Neil Patel says that case studies help him increase his close rate by 70%, and even Apple uses case studies to drive its B2B PR and marketing strategy.
Using video for case studies makes them even more convincing and appealing. Viewers get to see your customer’s face and can decide for themselves if they’re being genuine. Video case studies show the human side of your work, highlight how your company tackles real issues, and add just the right touch of credibility to seal the deal.
We chatted with our award-winning team – who have produced case study videos for governments, charities, global corporations and small businesses – to find out how to make a case study video.
What is a case study video?
Before telling you how to make a case study video, you should first know what we mean by “case study video” and how it’s different from a testimonial video.
A testimonial video is basically a customer’s comment about their experience with your company. In contrast, a case study video digs deeper into the details, showing your product or service in action. It highlights the customer’s main issue, why they picked you, what the experience was like, and the benefits they got from working with you. A case study video may include a testimonial, but that’s just a small piece, usually saved for the end.
Types of case study video
Case study videos can take different forms – they might be filmed interviews; they could be animated with voiceovers and text; or feature real people. They can even be hypothetical.
We usually suggest using real customers in these videos because it feels more genuine and draws people in. Authenticity is key! And to go down the animated route, you’d need a really strong business reason to back it up.
Elements of a successful case study video
To get a case study video right, you’ll need:
- A really successful client project that you want to shout about.
- A customer keen to get involved and endorse you.
- An excellent interview with that customer.
- B-roll and background footage to set the scene.
- Skillful post-production.
- The right narration (if that’s the style you choose).
- Stats and data to add real credibility to the case study video.
Getting more than just a case study video
While your main goal might be to make a case study video, it’s worth considering the other benefits this process can offer. Since your customer has agreed to participate in an interview, you can:
- Create a compelling video case study.
- Strengthen your relationship with the customer.
- Gain insights on how to improve your product or service.
- Identify opportunities to increase sales to this customer.
- Explore whether this customer can refer you to contacts in their network.
If you get the case study film production process right, it can add loads of value beyond the final video.
Creating your case study video plan
At Definition, we’re big advocates of CWAP – Content With A Purpose. Our production process always kicks off by asking: why are we creating this case study video, and who is it intended for?
Once you’ve nailed down those questions, you must put yourself in your target audience’s shoes. What are they most interested in? Typically, it’s more effective to centre your case study video on a specific product or service that addresses a particular problem, rather than a broad overview of the collaboration.
Consider focusing on the narrative. A successful case study, like any other video, needs a compelling storyline. It’s usually best to avoid diving straight into glowing reviews of your company. Instead, begin by setting the scene and outlining the problems the customer was aiming to solve. Having a clear beginning, middle, and end is important.
Choosing the right customer
It might seem counterintuitive, but the ideal customer for your case study video isn’t always your best or happiest client. While that’s a good starting point for your shortlist, it’s more important to choose someone who is relatable and can speak naturally without a script. They should be authoritative, passionate, senior in the case of B2B studies, and articulate. They must also come across as genuine, so the audience believes them, meaning they need to have been involved in the project and know your business well.
It’s always good to remember that a case study that looks great on paper might not translate well to video. The only way to find out is to speak to the potential interviewee first, and you’ll get much more information about their suitability if you can do so on a video call.
Getting your customer on board
Convincing your customer to participate in a case study video is a delicate art. You’re asking them to set aside valuable time to be filmed and to be open about the challenges they faced and how they’ve overcome them. Generally, truly satisfied customers are open to the idea, at least initially. You must handle the practical details effectively.
You’ll significantly increase your chances of success if you make it easy for them to participate by filming at their office, factory, or shop at a convenient time. We strongly believe in giving case study participants the VIP treatment – after all, they’re the stars of the show, so make them feel special. Having your CEO invite them to take part can be effective; consider offering hair and makeup services and organising the case study around a lunch with your senior team.
Make them feel special and they will be happy to help you out.
Create your distribution plan
Now that you’ve nailed down the focus of your case study, figure out who you’ll be interviewing, and have a basic narrative in mind, it’s time to develop your video distribution strategy. And knowing where your case study video will be seen will guide many of your production decisions along the way.
It’s also worth considering aspect ratios. Where will the case study sit? Are you going to use it on socials? We don’t have a strong preference for aspect ratio for case study videos, just that they should work for where they sit. And always think about the use of audio.
Make sure to factor that into your distribution plan – like considering which social platforms automatically mute audio by default.
Case study video pre-production
Pre-production is really important when making a case study video. Here are some of the top considerations:
Never write a script: if the client tries to do this, we stop them! Case studies should be unbiased and natural.
Choose your location wisely: the location should be easily accessible to the contributor, but also visually relevant to the story. That’s often the workplace of the interviewee, or at home if it’s a consumer.
Consider shot lists: we only do this if there’s something technical to convey. Instead, we prefer to come up with some scene ideas, set up what’s required, then choose the specific shots once we are there on location.
Choose the style: often case studies are filmed and include interviews that need to be authentic and human, so that lends itself to warm casual interview styles and slow-motion, fluid b-roll. This can vary though and should be decided based on the subject matter.
Prepare for the interview: this is important. We have provided below a long list of 90 case study interview questions, but please don’t ask them all! Researching them in advance (and answering as many as you can yourself before you speak to the interviewee) is a major part of the case study pre-production process. Your background knowledge will impress the interviewee and it helps you identify opportunities to improve the case study even further.
Make them feel special: we believe in making the whole case study production process incredible for your customer. Whether that’s providing premium food and coffee on set (if you think it’ll go down well!) Or it could mean a celebrity make-up artist preparing them for the interview. Every little helps!
Choose your crew: the standard case study crew is usually a director, camera operator and a sound recordist. We think the best director is one that’s producing the film as well (so they would be a producer/director). They’ll have a detailed understanding of the original brief and what your company wants from the edit when going into the interview.
How to handle the case study filming day
The time has come to shoot your case study! And there are several things to consider on the day of filming, including:
Audio is more important than visuals: if interviewing, get the audio done properly, because the success of a case study video is very much down to what the interviewee is saying.
Hold multiple interviews: we’ll usually try to arrange interviews so that it gives us a variety of soundbites from different perspectives.
Make the interviewee feel comfortable: we’ve mentioned already that we like to make the interviewee feel like a celebrity on the day, but it’s also important that the director puts them at ease. Nervous interviewees are tricky to deal with. Try to relate to them and empathise. The director should take all formality out of the interview and not stress too much about “talking in soundbites”. Instead, just get relaxed content and work around it in the edit.
Ask open-ended questions, letting the interviewee take the answer in the direction they want – and don’t try to put words in their mouth. How they sound is more important than what they say, so let them answer in their own words. Ask questions to help set the scene, warm them up and get some human reactions from them. Tears and laughter are always the best a director can hope for!
Start with the interviews: we always shoot interviews at the start of the day. That way if the subject mentions something specific, we have time after the interview to film visuals to support it.
Get plenty of b-roll: make sure that any b-roll relates to what the subject is talking about. If there isn’t much opportunity to film b-roll, we recommend filming the interview with multiple cameras so that you can make the video interesting without b-roll.
What happens in post- production
After filming, the next step is to get stuck into post-production. Work with your editor to narrow down all useable interview clips into a shortlist (this is called a sync pull).
Then, order all the shortlisted clips into a coherent narrative that everyone is happy with. This is called a sync assembly.
Add all the beautiful b-roll, and motion graphics or animation if you’re trying to show something that can’t be easily shown with film. Add music, voice over (if needed) and send your video off to have closed captions produced.
Promoting and distributing your case study video
Your promotion plan should be a part of your distribution strategy. We always recommend getting your customer involved in helping you promote the video. And don’t forget to thank them for their contribution! Just have a think about where your customers hang out. Your website is a given, but what about LinkedIn? Or Instagram?
90 questions to ask in a case study interview
This might seem like a lot to keep in mind, but the key is to focus on what your target audience needs and how to effectively extract information from your interviewee. We certainly wouldn’t recommend asking all of these! Aim for answers that are brief, can stand alone as soundbites (so the audience gets what the question was), and are rich with emotion.
Avoid just reading off a list of questions! Instead, use these as a guide for a relaxed conversation with the interviewee. The director should know when to push for more insightful answers and when to be satisfied with what you have.
Start with the admin questions
- Can I confirm the spelling of your name?
- Can I confirm that your job title is ______?
- Can I confirm that your company name is spelled ______?
- Which social networks do you use personally?
Learn about the company
- I’ve read a little about your company, but perhaps you can share in your own words what ________ does?
- Can I confirm that the company has been around since____?
- And how long has your department been going?
- How many employees do you have?
- What is your revenue?
- Are we allowed to include revenue data in the case study?
- How many geographies do you operate in?
- Understand the products and services
- Can you please tell me a little bit about the products and services you offer?
- Who is your target customer?
Get your head around their role
- I know that your job title is _____, but what does your day-to-day role involve?
- What are the objectives of your role?
- How long have you been in the role?
- How big is your team?
- How does your team achieve company goals?
- Who do you report to?
Clarify their relationship with your own business
- How long have you been using our product or services?
- How did you first come across us
- How long had you been looking?
- What did you do before using our product?
- What were the physical costs of this process?
- What were the human resources costs of this process?
- What was the opportunity cost of this process?
- How were your customers impacted by this process?
- What other challenges were you facing?
- What were the major challenges you were facing to prompt you to look for a product?
- Did our product replace another or was this the first time you had used such a product or services?
- What were your biggest concerns or reservations before using our product or service?
- Why didn’t you buy our product or similar product earlier?
- What reservations did you have during the buying process?
- What was the best thing about the buying process?
- What was the worst thing about the buying process?
- What would you change about the buying process?
- How did you find the buying process? What was your experience?
- How was the onboarding process?
- What factors were important to you when choosing a product like ours?
- Which alternatives did you consider?
- What were the major reasons you chose us?
- What decision-making criteria were there?
- Who was involved in the decision to buy?
- How long did it take to get set up or onboarded?
- How many people in your company use our product?
- How do you use the product?
- Your company is currently doing _____ with our product. How is that helping your business?
- Which features do you use the most?
- Which features do you like the most?
- Which features do you dislike the most?
- Have you had to use our customer support services?
- How have you found these services?
- What is the biggest advantage our product has offered to your business?
- Were there any surprising advantages of using our product?
- What metrics do you track to do with our product?
- Did you track these metrics before using our product?
- Are you able to share these?
- Is there anyone in your team who particularly uses or likes our product?
- Is there anyone in your team who doesn’t really like our product?
- How did your team implement the product?
- Are you training your employees on how to use our product?
- How do you train people to use our product?
- How long does it take someone to get up to speed on our product / service?
- Has our product reduced cost in any way?
- Has our product saved time in any way?
- Has our product driven increased revenue in any way?
- Has our product made your job easier?
- How has your perception of the product changed since you’ve become a customer?
Gauge their level of advocacy
- Would you recommend our product to a friend or colleague?
- Have you already recommended our product to anyone?
- Can you think of anyone in your network who could really benefit from using our product?
- Do you have any advice for other companies facing the similar challenges you were?
- Do you think the investment in our product is worthwhile?
Identify potential new opportunities
- Who else in your team should we talk to?
- Will you expand use of our product into other areas of the business?
Gather important feedback
- What have people been saying about our product?
- Do you have any requests for new features?
- Do you have any feedback on our customer support?
- Do you have any general feedback or advice for our company?
- What are the biggest challenges coming up for your industry?
- Do you think our product will help you overcome those challenges?
- Is there anything we can do to help you tackle those challenges?
- Is there anything we can do to improve our product?
- Do you think you will continue to use our product next year?
Gain clarity about the process
- Are you open to working with us on additional marketing collateral?
- I noticed that your company has a presence on _____ social networks. Is that correct?
- Would you be willing to share our case study on these networks?
- Who within the business needs to approve this case study before it goes live?
- Is there anything you have told me today that is confidential or shouldn’t be included in the final case study?
- Finally, will you be available over the next few weeks to assist with approvals?
The best case study videos that we love
We’ve hand-picked three excellent case study videos to give you a feel for what great looks like.
GoPro
It’s slightly dated, but really love it! Engaging, dynamic, the right tone for GoPro – you totally get who they are and what they offer. And it makes you want to go out and get a GoPro!
Dropbox x Expedia
Clear messaging, nicely shot – the features and benefits shine through!
Want to see more examples? Take a look at our top 15 best case study videos list.
Or if you’re ready to produce your case study video, give our team a shout.
Written by Sian Evans, Head of Video at Definition
Reviewed and updated by Sian Evans, Head of Video on 25/10/2024