it easy to scan and comprehend, and be sure to provide an attractive call-to-action at the bottom — that should provide readers an opportunity to learn more about your product or service.
11. Publish and promote your case study.
Once you've completed your case study, it's time to publish and promote it. Some case study formats have pretty obvious promotional outlets — a video case study can go on YouTube, just as an infographic case study can go on Pinterest.
But there are still other ways to publish and promote your case study. Here are a couple of ideas:
Lead Gen in a Blog Post
As stated earlier in this article, written case studies make terrific lead-generators if you convert them into a downloadable format, like a PDF. To generate leads from your case study, consider writing a blog post that tells an abbreviated story of your client's success and asking readers to fill out a form with their name and email address if they'd like to read the rest in your PDF.
Then, promote this blog post on social media, through a Facebook post or a tweet.
Published as a Page on Your Website
As a growing business, you might need to display your case study out in the open to gain the trust of your target audience.
Rather than gating it behind a landing page, publish your case study to its own page on your website, and direct people here from your homepage with a "Case Studies" or "Testimonials" button along your homepage's top navigation bar.
Format for a Case Study
The traditional case study format includes the following parts: a title and subtitle, a client profile, a summary of the customer’s challenges and objectives, an account of how your solution helped, and a description of the results. You might also want to include supporting visuals and quotes, future plans, and calls-to-action.

Image Source
The title is one of the most important parts of your case study. It should draw readers in while succinctly describing the potential benefits of working with your company. To that end, your title should:
- State the name of your custome r. Right away, the reader must learn which company used your products and services. This is especially important if your customer has a recognizable brand. If you work with individuals and not companies, you may omit the name and go with professional titles: “A Marketer…”, “A CFO…”, and so forth.
- State which product your customer used . Even if you only offer one product or service, or if your company name is the same as your product name, you should still include the name of your solution. That way, readers who are not familiar with your business can become aware of what you sell.
- Allude to the results achieved . You don’t necessarily need to provide hard numbers, but the title needs to represent the benefits, quickly. That way, if a reader doesn’t stay to read, they can walk away with the most essential information: Your product works.
The example above, “Crunch Fitness Increases Leads and Signups With HubSpot,” achieves all three — without being wordy. Keeping your title short and sweet is also essential.
2. Subtitle

Your subtitle is another essential part of your case study — don’t skip it, even if you think you’ve done the work with the title. In this section, include a brief summary of the challenges your customer was facing before they began to use your products and services. Then, drive the point home by reiterating the benefits your customer experienced by working with you.
The above example reads:
“Crunch Fitness was franchising rapidly when COVID-19 forced fitness clubs around the world to close their doors. But the company stayed agile by using HubSpot to increase leads and free trial signups.”
We like that the case study team expressed the urgency of the problem — opening more locations in the midst of a pandemic — and placed the focus on the customer’s ability to stay agile.
3. Executive Summary

The executive summary should provide a snapshot of your customer, their challenges, and the benefits they enjoyed from working with you. Think it’s too much? Think again — the purpose of the case study is to emphasize, again and again, how well your product works.
The good news is that depending on your design, the executive summary can be mixed with the subtitle or with the “About the Company” section. Many times, this section doesn’t need an explicit “Executive Summary” subheading. You do need, however, to provide a convenient snapshot for readers to scan.
In the above example, ADP included information about its customer in a scannable bullet-point format, then provided two sections: “Business Challenge” and “How ADP Helped.” We love how simple and easy the format is to follow for those who are unfamiliar with ADP or its typical customer.
4. About the Company

Readers need to know and understand who your customer is. This is important for several reasons: It helps your reader potentially relate to your customer, it defines your ideal client profile (which is essential to deter poor-fit prospects who might have reached out without knowing they were a poor fit), and it gives your customer an indirect boon by subtly promoting their products and services.
Feel free to keep this section as simple as possible. You can simply copy and paste information from the company’s LinkedIn, use a quote directly from your customer, or take a more creative storytelling approach.
In the above example, HubSpot included one paragraph of description for Crunch Fitness and a few bullet points. Below, ADP tells the story of its customer using an engaging, personable technique that effectively draws readers in.

5. Challenges and Objectives

The challenges and objectives section of your case study is the place to lay out, in detail, the difficulties your customer faced prior to working with you — and what they hoped to achieve when they enlisted your help.
In this section, you can be as brief or as descriptive as you’d like, but remember: Stress the urgency of the situation. Don’t understate how much your customer needed your solution (but don’t exaggerate and lie, either). Provide contextual information as necessary. For instance, the pandemic and societal factors may have contributed to the urgency of the need.
Take the above example from design consultancy IDEO:
“Educational opportunities for adults have become difficult to access in the United States, just when they’re needed most. To counter this trend, IDEO helped the city of South Bend and the Drucker Institute launch Bendable, a community-powered platform that connects people with opportunities to learn with and from each other.”
We love how IDEO mentions the difficulties the United States faces at large, the efforts its customer is taking to address these issues, and the steps IDEO took to help.
6. How Product/Service Helped

This is where you get your product or service to shine. Cover the specific benefits that your customer enjoyed and the features they gleaned the most use out of. You can also go into detail about how you worked with and for your customer. Maybe you met several times before choosing the right solution, or you consulted with external agencies to create the best package for them.
Whatever the case may be, try to illustrate how easy and pain-free it is to work with the representatives at your company. After all, potential customers aren’t looking to just purchase a product. They’re looking for a dependable provider that will strive to exceed their expectations.
In the above example, IDEO describes how it partnered with research institutes and spoke with learners to create Bendable, a free educational platform. We love how it shows its proactivity and thoroughness. It makes potential customers feel that IDEO might do something similar for them.
The results are essential, and the best part is that you don’t need to write the entirety of the case study before sharing them. Like HubSpot, IDEO, and ADP, you can include the results right below the subtitle or executive summary. Use data and numbers to substantiate the success of your efforts, but if you don’t have numbers, you can provide quotes from your customers.
We can’t overstate the importance of the results. In fact, if you wanted to create a short case study, you could include your title, challenge, solution (how your product helped), and result.
8. Supporting Visuals or Quotes

Let your customer speak for themselves by including quotes from the representatives who directly interfaced with your company.
Visuals can also help, even if they’re stock images. On one side, they can help you convey your customer’s industry, and on the other, they can indirectly convey your successes. For instance, a picture of a happy professional — even if they’re not your customer — will communicate that your product can lead to a happy client.
In this example from IDEO, we see a man standing in a boat. IDEO’s customer is neither the man pictured nor the manufacturer of the boat, but rather Conservation International, an environmental organization. This imagery provides a visually pleasing pattern interrupt to the page, while still conveying what the case study is about.
9. Future Plans
This is optional, but including future plans can help you close on a more positive, personable note than if you were to simply include a quote or the results. In this space, you can show that your product will remain in your customer’s tech stack for years to come, or that your services will continue to be instrumental to your customer’s success.
Alternatively, if you work only on time-bound projects, you can allude to the positive impact your customer will continue to see, even after years of the end of the contract.
10. Call to Action (CTA)

Not every case study needs a CTA, but we’d still encourage it. Putting one at the end of your case study will encourage your readers to take an action on your website after learning about the work you've done.
It will also make it easier for them to reach out, if they’re ready to start immediately. You don’t want to lose business just because they have to scroll all the way back up to reach out to your team.
To help you visualize this case study outline, check out the case study template below, which can also be downloaded here .
You drove the results, made the connection, set the expectations, used the questionnaire to conduct a successful interview, and boiled down your findings into a compelling story. And after all of that, you're left with a little piece of sales enabling gold — a case study.
To show you what a well-executed final product looks like, have a look at some of these marketing case study examples.
1. "Shopify Uses HubSpot CRM to Transform High Volume Sales Organization," by HubSpot
What's interesting about this case study is the way it leads with the customer. This reflects a major HubSpot value, which is to always solve for the customer first. The copy leads with a brief description of why Shopify uses HubSpot and is accompanied by a short video and some basic statistics on the company.
Notice that this case study uses mixed media. Yes, there is a short video, but it's elaborated upon in the additional text on the page. So, while case studies can use one or the other, don't be afraid to combine written copy with visuals to emphasize the project's success.
2. "New England Journal of Medicine," by Corey McPherson Nash
When branding and design studio Corey McPherson Nash showcases its work, it makes sense for it to be visual — after all, that's what they do. So in building the case study for the studio's work on the New England Journal of Medicine's integrated advertising campaign — a project that included the goal of promoting the client's digital presence — Corey McPherson Nash showed its audience what it did, rather than purely telling it.
Notice that the case study does include some light written copy — which includes the major points we've suggested — but lets the visuals do the talking, allowing users to really absorb the studio's services.
3. "Designing the Future of Urban Farming," by IDEO
Here's a design company that knows how to lead with simplicity in its case studies. As soon as the visitor arrives at the page, he or she is greeted with a big, bold photo, and two very simple columns of text — "The Challenge" and "The Outcome."
Immediately, IDEO has communicated two of the case study's major pillars. And while that's great — the company created a solution for vertical farming startup INFARM's challenge — it doesn't stop there. As the user scrolls down, those pillars are elaborated upon with comprehensive (but not overwhelming) copy that outlines what that process looked like, replete with quotes and additional visuals.
4. "Secure Wi-Fi Wins Big for Tournament," by WatchGuard
Then, there are the cases when visuals can tell almost the entire story — when executed correctly. Network security provider WatchGuard can do that through this video, which tells the story of how its services enhanced the attendee and vendor experience at the Windmill Ultimate Frisbee tournament.
5. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Boosts Social Media Engagement and Brand Awareness with HubSpot
In the case study above , HubSpot uses photos, videos, screenshots, and helpful stats to tell the story of how the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame used the bot, CRM, and social media tools to gain brand awareness.
6. Small Desk Plant Business Ups Sales by 30% With Trello
This case study from Trello is straightforward and easy to understand. It begins by explaining the background of the company that decided to use it, what its goals were, and how it planned to use Trello to help them.
It then goes on to discuss how the software was implemented and what tasks and teams benefited from it. Towards the end, it explains the sales results that came from implementing the software and includes quotes from decision-makers at the company that implemented it.
7. Facebook's Mercedes Benz Success Story
Facebook's Success Stories page hosts a number of well-designed and easy-to-understand case studies that visually and editorially get to the bottom line quickly.
Each study begins with key stats that draw the reader in. Then it's organized by highlighting a problem or goal in the introduction, the process the company took to reach its goals, and the results. Then, in the end, Facebook notes the tools used in the case study.
Showcasing Your Work
You work hard at what you do. Now, it's time to show it to the world — and, perhaps more important, to potential customers. Before you show off the projects that make you the proudest, we hope you follow these important steps that will help you effectively communicate that work and leave all parties feeling good about it.
Editor's Note: This blog post was originally published in February 2017 but was updated for comprehensiveness and freshness in July 2021.

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Sugar substitute erythritol, common in keto foods, may increase your risk for stroke

A sweetener found in nature and often added to diet products, particularly for the ketogenic diet, may actually contribute to clogged arteries and strokes, a new study suggests .
People with the highest level of the sugar substitute erythritol in their blood were shown to have twice the risk for stroke, blood clot or death compared with those with the lowest level.
Animal and lab studies reinforced the idea that erythritol might cause clots, said Dr. Stanley Hazen, who led the research and chairs the department of cardiovascular and metabolic sciences at the Cleveland Clinic.
"The very group of people most vulnerable to experiencing adverse cardiac events are the ones we're recommending these kinds of dietary foods for," he said.
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What is erythritol?
Erythritol, considered a sugar alcohol, has no calories and is found naturally at low levels in some foods , including grapes, mushrooms, pears, watermelon, beer, cheese, sake, soy sauce and wine.
The sugar substitute is added to many processed foods and beverages and is commonly found in products targeting people on the ketogenic diet because it does not affect blood glucose. Erythritol is also an ingredient in the sweetener Truvia .
Though many sweeteners provide intense flavor and need to be used in small concentrations, erythritol's sweetness is close to that of sugar, so it can be used as a substitute in baking.
The body actually produces erythritol but at levels well below what's found with the added sweetener, according to research from Karsten Hiller, a biochemist and specialist in human metabolism at the Braunschweig Institute of Technology in Germany.
Current federal guidelines do not require that erythritol has to be included on a product's ingredient list, Hazen said. The label might simply say "artificially sweetened with natural products," or "zero sugar."
Study suggests erythritol promotes blood clots
Hazen initially set out to study the factors that lead people to have heart attacks and strokes even when they're treated for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and smoking cessation. Roughly half of treated people have this so-called residual cardiovascular risk.
For the study published Monday in Nature Medicine , his team collected blood from 1,157 volunteers undergoing cardiac risk assessment. They looked for chemical signatures in the blood and tracked who had a heart attack, stroke or died over the next three years.
Erythritol was "at the very top of the list" of compounds that predicted subjects at highest risk for a bad outcome, he said. High blood levels of erythritol seemed to lower the threshold for triggering a clot.
Then the researchers tested the sugar substitute in mice and in human blood in the lab, looking to explain why this might have happened.
That exploration strongly suggests erythritol promotes blood clots. "This is a new pathway we think is contributing to residual cardiovascular risk," Hazen said.
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What does other research on erythritol show?
“The results of this study are contrary to decades of scientific research showing reduced-calorie sweeteners like erythritol are safe,” said Robert Rankin, executive director of the Calorie Control Council, an association representing the low- and reduced-calorie food and beverage industry. The people in the study were at increased risk for cardiovascular problems, Rankin said in a statement, so the results "should not be extrapolated to the general population."
Other studies have also raised questions about the role of erythritol.
In a paper published in 2017 , Hiller and colleagues showed that Cornell University freshmen who had a lot of erythritol in their blood at the beginning of their first year gained more weight than students with low levels.
Whether the erythritol was simply a sign someone was likely to gain weight or a cause of it remains a question, said Martha Field, a Cornell researcher who was not involved in the work but has studied erythritol since.
"It predicts your risk for developing disease," Field said. "Theoretically, you can intervene and make changes."
It's not clear whether people with high blood levels of erythritol are consuming more of it or whether something in their body is leading to that excess, Hiller said. But there's no question eating food with the sweetener in it will dramatically boost blood levels.
Erythritol also can convert into an acid called erythronate, which is commonly found in the tissue of many people with cancer, he said.
Initial safety studies on erythritol looked only at short-term exposure and found the body cleared it quickly. Field studied what happens in mice if they consume it chronically, and she found mice that were fed high levels of erythritol for eight straight weeks retained blood levels of erythritol 30 times above normal for at least five hours.
"It seems to be hanging around longer than we've appreciated," she said.
So, should you stop consuming erythritol?
It is too early to definitively say that erythritol causes problems for people who consume it regularly. High blood levels of erythritol might simply be a marker of problems to come rather than a cause of them.
But in the meantime, Hiller, Hazen and Field all said they intend to stay away from it as much as they can.
Hiller said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should reconsider its classification of the sugar substitute as "generally recognized as safe" and should study it further.
"At the current knowledge we have, I would not recommend people use it."
Contact Karen Weintraub at [email protected]
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.

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A case study is a detailed study of a specific subject, such as a person, group, place, event, organization, or phenomenon. Case studies are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research. A case study research design usually involves qualitative methods, but quantitative methods are sometimes also used.
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A case study is a detailed study of a person, group, event, place, phenomenon, or organization. Case study methods are commonly used in social, educational, clinical, and business research. A case study research design usually involves qualitative research methods, but in some cases, qualitative research is also used.
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Rated 5.00 out of 5 based on 1 customer rating. ( 1 customer review) R 50.00. 69 Downloads. MRL3702 Assignment 1 (Semester 1, 2023) Solutions.
Assignment Instructions Review the Case Study "Paw-Friendly Ice Melt Gets Beefed-up Package" Respond to the following questions: 1) What is the major problem within the case study, related to the content studied course? Explain. 2) Compare and contrast the original and new/improved packaging for the pet frie What key factors made a substantive ...
A sweetener found in nature and often added to diet products, particularly for the ketogenic diet, may actually contribute to clogged arteries and strokes, a new study suggests . People with the ...