case study email

How to Write a Case Study: Bookmarkable Guide & Template

Published: November 30, 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.

Free Case Study Templates

Showcase your company's success using these three free case study templates.

• Data-Driven Case Study Template
• Product-Specific Case Study Template
• General Case Study Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

Why write a case study? 

I know, you’re thinking “ Okay, but why do I need to write one of these? ” The truth is that while case studies are a huge undertaking, they are powerful marketing tools that allow you to demonstrate the value of your product to potential customers using real-world examples. Here are a few reasons why you should write case studies. 

1. Explain Complex Topics or Concepts

Case studies give you the space to break down complex concepts, ideas, and strategies and show how they can be applied in a practical way. You can use real-world examples, like an existing client, and use their story to create a compelling narrative that shows how your product solved their issue and how those strategies can be repeated to help other customers get similar successful results.  

2. Show Expertise

Case studies are a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a given topic or industry. This is where you get the opportunity to show off your problem-solving skills and how you’ve generated successful outcomes for clients you’ve worked with. 

3. Build Trust and Credibility

In addition to showing off the attributes above, case studies are an excellent way to build credibility. They’re often filled with data and thoroughly researched, which shows readers you’ve done your homework. They can have confidence in the solutions you’ve presented because they’ve read through as you’ve explained the problem and outlined step-by-step what it took to solve it. All of these elements working together enable you to build trust with potential customers.

4. Create Social Proof

Using existing clients that have seen success working with your brand builds social proof . People are more likely to choose your brand if they know that others have found success working with you. Case studies do just that — putting your success on display for potential customers to see. 

All of these attributes work together to help you gain more clients. Plus you can even use quotes from customers featured in these studies and repurpose them in other marketing content. Now that you know more about the benefits of producing a case study, let’s check out how long these documents should be. 

How long should a case study be?

The length of a case study will vary depending on the complexity of the project or topic discussed. However, as a general guideline, case studies typically range from 500 to 1,500 words. 

Whatever length you choose, it should provide a clear understanding of the challenge, the solution you implemented, and the results achieved. This may be easier said than done, but it's important to strike a balance between providing enough detail to make the case study informative and concise enough to keep the reader's interest.

The primary goal here is to effectively communicate the key points and takeaways of the case study. It’s worth noting that this shouldn’t be a wall of text. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, charts, and other graphics to break up the content and make it more scannable for readers. We’ve also seen brands incorporate video elements into case studies listed on their site for a more engaging experience. 

Ultimately, the length of your case study should be determined by the amount of information necessary to convey the story and its impact without becoming too long. Next, let’s look at some templates to take the guesswork out of creating one. 

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

Do you have a specific product or service that you’re trying to sell, but not enough reviews or success stories? This Product Specific case study template will help.

This template relies less on metrics, and more on highlighting the customer’s experience and satisfaction. As you follow the template instructions, you’ll be prompted to speak more about the benefits of the specific product, rather than your team’s process for working with the customer.

4. Bold Social Media Business Case Study Template

You can find templates that represent different niches, industries, or strategies that your business has found success in — like a bold social media business case study template.

In this template, you can tell the story of how your social media marketing strategy has helped you or your client through collaboration or sale of your service. Customize it to reflect the different marketing channels used in your business and show off how well your business has been able to boost traffic, engagement, follows, and more.

5. Lead Generation Business Case Study Template

It’s important to note that not every case study has to be the product of a sale or customer story, sometimes they can be informative lessons that your own business has experienced. A great example of this is the Lead Generation Business case study template.

If you’re looking to share operational successes regarding how your team has improved processes or content, you should include the stories of different team members involved, how the solution was found, and how it has made a difference in the work your business does.

Now that we’ve discussed different templates and ideas for how to use them, let’s break down how to create your own case study with one.

• Get started with case study templates.
• Determine the case study's objective.
• Establish a case study medium.
• Find the right case study candidate.
• Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.
• Ensure you have all the resources you need to proceed once you get a response.
• Download a case study email template.
• Define the process you want to follow with the client.
• Ensure you're asking the right questions.
• Layout your case study format.
• Publish and promote your case study.

1. Get started with case study templates.

Telling your customer's story is a delicate process — you need to highlight their success while naturally incorporating your business into their story.

If you're just getting started with case studies, we recommend you download HubSpot's Case Study Templates we mentioned before to kickstart the process.

2. Determine the case study's objective.

All business case studies are designed to demonstrate the value of your services, but they can focus on several different client objectives.

Your first step when writing a case study is to determine the objective or goal of the subject you're featuring. In other words, what will the client have succeeded in doing by the end of the piece?

The client objective you focus on will depend on what you want to prove to your future customers as a result of publishing this case study.

Your case study can focus on one of the following client objectives:

• Complying with government regulation
• Lowering business costs
• Becoming profitable
• Generating more leads
• Closing on more customers
• Generating more revenue
• Expanding into a new market
• Becoming more sustainable or energy-efficient

3. Establish a case study medium.

Next, you'll determine the medium in which you'll create the case study. In other words, how will you tell this story?

Case studies don't have to be simple, written one-pagers. Using different media in your case study can allow you to promote your final piece on different channels. For example, while a written case study might just live on your website and get featured in a Facebook post, you can post an infographic case study on Pinterest and a video case study on your YouTube channel.

Here are some different case study mediums to consider:

Written Case Study

Consider writing this case study in the form of an ebook and converting it to a downloadable PDF. Then, gate the PDF behind a landing page and form for readers to fill out before downloading the piece, allowing this case study to generate leads for your business.

Video Case Study

Plan on meeting with the client and shooting an interview. Seeing the subject, in person, talk about the service you provided them can go a long way in the eyes of your potential customers.

Infographic Case Study

Use the long, vertical format of an infographic to tell your success story from top to bottom. As you progress down the infographic, emphasize major KPIs using bigger text and charts that show the successes your client has had since working with you.

Podcast Case Study

Podcasts are a platform for you to have a candid conversation with your client. This type of case study can sound more real and human to your audience — they'll know the partnership between you and your client was a genuine success.

4. Find the right case study candidate.

Writing about your previous projects requires more than picking a client and telling a story. You need permission, quotes, and a plan. To start, here are a few things to look for in potential candidates.

Product Knowledge

It helps to select a customer who's well-versed in the logistics of your product or service. That way, he or she can better speak to the value of what you offer in a way that makes sense for future customers.

Remarkable Results

Clients that have seen the best results are going to make the strongest case studies. If their own businesses have seen an exemplary ROI from your product or service, they're more likely to convey the enthusiasm that you want prospects to feel, too.

One part of this step is to choose clients who have experienced unexpected success from your product or service. When you've provided non-traditional customers — in industries that you don't usually work with, for example — with positive results, it can help to remove doubts from prospects.

Recognizable Names

While small companies can have powerful stories, bigger or more notable brands tend to lend credibility to your own. In fact, 89% of consumers say they'll buy from a brand they already recognize over a competitor, especially if they already follow them on social media.

Customers that came to you after working with a competitor help highlight your competitive advantage and might even sway decisions in your favor.

5. Contact your candidate for permission to write about them.

To get the case study candidate involved, you have to set the stage for clear and open communication. That means outlining expectations and a timeline right away — not having those is one of the biggest culprits in delayed case study creation.

Most importantly at this point, however, is getting your subject's approval. When first reaching out to your case study candidate, provide them with the case study's objective and format — both of which you will have come up with in the first two steps above.

To get this initial permission from your subject, put yourself in their shoes — what would they want out of this case study? Although you're writing this for your own company's benefit, your subject is far more interested in the benefit it has for them.

Benefits to Offer Your Case Study Candidate

Here are four potential benefits you can promise your case study candidate to gain their approval.

Brand Exposure

Explain to your subject to whom this case study will be exposed, and how this exposure can help increase their brand awareness both in and beyond their own industry. In the B2B sector, brand awareness can be hard to collect outside one's own market, making case studies particularly useful to a client looking to expand their name's reach.

Employee Exposure

Allow your subject to provide quotes with credits back to specific employees. When this is an option for them, their brand isn't the only thing expanding its reach — their employees can get their name out there, too. This presents your subject with networking and career development opportunities they might not have otherwise.

Product Discount

This is a more tangible incentive you can offer your case study candidate, especially if they're a current customer of yours. If they agree to be your subject, offer them a product discount — or a free trial of another product — as a thank-you for their help creating your case study.

Backlinks and Website Traffic

Here's a benefit that is sure to resonate with your subject's marketing team: If you publish your case study on your website, and your study links back to your subject's website — known as a "backlink" — this small gesture can give them website traffic from visitors who click through to your subject's website.

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.

Don't forget to share this post!

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Supercharge your Cold Emails

The Complete Guide to Creating Effective Case Study Emails

Want your emails to drive more leads and sales? Forget generic blasts. You need strategic customer success stories that convert.

This guide will teach you how to craft compelling case study emails that grab attention and inspire action.

You’ll get hands-on tips to:

• Choose the perfect success stories
• Structure emails for higher open rates
• Write persuasive copy that sells
• Integrate case studies into your funnel
• Promote studies across every channel

Ready to turn your customer wins into an arsenal of selling case studies? Let’s get started!

Page Contents

What is a Case Study Email?

A case study email is a specialized type of email used in marketing and sales outreach . As the name suggests, case study emails showcase a detailed case study of how a customer achieved success using your product or service.

But what exactly is a case study? And how do case study emails differ from other email types you may use? Let’s break it down.

What is a Case Study?

A case study tells a data-driven story showcasing how a customer overcame a challenge by using your product or service. It focuses on quantifiable results and ROI achieved.

Case studies typically include:

• Problem: The customer’s situation and pain points before using your product.
• Solution: A summary of how your product or service solved their problem.
• Results: Concrete metrics and ROI the customer realized after implementation.
• Testimonial: A client quote or review validating your product’s impact.

For example, an HR SaaS company could share a case study about how Client X reduced time-to-hire by 37% and saved $284,000 in recruitment costs after using their AI-powered hiring platform.

The in-depth analysis proves your ability to deliver results and builds trust.

How Case Study Emails Differ from Other Email Types

Case study emails have a specific purpose – to showcase customer success stories to convert and persuade. This sets them apart from other types of emails:

• Sales emails aim to introduce your solution, pique interest, and directly sell. Case study emails take a subtler educational approach.
• Promotional emails announce offers and promotions. Case study emails focus on social proof.
• Newsletter content shares company updates, thought leadership , and engagement. Case study emails highlight client results.
• Transactional emails facilitate purchases, tracking, and customer service. Case study emails drive leads and conversions.

The unique format of case study emails helps position your product as the proven solution to customers’ needs through real-world examples .

When Should You Send Case Study Emails?

There are several strategic times when sending case study emails can make a big impact:

1. To Qualified Leads in the Consideration Stage

Prospects researching solutions and weighing options are perfect targets . Case studies can tip the scales by proving you understand their pains and can deliver results.

2. To Customers in Free Trial or Pilot Programs

Use case studies to convince satisfied trial users to convert to paid accounts.

3. During Customer Renewal/Retention Outreach

Remind customers why they chose you and reinforce the value delivered through case studies.

4. To Upsell/Cross-sell Existing Customers

Upgrade current customers to higher tiers or expanded offerings backed by proof points.

5. To Prospects Who Previously Showed Interest But Went Dark

Re-engage old leads with new success stories and incentives to revisit your solution.

6. When releasing new products or features

Back up your claims about new offerings with relatable stories of client wins.

7. To Support Content Marketing and Nurture Campaigns

Sync case study emails with your blog, social media, and nurture streams.

8. After Industry Events, Conferences, or Webinars

Follow up with highly relevant case studies around themes and verticals discussed.

Matching case studies to prospect needs and the stage of their journey is key to driving conversions.

Why are Case Study Emails Effective?

Case study emails give you an edge because they:

• Establish Credibility: 82% of buyers view case studies as trustworthy. They prefer validated peer experiences over claims from vendors.
• Showcase ROI: Case studies highlight the concrete ROI – time, money, efficiency – your solution drove for customers. This quantifiable proof accelerates and eases purchase decisions.
• Increase Perceived Value: Compelling stats on the results you’ve achieved make your solution seem more valuable and buyers more likely to pay higher prices.
• Differentiate from Competitors: Unique customer stories and quantifiable outcomes can set you apart and give you a competitive edge.
• Improve Conversion Rates: Emails with case studies can generate conversion rates up to 313% higher than product feature emails.
• Provide Social Proof: 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Case studies offer this social proof.

But not all case study emails are created equal. To maximize impact, you need compelling stories paired with skilled execution.

Let’s look at how to put together a winning case study email.

In summary, case study emails leverage the credibility of customer success stories to connect with prospects and tip them towards your solution. Sending them strategically can significantly move deals forward. Just be sure to highlight relevant examples and metrics tailored to each recipient’s needs. With well-crafted case study emails in your arsenal, you’ll be well on your way to driving conversions and revenue!

Elements of an Effective Case Study Email

Crafting a stellar case study email that captures attention and drives conversions takes skill. Let’s break down the key ingredients for case study email success.

Subject Line

The subject line is the first and possibly only chance to get your email opened.

Best Practices for Case Study Email Subject Lines

Apply these best practices when writing subject lines:

• Keep it short and scannable – Under 50 characters is best.
• Highlight the core benefit – Summarize the main outcome in 1-2 words like “increased sales” or “reduced costs.”
• Include specifics – Quantify results or mention the customer’s name.
• Trigger urgency – “In 30 days” or “How we achieved X% growth in 3 weeks.”
• Ask a question – “What if you could [benefit]?”
• Use power words – “Case study,” “Success story,” “Results.”
• Mention key terms – Include relevant keywords prospects seek.
• Test different options – A/B test to determine the highest performing subject line.

Case Study Email Subject Line Examples

Here are some example subject lines that apply the above tips:

• “Case Study: How Acme Co Increased Sales 72% in 6 Months”
• “See How We Reduced Hiring Costs 37% for Client X”
• “Client Story: 30-Day Trial to $2.4M in Lifetime Value”
• “What If You Could Gain 8 Hours Per Week? See How Client Y Did It”
• “Success Story – Beating the Competition with 147% More Engagement”

The subject line sets expectations about the value the email provides. Use it wisely to maximize open rates.

Introduction

The introduction paragraph serves two purposes:

• Grabs the reader’s attention
• Provides context on the case study

To craft an effective intro:

• Hook readers quickly – Ask a question, state an impressive stat, or reference recent news.
• Make it relevant – Connect to the prospect’s needs or industry.
• Establish credibility – Note your experience and expertise.
• Set expectations – Summarize the core benefit covered in the case study.

Here are two example opening paragraphs:

“Are you struggling to break through the noise on social media? See how partnering with our social media management experts helped Client X become an industry leader with content that generates 147% higher engagement than competitors.”

This introduction hooks readers by asking about a common pain point, positioning the sender as an expert, and setting expectations by previewing impressive results.

“As leaders in recruiting for Fortune 500 companies, we understand the challenges of finding top-tier executive talent. That’s why we developed our Executive Leadership Placement Program – an exclusive service that reduces time to hire senior roles by 45% on average. Read on to see how we partnered with Client Y to make their Director of Engineering placement a huge success.”

This introduction establishes credibility in a niche, relates to the target audience, and summarizes the program and results covered in the case study.

An engaging intro pulls readers in so they want to keep reading. Take the time to make this critical first impression count.

Problem Statement

The problem statement section explains:

• The customer’s situation before using your product
• Specific difficulties and pain points they faced

Illustrating the customer’s initial struggles enables prospects to relate to the scenario and primes them to see how you provided the solution.

To craft an effective problem statement:

• Provide specifics – Quantify their issues with metrics when possible.
• Use visuals – Charts demonstrating pain points make them more memorable.
• Limit jargon – Explain in simple terms easily understood by any reader.
• Tell a story – Build empathy by bringing the problem statement to life.

Here’s an example problem statement:

Client X is a fast-growing mid-sized SaaS company that struggled with an inefficient hiring process. Their team of 5 recruiters couldn’t keep up with the current needs of the engineering team. This resulted in:”

• Average time to fill a role of 89 days, 35% higher than industry benchmarks
• Peak recruiting costs of $8,400 per hire
• A negative impact on engineering productivity and product roadmap progress

This statement uses metrics, relatable challenges, and storytelling to help readers connect with Client X’s hiring struggles.

Vividly articulating the customer’s difficulties before your product builds anticipation for the solution.

Solution Summary

After setting the stage with the problem, the next step is showing how you swooped in to save the day.

The solution summary section explains:

• How your product or service solved the customer’s challenges
• The approach, program, or package you implemented

To write an effective solution summary:

• Connect to the problem – Explain how your solution addresses the root causes.
• Provide an overview – Briefly describe your product or methodology without getting into granular details.
• Use visuals – Diagrams of your workflow or solution design help cement understanding.
• Spotlight innovation – Highlight any proprietary processes or unique expertise you applied.

Here’s a sample solution summary:

“We customized our Executive Recruiting Program to meet Client X’s specific needs. This included:”

• Leveraging our network of passive executive candidates through invite-only ChannelRx
• Assigning a dedicated 3-person recruiting team with competency mapping expertise
• Proprietary Candidate Fit scoring using 1000+ datapoints to surface best matches
• Streamlined processes to accelerate interviews and offer timelines

This overview explains the solution, touches on differentiators like a proprietary scoring system, and sets the stage for impressive results.

Succinctly convey how you addressed the customer’s problem to spotlight the value you provide.

Results/Benefits

This is your chance to dazzle with jaws-dropping metrics that prove your solution worked wonders.

The results section quantifies:

• The concrete ROI and outcomes achieved
• How the customer benefitted from your product

When presenting results:

• Use specific metrics – % improvement, dollar amounts saved, higher scores, etc.
• Add visuals – Charts demonstrating dramatic before and after results.
• Quote metrics – Call out impressive stats in the body text.
• Provide timeframes – State the period over which the results occurred.
• List multiple benefits – Cover the wide range of improvements across metrics.

Here’s a results section example:

“Partnering with us enabled Client X to completely transform their hiring process and outcomes, including:”

• 55% reduction in time-to-fill for senior engineering roles – from 89 days to 40 days
• $13,000 lower recruiting cost per hire – a 65% reduction
• 4X more high-quality candidates identified through our ChannelRx network
• 79% of placed candidates still with Client X after 2 years, improving retention

Quantifiable proof of ROI and benefits is the whole point of case study emails – so make your results shine.

Social Proof

Social proof builds credibility through voices other than your own, like testimonials.

Include social proof via:

• Client quotes – Word-for-word glowing testimonials about your solution.
• Client logos – Instant brand recognition when prospects see logos of brands they know.
• Reviews – Ratings, awards, and media recognition validate quality.
• Case study details – Location, title, and details on the customer establish legitimacy.

Let’s look at some examples:

Client Quote

“Partnering with [Company] to upgrade our recruiting function has been transformational. The 55% reduction in time-to-fill critical roles has completely changed our hiring game.” – [Name, Title, Client X]

Client Logo

Featured Case Study: [Client Logo]

Rated #1 recruiting agency by Forbes 3 years running

Case Study Details

Acme Healthcare, Silicon Valley’s top hospital network with 10 locations…

Social proof elements lend third-party credibility to back up your amazing claims.

Call-to-Action

Every effective case study email needs a strong CTA guiding the reader to take your desired next step.

Strategic CTAs to include:

• “Schedule a Consultation” – Direct readers to book calls with sales reps .
• “Request a Free Demo'” – Get prospects to view personalized platform walkthroughs.
• “Get a Custom Proposal'” – Move top leads closer to purchase with pricing.
• “Read More Case Studies” – Send to your case study library to peruse more proof.
• “Join Our Upcoming Webinar'” – Promote related nurture content.
• “Download the Full Case Study PDF” – Share an in-depth looks at the client win.
• “Contact Our Team” – Make it easy for intrigued prospects to reach out.

And optimize your CTAs by:

• Making the CTA copy clear, concise, and action-oriented.
• Placing CTAs strategically at the bottom and in a section by themselves.

-Formatting CTAs prominently with color, size, and spacing to draw the eye.

• Using urgency triggers like “limited spots remaining.”

Here are examples of compelling case study email CTAs:

*See More Success Stories in Our Downloadable Case Study Collection [Download PDF]

Learn How We Can Replicate These Results for You [Schedule a Consultation]

Request a Custom Demo Tailored to Your Recruiting Needs [Get Your Demo]

Join Our Webinar on Cutting Hiring Timelines by 45% [Save Your Seat]

The CTA is one of the most critical elements – as it prompts the next step leading to a sale. Make it count.

With these essential ingredients – subject line , introduction, problem, solution, results, social proof, and call to action – you have a proven formula to create high-converting case study emails.

Now let’s look at some overarching strategies to take your case study email success to the next level.

Strategies for Successful Case Study Emails

You’ve got all the components to craft a persuasive case study email – but how do you take it to the next level?

Let’s explore proven strategies to get your emails opened, read, and driving conversions.

Research and Personalization

Generic case study emails sent en masse see dismal open and conversion rates.

To connect with recipients, you need personalized outreach tailored to their needs.

Strategies for personalization include:

Persona Targeting

Determine what buyer personas you want to reach, like CEOs, marketing managers, developers, etc. Identify their common pain points and goals. Then tailor your case study emails with relevant examples and messaging.

For instance, an email to developers might highlight technical challenges overcome. For CEOs, showcase executive-level ROI metrics.

Individual Research

For your most valued contacts and existing customers, research them more deeply through:

• LinkedIn profiles
• Company websites
• News mentions
• Academic and career backgrounds
• Previous correspondence

Then work these personal details into your emails . Reference past conversations, company milestones, and industry trends relevant to them.

This shows you did your homework and get much better response rates.

Trigger-based Outreach

Send targeted case studies when you know of triggers impacting recipients like:

• Renewing services
• Recently raised funding
• Launched rebranding/new strategy
• Job change/promotion
• Merger or acquisition
• Won an award
• Appeared at an event/conference

Connecting your case studies to what’s currently top of mind for recipients makes your outreach timely and relevant.

Dynamic Content

Marketing automation tools let you dynamically insert personalized content into case study emails like:

• Prospect’s name
• Website/company details
• Specific pain points they cited
• Mutual connections

This level of tailored messaging outperforms generic blasts.

Industry-Specific Stories

Send case studies featuring companies in the prospect’s same industry. For example, retailers want to see success stories from other retailers.

These highly aligned examples make it easier for recipients to envision the results they could achieve.

Personalized, contextual outreach shows recipients you understand their needs and captures more attention.

Follow-Up Sequence

One-off case study emails see very low conversion rates. You need multiple follow up touches over time to drive results .

Best practices for effective follow-up include:

Send at least 3 emails

Studies show it takes an average of 5-12 contacts to convert a cold lead. Sending just one email results in poor conversion.

Three emails is the minimum needed – initial outreach plus two follow ups for non-responders spaced 3-5 days apart.

Experiment with timing

Try different time intervals between follow-up emails to see what converts best. Some common approaches:

• 3 emails in 9 days (3/3/3 cadence)
• 5 emails in 3 weeks (3/5/7/9/11 cadence)

Pay attention to which follow ups get the most opens/clicks and conversions.

Progress through stages

Move contacts through a sequence that mirrors the standard sales funnel:

Email #1: Broad case study overview Email #2: Targeted case study matching needs Email #3: Custom proposal, demo, or call-to-action

Gradually provide more value and get more direct with your asks.

Send “breakup” emails

If non-responsive after 3+ emails, send a “breakup email” letting them know you’ll stop contacting them.

Ironically, many prospect reply to breakup emails to re-engage. Don’t leave follow-up sequences too soon.

Automate for efficiency

Marketing automation enables you to set up sequences, logic, and triggers to run campaigns seamlessly. No manual emailing required.

Don’t stop at one touch – persistently follow up for up to 10x better conversion.

A/B Testing

There’s no one “perfect” case study email for all purposes. You need to experiment and test different approaches.

Areas to A/B test include:

Subject Lines

Try multiple subject line options per campaign segment to see which earns higher open rates. Look at factors like:

• Word choice and phrasing
• Use of questions, numbers, power words
• Specificity (client name, metrics mentioned)
• Length and formatting

Email Content

Test how sections like the problem statement or results are written. For example, which converts better – 3 metrics or 5? Client logo visible or not?

Also test the overall style and tone of writing.

Calls-to-Action

Test placement on the page, wording, design, color, and actual offering. See which CTAs attract the most clicks.

Try different formats for images, charts and other visual elements. See if any significantly outperform in terms of engagement.

Email Length

Test shorter 1-2 paragraph case studies vs. longer, more in-depth stories. Length can impact open and completion rates .

Try minimum 3 variants per campaign and allocate at least 250 recipients per option for statistical significance.

Optimization through testing can improve performance by 49%. Find winning combinations.

Lead Nurturing Integration

Don’t send one-off case study emails randomly. Integrate them into your nurture programs for maximum impact.

Strategic nurturing approaches include:

New Lead Nurturing

Use case studies early in nurture journeys to showcase what you can deliver for leads similar to them. Builds credibility and trust .

Content Upgrades

Offer access to exclusive case studies as an upgrade incentive for providing contact info or completing a form.

Webinar Promotions

Support marketing webinars with case study emails reinforcing the topic being presented.

Renewal Nurturing

Send case studies recapping previous success working together when renewals approach.

Re-engagement Nurturing

Use case studies to remind inactive contacts of past wins and prompt re-engagement.

New Customer Onboarding

Welcome new customers by showcasing case studies aligned to their goals and use cases.

Customer Advocacy Nurturing

Ask satisfied customers for case study participation to turn them into powerful advocates.

Work case study emails into your nurture strategy rather than using them ad hoc.

Metrics Tracking

To refine your case study emails, you need to carefully track performance data.

Key metrics to monitor:

Shoot for 20-50%+ open rates depending on list size and segment. If too low, revisit subject lines and sender info.

Click-through Rates

Click-through rates on CTAs over 2% are decent. If lagging, test CTA design and copy.

Lead Conversion Rates

Measure the % of recipients who convert into sales qualified leads. Good conversion rate goals depend on list quality.

Unsubscribe Rate

High unsubscribe rates signal relevance issues. Improve list health and email personalization.

Engagement Times

When are emails opened? When are links clicked? Activity soon after sending is best.

Sales Impact

Ultimately, tie case study emails to pipeline influence, deal acceleration, and closed revenue.

Tools like Google Analytics make tracking email metrics simple. Analyze data to continuously improve.

Now let’s look at some best practices to take your case study emails to the next level.

Best Practices and Tips

Let’s round out your case study email expertise with some pro tips and best practices.

Follow these guidelines to take your efforts to the next level.

Choosing the Right Customer Stories

Not all customer success stories make compelling case studies. You need to carefully select which to highlight.

Ideally, choose stories that are:

Select clients in the prospect’s same industry, company size, role, etc. Similar pain points and use cases establish relevance.

For example, don’t highlight a Fortune 500 case study when targeting a startup.

While showcasing your long company history has merit, recent case studies are most relatable. Focus on wins from the past 2 years.

Choose clients that provide ample specifics on metrics, challenges, and results. Thin or vague stories don’t prove much.

Credentials

Showcasing instantly recognizable logos like Amazon or Apple brings built-in credibility. Big brands pack more punch.

Pull different types of companies, stats, and industries into the mix. This showcases your wide applicability.

Look beyond big name brands to niche but impressive client wins that highlight your expertise in specific areas. Provides depth.

Vet case study options using these criteria to feature your most powerful stories.

Highlighting Specific Use Cases

Rather than covering your solution broadly, zero-in on very specific use cases and challenges you’ve addressed.

For example:

Too broad: “We help recruiters improve their hiring.”

Specific: “We help staffing firms shorten time-to-fill for senior engineering roles.”

Ultra-targeted case studies showcase your specialized expertise needed to solve niche issues prospects face.

Optimizing Deliverability

Even amazing case study emails drive zero conversions if they land in spam folders.

Ensure proper deliverability through:

Sender reputation – Build trust and credibility for your domain with good email habits over time.

List hygiene – Ongoing list maintenance to remove inactive/bounced addresses.

Spam testing – Use tools like MailTester to check spam potential before sending.

Authentication – Implement email authentication like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Personalization – Recipient-specific content shows you’re a real person emailing, not a bot.

Engagement metrics – Monitor unsubscribe rates, abuse reports, etc. Address issues lowering deliverability.

ISP relationships – Proactively report fraudulent emails impersonating your brand to major ISPs. Build trust.

Deliverability should be top priority – optimize it through best practices.

Leveraging Visuals

Emails with visuals see insane boosts in engagement – up to 200-300% higher CTRs.

Types of visuals to include:

• Client logos – Instant social proof and credibility
• Charts/graphs – Visually demonstrate impressive metrics and ROI
• Screenshots – Show your solution and UI/UX in action
• Photos – Spotlight customers looking happy/successful thanks to you
• Infographics – Creative way to showcase compelling stats
• Videos – Bring the case study to life (where possible)

Keep visuals consistent with your brand, aligned to content, and designed for easy mobile viewing.

Let visually-driven storytelling boost engagement.

Promoting Case Studies

Don’t silo case study emails. Promote your success stories across channels:

• Website – Create a public case study section prospects can browse.
• Blog – Publish in-depth studies on your blog and promote via email .
• Social media – Share client wins on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.
• Ads – Run paid social/ SEM ads focused on your top case studies.
• Sales collateral – Feature on company fact sheets, sales presentations.
• PR – Pitch journalists to cover your most impressive customer stories.
• Events – Present case studies at webinars, conferences, and talks.

Cross-channel promotion expands your reach and positions studies as cornerstones of your marketing.

Now let’s switch gears to common mistakes to avoid with case study emails. Learn from others’ flubs!

Mistakes to Avoid

Creating winning case study emails takes skill. It’s also easy to make missteps that tank your results.

Let’s review common pitfalls to avoid.

Sending Without a Clear CTA

The purpose of case study emails is to drive prospects to take action. That doesn’t happen without a strong call to action.

Yet many neglect to include any CTA or bury it in the text.

Without clear direction, readers don’t convert.

Other CTA mistakes include:

• Weak CTAs like “Contact us with questions.” These won’t compel action.
• Linking to general website pages versus specific conversion-oriented pages. Don’t send readers into a confusing maze.
• Using “Learn More” as the default CTA for everything. Tailor CTAs to each use case and recipient.
• Relying solely on hyperlinked text. Buttons and contrasting colors better highlight CTAs.
• Assuming recipients will see and understand the value of clicking. Spell it out clearly.

Prioritize concise, benefit-driven CTAs in prominent positions. Don’t be afraid to explicitly guide recipients into converting.

Failing to Personalize

Yet another common stumbling block is sending blanket case study emails en masse without personalization.

This ignores the fact that the key to winning attention amidst inbox noise is relevance. Portray how you understand each prospect’s needs specifically.

Failure to tailor typically stems from:

• Rushing to blast out campaigns without strategic list segmentation
• Forgetting to integrate dynamic content and messaging options
• Not researching prospects beyond contact info to uncover pain points
• Having tight budgets or limitations preventing 1:1 outreach

Lack of personalization causes lower open rates, disconnected messaging, and poor conversion rates.

Segmenting lists, researching contacts, and integrating dynamic content is mandatory. Don’t take shortcuts – do the work to personalize.

Missing Follow-Up Opportunities

We’ve stressed the need for persistent follow-up when sending case study emails. But this step still gets skipped too often.

You might assume recipients not interested if they don’t open or respond to the first email. In reality, they probably just missed it in their crowded inbox.

Reasons for dropping the ball on follow-ups include:

• Lacking documented processes and workflows to manage follow-up
• Difficulty tracking where recipients are in sequences manually
• Allowing contacts to fall through the cracks when team members are out
• Not factoring in adequate workload capacity for systematic following up
• Assuming reaching out once or twice is sufficient

Don’t leave money on the table. Set reminders, document procedures, use automation, and keep following up.

Sloppy Metrics Tracking

How do you know what’s working if you aren’t tracking email performance data? Shockingly, many still don’t properly monitor metrics.

Common tracking mistakes:

• Not enabling tracking in email services to capture opens/clicks
• Failing to integrate analytics for attribution monitoring
• Tracking at aggregate rather than campaign-specific levels
• Lacking processes to regularly review and act on metrics
• Not optimizing emails based on response rate data

Blindly sending case study emails without optimization is wasted effort. Implement tracking early and use data to improve.

Irrelevant Case Studies

And finally, a mistake you want to avoid at all costs – featuring case studies with no relevance to the recipient.

For example, don’t send:

• Dissimilar industry examples. Real estate to auto manufacturer.
• Small business case studies to enterprise contacts.
• Stories about solutions they clearly don’t need. HR software to a bakery.
• Outdated stories from decades ago. Times change.

Mismatched or irrelevant case studies signal you don’t understand your prospect. They hurt rather than help your outreach efforts.

Do your homework to identify aligned stories and ask yourself “Does this resonate?” If not, find a better match or don’t send.

Steer clear of these common stumbling blocks and your case study emails will be primed for success.

Now let’s tackle some frequently asked questions.

FAQs about Case Study Emails

Let’s wrap up with answers to some frequently asked questions about creating and sending case study emails.

How long should a case study email be?

When it comes to email length, shorter is generally better in terms of driving engagement and conversions. But how short is too short?

Aim for 250 – 750 words.

Anything less than 150 words is usually too brief to establish context and make a persuasive case.

At the same time, ultra long-form case studies are best sent as collateral documents rather than in the body of emails.

250 – 750 words lets you cover crucial details without overwhelming readers. Use tools like WordCounter to perfect length.

And remember – well-designed emails with clear formatting and visuals aid scannability so more text feels less intimidating.

When should you send case study emails?

As discussed earlier, key times to deploy case study emails include:

• To prospects demonstrating initial research interest
• To leads reaching a decision stage
• To customers up for renewal
• For new product launches
• To inactive contacts to re-engage
• Alongside related nurture content
• After conferences/events on covered topics

Essentially, timed around moving recipients into and through your funnel.

Ongoing use of case studies builds familiarity and trust over the buyer’s journey rather than limiting to a one-off blast.

What makes a strong case study email subject line?

Strong case study email subject lines:

• Clearly indicate the email contains a case study
• Spotlight the main benefit achieved
• Are scannable (<50 characters ideally)
• Use power words like “success” “results” “case study”
• Incorporate specifics like company names or metrics
• Create intrigue and urgency

This compels the desired action – getting recipients to open and read the full story.

How many case study emails should you send?

Ideally, you won’t blanket blast case study emails. They require a personalized approach tailored to each recipient.

But in terms of frequency, aim to nurture leads with relevant case studies:

• Once early in the awareness stage
• 2-3x more through the consideration stage
• 1-2x near the decision stage

So roughly 4 – 6 case study emails spaced over several months works well for an average sales cycle .

And follow up persistently when you do send an individual email – at least 3+ times.

What CTAs work best for conversions?

The most effective case study email CTAs:

• Direct readers to book meetings/calls with sales
• Lead to demo requests or proposal forms
• Offer access to gated content like full PDF studies
• Promote related webinars and nurture content
• Allow recipients to browse additional social proof

Value-driven, conversion-focused CTAs – not generic “Contact us” or “Learn more” links.

Words like “talk”, “see”, “get”, and “attend” prompt action. And remember to A/B test options.

Other Relevant Questions

What is the best length for a case study email?

Aim for 250-750 words. Anything less than 150 words is usually too brief. But avoid extremely long emails over 1,000 words as well.

Strategic times include reaching out to new leads, customers up for renewal, re-engaging inactive contacts, promoting new products, and aligning with nurture content.

What makes a good case study email subject line?

Strong subject lines highlight the core benefit achieved, use power words like “results” and “success story”, and create intrigue. Keep them scannable at under 50 characters.

How many case study emails should you send to a prospect?

Ideally nurture prospects with 4-6 relevant case study emails spaced over the buyer’s journey, along with persistent follow-up on each message.

What’s a good metric benchmark for case study emails?

Aim for open rates of 20-50% and CTRs over 2% at a minimum. Conversion rate targets depend on list quality.

How do you get customers to agree to a case study?

Offer incentives like discounts, improved services, or publicity. Present it as an opportunity to showcase leadership. Start by featuring your best relationships first.

What makes a good case study CTA?

CTAs should match prospect needs and clearly direct them to convert – like scheduling sales calls, requesting demos, or downloading content.

How do you promote case studies across channels?

Share case studies on your website, blog, ads, email, social media, at events, through PR, etc. Repurpose them widely.

Now let’s discuss helpful software and tools.

Tools and Software for Case Study Emails

The right tools and software make creating, sending, and tracking case study emails much easier. Let’s explore solutions to support your efforts.

Email Service Providers

Email service providers (ESPs) like MailChimp, Constant Contact, and Campaign Monitor provide core email marketing capabilities for building and sending case study emails.

Key ESP features include:

Easy Email Creation

Drag-and-drop editors to create professional emails with custom templates and branding .

Contact Management

Collect recipient contact info and group into segments for targeted messaging.

Automated Campaigns

Set up triggers and sequences to send drip campaigns and follow-ups.

Delivery Optimization

Tools to manage subscriber lists, authentication, and deliverability.

Reports on opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes for optimization.

Split test different email content and formats for improvement.

Leading ESPs like MailChimp offer free and paid plans to accommodate needs.

Marketing Automation Platforms

More advanced marketing automation platforms (MAP) like HubSpot and Marketo supercharge case study email capabilities.

MAP benefits include:

CRM Integration

Unified databases centralize prospect/customer data for targeted messaging.

Lead Scoring

Automatically track interest levels to send matching case studies.

List Segmentation

Divide contacts into highly-specific lists and groups.

Visually map nurture programs and complex campaigns.

Landing Pages

Capture leads from case study emails with custom landing pages.

In-depth analytics on multi-touch attribution, conversions, and ROI.

MAPs require considerable investment but maximize results at scale.

Analytics and Tracking

Dedicated analytics platforms provide robust tracking and attribution.

Google Analytics

The gold standard for free email and website analytics. Track opens, clicks, location, devices, and more. Integrate with your ESP.

Specializes in tracking anonymous website traffic to tie back to email and ad campaigns.

Advanced analytics capabilities for web and mobile apps beyond Google Analytics.

Focuses on multi-touch attribution modeling across channels like email, paid social, and search.

Choose stand-alone or plug-in analytics based on your use case.

Syncing your CRM and email marketing provides a complete view of prospect interactions.

Industry-leading CRM integrates with all major ESPs and MAPs like Pardot.

Combines CRM, email, landing pages, and analytics on one connected platform.

Affordable CRM with native email marketing capabilities or ESP integrations.

CRM focused on visual pipelines pulls in email engagement data.

Choose a CRM with bi-directional ESP/MAP syncing to centralize data.

With the right technology combination, your case study email process can scale while providing visibility into what’s working. The technology options are plentiful – pick solutions tailored to your needs and budget.

Let’s wrap things up with some final thoughts.

Key Takeaways

Case study emails are a powerful tool to engage prospects and tip them towards becoming customers.

Here are the key lessons to create emails that convert:

• Define the problem – Explore the customer’s situation and struggles before your product. Use specifics and storytelling to build empathy.
• Explain your solution – Connect how your offering specifically addressed root causes and solved issues.
• Dazzle with results – Quantify the exact ROI, metrics improvements, and benefits gained after using your product.
• Leverage social proof – Weave in testimonials, recognizable logos, awards, and reviews for third-party credibility.
• Drive action with CTAs – Guide recipients into converting through strategic calls-to-action personalized to their needs.
• Research and personalize – Tailor messaging with individual prospect research, targeted use cases, and dynamic content.
• Schedule follow-ups – Persistently follow up at least 5-12 times via workflows and automation to boost conversions.
• A/B test and optimize – Try different approaches for subject lines, content, offers, and more to improve performance.
• Integrate with your funnel – Sync case study emails into your lead nurturing journeys for maximum impact.
• Fix deliverability issues – Authenticate your domain, maintain sender reputation, and monitor blacklists to ensure inboxing.
• Leverage visuals – Infographics, charts, screenshots, logos, and other visuals can boost engagement up to 200-300%.
• Promote everywhere – Extend case studies across your website, ads, blog, social media, sales collateral and more.

With a strategic approach, compelling examples, and persistence, case study emails can become one of your most valuable lead generation assets. Use the templates, strategies and tools in this guide to start showcasing your customer success stories effectively.

20 Email Marketing Case Studies: Examples & Results to Learn From

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How would you like to read the best email marketing case studies ever published?

More importantly, how would you like to copy the best practices for email marketing campaigns that are based on real-world examples and not just theory?

Below, you’ll find a list of the top email marketing case studies along with the results and key findings from each example. By studying these email marketing case study examples and applying the lessons learned in your own email campaigns, you can hopefully achieve similar results as an email marketer.

Table of Contents

Top Email Marketing Case Studies

Getting 1,300 monthly donations – watsi email marketing case study.

In this case study, you’ll learn how Watsi crafted an email marketing campaign encouraging new and existing users to sign up for its Universal Fund. Using seven test-driven tools helped this organization knock huge campaigns out of the park. Learn how Watsi used email to make people feel more special, take customization to the next level, earn 1,300 monthly donations, and more.

Collecting 100,000 Emails In One Week – Tim Ferris Show Email Marketing Case Study

This email marketing case study has it all: tips, templates, and code to create a successful email campaign. Discover how Harry’s, a men’s grooming brand, launched its brand and how it collected nearly 100,000 email addresses in one week. You’ll learn everything they did so you can try to replicate the results.

The Science Behind Obama’s Campaign Emails – Bloomberg Email Marketing Case Study

Obama’s election success proved the true power of digital marketing, including powerful email campaigns. Most of the $690 million dollars Obama raised online came from fundraising emails. In this article, you’ll learn about the rigorous experimentation by a large team of analysts and the strategies that made the campaign so successful.

The Amazon Email Experience – Vero Email Marketing Case Study

In this case study on email marketing by Vero, you’ll get a complete analysis of Amazon’s email experience for the user. It takes you from the initial subscriber welcome message, to email receipts, shipping updates, thank you content, invites, Black Friday deals, the review email, and more. There are loads of data and useful tips you can gain and use for your own email campaigns in this post.

Boost Open Rates By 3X & CTR By 2X – Digital Marketer Email Marketing Case Study

How would you like to instantly boost your open rates by 3X and your click-through rates (CTR) by 2X with the next email you send to your list? Digital Marketer shows you 11 strategies you can use right now based on its own research and data to achieve similar results.

Increasing Reach, Impact & Subscriber Satisfaction – Content Marketing Institute Email Marketing Case Study

This article by Content Marketing Institute contains a breakdown of several case study examples for email marketing. Inside, you’ll learn about using list segmentation as well as advice on measuring and optimizing your email delivery performance. Popular brands discussed include SalesForce, Xerox, Noodles Company, and more.

Birchbox Boost Conversions By 25% – Braze Email Marketing Case Study

This is one of the top email marketing case studies that prove why you shouldn’t send out a one-size-fits-all message to your mailing list. It’s a short case study on email marketing, but you’ll learn quickly how Braze helped Birchbox use custom attributes culled from data gathered on customer behavior to switch from generic email content to a more personalized strategy that delivered better results: a 25% boost in conversion rates and 16% increase in open rates.

109% Revenue Lift for Dell with GIFs – MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Case Study

This is one of the best email marketing case studies available that shows the true power of using GIFs in your daily, weekly, or monthly newsletter campaigns. Discover how Dell lifted revenue by 109% with GIF-centered email effort.

$40,000 In Sales Without Annoying Subscribers – Yaro Starak Email Marketing Case Study

Here’s a complete breakdown of how Yaro Starak generated $40,00 in sales without annoying his subscribers during new product launches. It contains lots of tips, tricks, and expert advice on how (and when) to send consecutive emails, usiing videos in the campaign, creating a sense of urgency to buy now, and more.

$800,000 for Charity Water By Increasing Email Frequency – Money Journal Email Marketing Case Study

There are numerous email marketing strategies you can use to increase revenue for your business. However, not all email campaigns have to be heavily focused on giving customer discounts or free stuff to generate more money. This is especially true for non-profit organizations. Check out this case study to learn how Charity Water increased revenue by $800,000 by taking an unconventional approach to their follow-up emails that takes their audience on a journey.

Nanoleaf Recovers 30% of Abandonded Carts – Rejoiner Email Marketing Case Study

Are you an ecommerce brand, online retailer, course seller, or other type of website that uses a cart for the checkout process? If so, then this case study by Rejoiner will give you actionable tips to try based on data from Nanoleaf, which recovered 30% of sales with abandoned cart follow-up emails.

70+ Calls for a B2B Company with Cold Emailing – Growforce Email Marketing Case Study

Cold email marketing can be one of the best converting channels when done right. And this article will help you improve your cold emailing results. Read it to find out some of the top cold email best practices, get an example email sequence, and learn a powerful extra step you can use for marketing automation that works.

From Starting Blocks to Total Clarity – Email Marketing Heroes Case Study

Email Marketing Heroes is a podcast that offers free email marketing tips and a membership program to help business owners improve their email campaigns. In this blog post (and podcast), you’ll learn how one member got instant positive results by emailing her list more regularly, setting up automated email campaigns, and including links in a specific part of each message.

Hammock Increased Open Rate 48% with Shorter Emails – MarketingSherpa Email Marketing Case Study

Hammock is a B2B company that turned its traditional, content-heavy email newsletter into what they refer to as an “un-newsletter.” Discover how “The Idea Email” increased email open rates by 48% by focusing on one central topic and containing 350 words or less.

A/B Testing for Success – VWO Email Marketing Case Study

Most digital marketers don’t think about A/B testing their email marketing campaigns. However, year after year, email marketing delivers the highest return on investment (ROI) across all acquisition channels. In this article, you’ll learn how to incorporate A/B testing best practices, methodologies, and mental models to increase open rates, click-through rates (CTR), conversions, and more.

Building a Welcome Series from Scratch – HelpScout Email Marketing Case Study

This is not your typical case study on email marketing; however, it’s an important article to read if you need help setting up a good welcome series for your business. HelpScout takes you from the first email to the last you send to new subscribers while also describing the goal of each email message in the campaign.

600 Email Subscribers With 2 Blog Posts – Jacob McMillen Email Marketing Case Study

Want to know how to combine the power of SEO, blogging, and email marketing to get new subscribers on your list? Jacob McMillen teaches you all that and more in this case study. Learn how he used ConvertKit on a new blog along with SumoMe Pro popups, and a special SEO content writing technique to get 600 email subscribers from just two blog posts. Includes step-by-step instructions for you to copy this exact strategy for your website and email campaigns.

8 Steps to Building a Tripwire Email Funnel – Data Driven Marketing Email Case Study

If you’re serious about email marketing, then you need to have a good tripwire in place to make more sales from your new subscribers. Inside this guide, you’ll find a complete strategy for building an effective tripwire funnel that converts more subscribers into customers as well as using a follow up email sequence to capture the non-buyers.

10 Tripwire Examples – Autogrow Email Marketing Case Study

After reading the last previous guide on setting up an email tripwire funnel, you may want to look at this page to get proven examples of case studies that worked for this type of email marketing.

56% Rise In Open Rates with Emojis In Subject Lines – Campaign Monitor Email Marketing Case Study

A famous email campaign case study released by Experian revealed that 56% of unique open rates increased for brands that used emojis in their subject lines. In this article, Campaign Monitor offers valuable tips for using emojis like a pro email marketer.

What Is an Email Marketing Case Study?

An email marketing case study explains the process a business went through with a client to help them achieve specific results with an email campaign. Email marketing case studies provide a detailed examination of particular strategies within a real-world context to prove how effective it was for the client.

Are Case Studies Good for Email Marketing?

Case studies are good for email marketing because you can learn how to create email campaigns more effectively. Instead of just studying the theory of email marketing, you can learn from real email strategy campaigns to find out what methods deliver a higher return on investment.

Read More Marketing Case Studies

Here’s a list of more case studies you can use to improve your marketing campaigns:

• SEO case studies
• PPC case studies
• Content marketing case studies
• Digital marketing case studies
• Social media marketing case studies
• Affiliate marketing case studies

Email Marketing Case Study Examples Summary

I hope you enjoyed this list of the best email marketing case studies that are based on real-world results and not just theory.

As you discovered, the email marketing case study examples above demonstrated many different ways to implement an effective email campaign. By studying the key findings from these examples, and applying the methods learned to your own business and email newsletters, you can hopefully achieve the same positive outcome with your email marketing efforts.

New email success case studies are being published every month and I’ll continue to update this list as they become available. So keep checking back to read the current sources of information on email marketing.

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17 Customer Success Email Templates for Every Use Case

Deliver Faster Support Right From Gmail

Table of contents.

While multi-channel support is a norm today, 77% of customer teams still use email to build and nurture customer relationships. Sending contextual and relevant emails at the right touchpoints in the customer’s journey improves customer retention.

But sending emails with the appropriate intent at the right time can be time-consuming. 

In such cases, it is quite helpful to have a few customer success email templates ready to be used.

We’ve listed 17 amazing customer success email templates to help you improve your customer experience. But, before we jump into it, let’s first understand the importance of customer success emails.

Table of Contents

Why are customer success emails important.

An important aspect of building lasting customer relationships is engaging your customers in meaningful conversations. And effective, well-timed customer success emails are an integral part of these conversations. Emails can be used to educate and update your customers, improve product adoption, upsell, and even prevent churn. All of which, ultimately impact the revenue.

Also Include a professional email signature template in your email to establish a positive association between yourself and the company you represent

9 Benefits of Customer Success Email Templates

Customer success email templates are a powerful tool that brings consistency, efficiency, and personalization to your customer communications while saving time and ensuring a seamless customer experience. Here’s what they can help you achieve:

17 Customer Success Email Templates + Examples to Engage with Customers

Now, let’s get down to business!

If you don’t have the professional to work on email designs , that’s absolutely fine. You can start with the simple, clear and concise customer success email templates shared below to drive meaningful conversations with your customers.

1. Onboarding email template

Successful onboarding is a crucial part of the customer experience. In fact, a well-planned customer onboarding strategy helps customers realize the value of your product, thereby improving customer retention.

Here’s a customer success onboarding email template you could use.

Subject: Welcome to [Company Name], [Customer Name], Let’s get started! Hi [Customer Name], Starting tomorrow, we’ll send you a daily tutorial for the next 4 days, focusing on different aspects of [Product Name]. These tutorials will help you gain confidence in using the features effectively. Here’s a sneak peek at what you can expect in the tutorial series: Day 1: [Tutorial Title 1] Learn the basics of [Important Feature] and how to get started. We’ll walk you through the essential steps to set up and navigate the feature smoothly. Day 2: [Tutorial Title 2] Discover advanced techniques and best practices for maximizing the benefits of [Important Feature]. We’ll cover key tips, strategies, and real-world examples to help you achieve remarkable results. Day 3: [Tutorial Title 3] Dive deeper into [Important Feature] with an exploration of its advanced functionalities. We’ll demonstrate how to leverage these advanced capabilities to take your experience to the next level. Day 4: [Tutorial Title 4] In our final tutorial, we’ll address frequently asked questions and provide expert insights to troubleshoot common challenges and optimize your use of [Important Feature]. Feel free to apply these concepts to your [mention customer’s use case] . If you have any questions or need further assistance, our dedicated support team is here to help you every step of the way. Best regards, [Your Name] [Your Title/Role] [Company Name] [Contact Information]

When drafting a customer onboarding email, you need to ensure that you are hitting three important components:

Gmail’s onboarding email does an excellent job at checking off the above pointers.

Here is why it works:

2. Welcome/Introduction email template

The welcome email is your first contact with customers after they sign up for your product. Naturally, you want to keep your email information light at this stage and use friendly language to establish quick rapport without distractions.

Highlight your product’s value proposition and keep things super simple and straightforward while guiding your user to their first Aha! moment. Use branded color schemes and include images and logo designs showing your product in action. 

You can use this welcome email template to initiate a successful customer journey.

Subject: Welcome to [Company Name]! Let’s get started. Dear [Customer’s Name], We’re thrilled to have you join us. We are fully committed to delivering an exceptional experience right from the beginning. In the next 24 hours, your dedicated customer success manager will reach out to you to help you set up your account seamlessly and integrate necessary systems, if any. Meanwhile you can access our comprehensive <hyperlink your knowledge base here> resources to learn how to make the most of our platform. Please be assured that our 24×7 support team is always on standby to assist you with any questions or challenges you may have. We’re glad to have you onboard and excited about what lies ahead! Best, [Your Name] [Your Title/Role] [Company Name] [Contact Information]

Take a few pointers from Playbuzz:

Here’s why it works:

Over 10,000+ teams use Hiver to build stronger customer relationships. See How Hiver Works.

3. Pro Tips/Best Practices email template

At this stage, the user has taken their first steps and used your product. But there may be times when they feel lost or overwhelmed with your product features, especially if you have a slightly more complicated product or service.

In such cases, it is a great idea to send users product setup emails to proactively help move them past friction points and provide them with relevant suggestions that help them get more value from your product, increase customer satisfaction, and prevent customer churn.

Here’s a template you could use when you want to offer pro tips on an important feature. It’s assumed here that the said feature will help you create filters, export data and automate tasks. Feel free to tweak it to suit your use-case.

Subject: Pro Tips: How to Get the Most Out of [Feature name] Hi [Customer Name], I know you’ve been using it for a while, but I think you might find these tips helpful. Tip 1: Use [feature name] to create custom filters. One of the best things about [feature name] is that you can use it to create custom filters. This means you can quickly and easily find the information you need. For example, you could create a filter to show all leads that have been generated in the past week. Tip 2: Use [feature name] to export data. [Feature name] also makes it easy to export data. This means you can share data with your team or with other applications. For example, you could export a list of leads to a spreadsheet or to a CRM system. Tip 3: Use [feature name] to automate tasks. [Feature name] can also be used to automate tasks. This means you can save time and effort by having the app do things for you. For example, you could automate the process of sending follow-up emails to leads. I hope these tips help you get the most out of [feature name]. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Thanks, [Your Name]

Slido’s product setup email does an excellent job encouraging users to take the next steps and provides subtle help and suggestions.

Here’s why it works:

4. Upgrade email template

Customer success teams use upgrade emails to drive free trial and premium models. When done right, these emails convince prospects to convert into paying customers—or upgrade from a free plan to a paid one.

To write an effective update email template, you need to:

You can also provide your customer support email address or link for the user in case they have any additional questions about upgrading.

Here’s an email template you can use to convince customers to upgrade to a paid plan.

Subject: Upgrade your [Product Name] account to continue accessing premium benefits Dear [Customer’s Name], Thank you for trying out [Product Name] during your free trial. With only [X] days left in your trial period, we encourage you to upgrade to a paid plan and elevate your experience. Here’s why it’s worth it: 1. Unlock Premium Features : Gain access to exclusive features that enhance productivity and streamline your workflow. 2. Enjoy Unlimited Usage : Say goodbye to usage limitations and enjoy the benefits of unrestricted access. 3. Priority Support : As a paid customer, you’ll receive priority assistance from our expert support team. 4. Future Enhancements : We’re continually improving our product, and as a paid customer, you’ll have early access to new updates and enhancements. Upgrade your account now by clicking [upgrade link] or reach out to our support team at [contact information] for assistance. Please note that your trial period ends in [X] days. Don’t miss out on the premium benefits that await you! Best regards, [Your Name] [Your Title/Role] [Company Name] [Contact Information]

Take this email from Zapier, for example.

5. Case study email template

93% of consumers say online reviews influenced their purchase decisions. 

You can leverage this behavior by using case studies to convince potential customers that your company can solve their problems. Think of it as a detailed social proof that showcases how your current customers use your products or services and the results they achieve through them.

How to write a case study email template?

To start, make the case study the entire focus of the email. Write a short copy highlighting the results of using the product or service and what insights the recipient can hope to get after reading it. 

Here’s an case study email you could use:

Subject: How [Existing User] Overcame [Painpoint] Hi [Lead Name], [Existing User] is a [industry] company that was struggling to [challenge]. They were using [previous product/primitive method], but they weren’t seeing the results they wanted. After switching to [Your Product], [Existing User] was able to see a [increase] in [metric]. They were able to do this because: [Your Product] is easy to use. [Your Product] is scalable. [Your Product] provides excellent customer support. To read the case study, simply click the link below: [Link] Best, [Your Name]

Niice is one of the few brands that do case study emails really well.

6. Customer feedback email template

Businesses constantly talk about offering personalized customer experiences. One of the facets of offering a personalized experience is to listen to your customers. Customer feedback allows you to capture the VoC (Voice of Customer) , identify your customer’s challenges, what they like about your product, what they’d like to improve, and more.

A great way to collect feedback is by sending out well-designed customer feedback emails from time to time.

While designing a customer feedback email, it is good to keep these pointers in mind.

Here’s a simple customer feedback template you could use.

Subject: What Can We Do Better? Hi [Customer Name], We’re always looking for ways to improve, and your feedback is essential to our success. Here are a few questions that I’d like to ask you: 1. What do you like about our product? 2. What could be improved? 3. What features would you like to see added in the future? Your feedback is confidential and will only be used to improve our product. Thank you for your time and consideration. Sincerely, [Your Name]

Take this example from Algolia.

Deliver Empathetic Service at Every Turn. Boost Customer Satisfaction with Hiver

7. Renewal Reminder Email Template

A renewal reminder email template is an email sent to customers to remind them that their subscription is about to expire. The goal of this email is to encourage customers to renew their subscription so that they can continue using your product or service.

Here’s a simple renewal reminder email template you could use.

Subject: Your subscription to [Product Name] is set to renew automatically Hi [Customer Name], We wanted to remind you that your subscription is up for renewal soon. Renewing your subscription ensures uninterrupted access to our platform, enabling you to maximize the value it brings to your business. Renewal Details: – Expiration Date: [Expiration Date] – Plan: [Plan Name] – Cost: [Renewal Cost] To renew your subscription, simply visit your Account Dashboard > Settings > Payment. If you have any questions or need assistance, reach out to our team at [contact information]. Thank you for choosing [Company Name]. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to serving you in the next subscription period. Best regards, [Your Name]

Fathom is an alternative to Google Analytics. Here’s the message they send when it’s time for your renewal.

8. Testimonial Request Email Template

Testimonial request email templates are a great way to gather positive feedback from your customers. These templates can be used to request testimonials from customers who have had a positive experience with your product or service.

When writing a testimonial request email template, it is important to be clear and concise. The email should include the following information:

The email should also be personalized to the customer. This means addressing the customer by name and mentioning something specific about their experience with your product or service.

Sure, here is a short testimonial request email template for a customer success team with an incentive:

Subject: Request for testimonial + 2 months of free Elite Plan Hi [Customer Name], I’ve been working with you for the past [X] months, and I’m so glad to see how much you’ve accomplished with [product name]. You’ve really taken to our product/service, and I’ve seen how it’s helped you overcome [mention customer’s pain point]. I would be honored to feature your testimonial on our website and in our marketing materials. Please let me know if you have any preferences regarding these. As a token of my appreciation, I’d like to offer you a 2-month free trial of our Elite Plan. This is our most premium plan, and it includes all of the features and benefits that we offer. I know that you’re already a satisfied customer, but I think you’ll really love the added benefits of the Elite Plan. Here are a few questions that would help me write your testimonial: 1. What were your goals before you started using our product/service? 2. How has our product/service helped you achieve your goals? 3. What are some specific examples of how our product/service has helped you? 4. What would you say to other potential customers who are considering using our product/service? I would also be happy to record a video testimonial with you if you prefer. Your testimonial would be greatly appreciated. Please let me know if you’re interested in providing one. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, [Your Name]

This email works because it is personalized, specific, and offers an incentive.

9. Customer Milestones Email Template

Customer milestones are an important opportunity for customer success teams to show their appreciation for customers and to celebrate their successes. By sending a personalized email to the customer, customer success teams can highlight the customer’s achievements and show how their product or service has helped them succeed.

Some examples of customer milestones that customer success can celebrate include:

Here’s a simple template you could use to congratulate your customer for their milestones.

Subject: Celebrating your 2023 Milestones with [Product Name] Hi [CustomerName] Congratulations on a remarkable milestone with [Product Name]! By leveraging our solutions, you saved [X] hours and increased efficiency by [X]% this year. Your achievements have inspired others in our community. As a token of our appreciation, we have upgraded your account to our premium package for [X] months free of charge. Enjoy the added features and resources to fuel your continued success. Thank you for trusting us on this journey. We look forward to celebrating future accomplishments together. Sincerely, [Your Name]

The Spotify Wrapped email campaign is a great example of how to celebrate customer milestones.

The campaign sends personalized emails to users highlighting their listening habits throughout the year. This is a great way to show appreciation for customers and celebrate their successes.

Here’s why this works

10. Subscription Cancellation Email Template

Subscription cancellation email templates are a great way for customer success teams to reach out to customers who have decided to cancel their subscription. These emails can be used to:

Here’s an email template you could use to let your customers know that their subscription has been canceled.

Subject: Confirmation: Your Subscription Has Been Cancelled Hi [Customer Name], I want to confirm that your subscription to [product or service] has been canceled. Your account will expire on [date]. I understand that you may have decided to cancel your subscription for a number of reasons. I would be grateful if you’d like to share your feedback with me. You can do so by replying to this email or by visiting our [feedback form]. In case you’ve changed your mind, you can always reactivate your subscription by visiting the “Payments” section of the “Accounts” tab in your profile or by contacting our customer support team at [mention support email]. I want to thank you for being a valued customer of [product or service]. We hope that you enjoyed using our product or service, and we wish you all the best in the future. Sincerely, [Your Name]

The Basecamp “Subscription Cancelled” email is an effective way to communicate with customers who have canceled their subscriptions.

11. Customer Referral Program email template

Customer referral programs or affiliate programs or can prove to be valuable to your customer success strategy.

Offering an affiliate program can incentivize your most loyal customers to continue spreading the word about your SaaS tool, and may even convince skeptical/non-buyers to continue exploring your tool. 

This win-win situation will also ensure that your customers have a longer lifetime value, as they explore different use cases of your tool. People in your affiliate program will also be actively involved in offering feedback and ways to improve your tool, creating a customer feedback cycle that allows you to align customer success with product development.  Here’s an example you can use to encourage your customers to refer your product to others.

Subject: Refer a friend and get a $50 voucher! Hi [Lead Name], We’re offering a $50 voucher for the first person who signs up for our product through your referral link, and a $100 voucher for each subsequent person who signs up. We know that word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful ways to grow our business, and we’re grateful for your help in spreading the word. If you know anyone who would benefit from using our product, please let them know about our referral program. They can simply click the link below to sign up: [Link] When they sign up, they’ll be able to enter your name as their referral source. We’ll then send you a $50 voucher for your next purchase. And if you continue to refer people, you’ll earn a $100 voucher for each subsequent person who signs up. If you have any questions or need further assistance, our dedicated customer support team is here to help. Feel free to reach out to us at [contact information]. Thank you for being a valued customer and for considering participating in our customer referral program. Best regards, [Your Name] [Your Title/Role] [Company Name] [Contact Information]

Ranktracker offers a very generous lifetime 20% affiliate commission and this is their email:

Additional resources you may like: 1. 10 Email Templates for your Customer Support team 2. Write Awesome Customer Service Emails: Best Practices + Templates 3. 7 Gmail Templates to Improve Customer Experience in 2023 4. 10 Live Chat templates for your Customer Support team

12. New feature email template

Users receive tons of emails every day. If you want to get customers excited about your latest feature, you need emails that successfully pique your customers’ interest and get them excited about what you’re offering.

While the general idea is to make the new feature email template a concise reflection of your brand and its offering, here are a few additional pointers to keep in mind:

Here’s a simple email template you could use to promote your new product/service.

Subject: Introducing [New Product/Feature] that solves [Painpoint] Dear [Recipient’s Name], I’m excited to announce the launch of our latest offering: [New Product/Feature] <add link to feature page/blog post>. Designed to [specific benefits], it is our answer to [customer pain points/challenges] and represents a significant milestone in our commitment to providing innovative solutions. Here’s how you’ll benefit with [New Product/Feature]: [Highlight Key Benefit 1] [Highlight Key Benefit 2] [Highlight Key Benefit 3] [New Product/Feature] is available on Pro and Elite plans. Click here <insert pricing page link> if you wish to upgrade and avail this feature. Feel free to reply to this email or reach out to support at <insert support team’s email> for any clarifications. I look forward to hearing from you soon! Thanks, [Your Name]

This email from Yoto is an excellent example of how to do a product feature launch right.

13. Win-back email template

Win-back emails let you re-engage with inactive contacts who have made purchases or signed up for your email list but have stopped opening your emails. They get people to interact with your emails and CTAs again, which, considering it’s five times more costly to get a new customer than to retain a loyal customer, is a significant advantage.

A great win-back email can work on its own, but we recommend building a strategically-timed sequence that includes targeted messages for best results.

Here’s a simple follow-up email template you could use.

Subject: [Your Product] is still here for you. Hi [Lead Name], I noticed that you stopped using [Your Product] after your free trial ended. Is there anything I could do to help you get back on track? Here’s a reminder of the great things [Your Product] can do for you: [Benefit 1] [Benefit 2] [Benefit 3] I’d be happy to set up a time to chat with you and answer any questions you have. Or, if you’d prefer, you can just reply to this email and let me know if I can help you sort out any challenges you may faced during the trial. Thanks, [Your Name]

Look at how Teespring absolutely nails win-back emails.

14. Webinar invite template

Sending out thoughtfully-crafted webinar invites will help you maximize attendees while simultaneously promoting your business and image authenticity. This strategy is both helpful for email marketing as well as customer success.

When drafting a webinar invite, ensure it answers the classic Ws and H (Who, What, When, Why, and How). This includes:

Here’s a simple template you could use to invite users and leads to your webinar.

Subject: Join Our Exclusive Webinar: [Webinar Title] Dear [Recipient’s Name], We are excited to invite you to an exclusive webinar hosted by [Company Name]. This is a valuable opportunity to gain insights and expand your knowledge on [topic of the webinar]. Title: [Webinar Title] Date: [Webinar Date] Time: [Webinar Time] Duration: [Webinar Duration] Registration Link: [Webinar Registration Link] Add to Your Calendar: Gmail | Outlook | iCal You will learn valuable strategies, best practices, and practical tips to achieve [desired outcomes or goals]. These include: [Key takeaway 1] [Key takeaway 2] [Key takeaway 3] This interactive session will also include a live Q&A segment where you can directly ask our experts any questions you may have. Should you have any questions or need further information, please feel free to reach out to us at [contact information]. See you at the webinar! Best regards, [Your Name] [Your Title/Role] [Company Name] [Contact Information]

Take some pointers from this webinar invite from Teachable.

15. Book a Call Email Template

SaaS businesses use these emails with the intention of converting non-paying customers to paying ones. Successful book-a-call templates usually play on high personalization and humanization of the brand. It’s important to have this email written on behalf of a direct representative, for example from your customer success managers or a subject matter expert. 

Of course, you need to also add a clear CTA that links directly to a booking page so that it’s easy for customers to get the support they need. Here’s a call-scheduling email template that you can use:

Subject: Let’s Set Up a Call to Discuss Your Needs Hi [Lead Name], My name is [Your Name] and I’m a [Your Title] at [Your Company]. I’m reaching out because I was interested in learning more about your business and how we can help you achieve your goals. I saw that you downloaded our [Product Name] ebook, and I wanted to see if you’d be interested in setting up a call to discuss your needs in more detail. During our call, we can talk about: 1. Your business goals 2. The challenges you’re facing 3. How our products and services can help you overcome those challenges I’m available to chat on [Date] at [Time] or [Date] at [Time]. Please let me know if either of those times work for you. If not, feel free to block my calendar on Calendly. I’m happy to work around your schedule. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Thanks, [Your Name]

Take this email from Shipyard.

16. Promotional email template

Brands have the superpower to create a sense of suspense and intrigue whenever a new product or service is just about to be launched.

You can always announce such launches, run a good advertising campaign for them, and finally, as soon as the intrigue reaches its peak, send out effective emails announcing the come out of the promised product or service.

Subject: Black Friday Sale: Save 50% on Your First Year with [Product Name]! Hi [Lead Name], Black Friday is just around the corner, and we’re excited to offer you a special deal on [Your Product]. For a limited time, you can save 50% on your first year of subscription. This is a great opportunity to try our product and get a practical experience of how it can help you optimize your [insert customer use-case]. Your Product] will help you: [Benefit 1] [Benefit 2] [Benefit 3] To learn more about our Black Friday sale, simply click the link below: [Link] You can avail this offer till [Insert Date and Time] Feel free to reply to this email or reach out to the 24×7 support team at [Insert Support Team email] for any queries. Thanks, [Your Name]

This strategy is also perfectly integrated into one of the most popular streaming services – Netflix’s email marketing. A seemingly casual, simple promotional email has an attachment of a poster of the TV series, the second season of which was eagerly awaited by thousands of people.

17. Follow-up email template

Did you know follow-up emails typically get a better response rate than the first email? But this only works when you have a good follow-up email template.

A good rule of thumb is to lead with value. Inform customers how your business can help them and improve their existing routine. Speeding things up, automating processes and tasks, and giving free limited-time access to your product are common value-driven benefits.

Here’s a simple Follow-up email template you could use.

Subject: Just checking in I’m writing to you today to follow up on our conversation from [date/day]. I wanted to see if you had any further questions about [product or service]. I’m also happy to answer any questions you may have about our pricing or how our product can help you achieve your goals. If you’re ready to get started, I’d be happy to set up a time to demo our product. Alternatively, if you’re not quite ready to move forward, that’s okay too. I’d just like to keep you updated on our product and see if there’s anything else I can do to help. Thanks, [Your Name]

Another approach to customer follow-up is giving users a gentle reminder about what they can do with your product à la Miro.

Level up your customer success emails with Hiver

Sending well-timed, thoughtful, and engaging customer success emails is a tried-and-tested way to make customers feel respected and cared for. Not only does it help you win their trust, but it also paves the way for building long-term relationships with your customers that will ultimately improve your business’s bottom line.

Hiver allows you to craft personalized emails and save them as templates with a single click. You can organize different email templates into folders and easily share them with your team. What’s more, you can make your emails visually appealing by embedding relevant images into your email templates. And without having to write a single line of code! Hiver’s email templates are a great way to save repetitive work, improve turnaround time, and elevate your customer success emails.

Deliver stellar customer support right from Gmail

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9 Great Email Marketing Case Studies (and Counting)

• News and Updates Updated August 2020 Posted: August 2015

On this page

Transparency is hot right now, but not in email marketing.

You can see how many Twitter followers a brand has. Lots of businesses blog about their audience growth. And some newsletters share their subscriber count as social proof .

But no one talks about open and click rates, ROI or impact on the bottom line. It’s taboo in the email world.

That makes it really hard to find email marketing case studies. If you want inspiration for your own campaigns, there aren’t many options. You can:

• Read blogs like this one 🙂
• Dive into ReallyGoodEmails.com
• Sign up for newsletters and products to receive their emails

Other than that, all you can do is test your assumptions relentlessly.

We’d like to make it a little easier to read stories about great email campaigns so we collected some of our favorites. Here is the criteria for the case studies we included:

• They are real case studies, not a best practices pieces.
• They include quotes or data from the campaign creators.

That sounds simple until you start exploring the web for stories that meet those two rules. We’d like to add to this list so if you know of a great email story, let us know in the comments.

Together, these posts are long enough to be a book. So we turned them into one.

Download an .epub file

What Startups Can Learn from Watsi’s Wildly Successful Email Campaign

Read it | Share it | Save it

This story is too nuanced to accurately summarize but here’s a primer.

Watsi is the first non-profit to be part of Y Combinator. They crowdsource healthcare funding for people all over the world. To drive recurring revenue, they broke out their monthly donation feature into its own product and launched it separately.

They used email to source early feedback, used social proof to create buzz and built a personalized newsletter to keep users informed about their donations.

Here’s a snippet from this post:

Part of showing people what they’re getting is investing in communications where you aren’t asking for anything. Instead, you’re thanking people for their business or their participation. You’re acknowledging your end of the deal where you’re committed to delighting and surprising them. This is something that for-profit startups tend to neglect – the importance of not just sending a receipt for a purchase, but honing that interaction to make customers feel something more.

Email marketing is isn’t a channel – it’s one layer of a customer-centric company. This case study reveals how complex (and truly valuable) it is to use email to grow a business.

Building a Newsletter Welcome Series from Scratch

Help Scout’s signature flair is purpose .

As they considered how to welcome to new subscribers – and there are more than 51,000 – they knew that aligning business goals with a great experience was key. They pulled it off by ensuring each email sought to achieve a single, measurable goal.

Each of the five emails in the sequence is explained in detail, including the intended purpose and suggestions based on their own learnings.

How The Skimm’s passionate readership helped its newsletter grow to 1.5 million subscribers

Building a profitable business with email is very different than using email to build a profitable business.

Watsi, for example, uses email to support their product. In The Skimm’s case, the email is the product. When newsletters become a business, it’s worth paying careful attention to their strategy. (We detailed an example of this in our Death to the Stock Photo case study .)

The Skimm’s email newsletter reaches 1.5 million daily. That growth has been fueled by an intense understanding of their target reader and an community that is eager to help. There are more than 6,000 “ Skimm’bassadors ” actively spreading the word about this business.

There’s a lot to learn here but if you take just one lesson, let it be this:

The Skimm focuses on women ages 22-34 in big cities throughout the country. They are busy, they’re on the go. It’s a professional audience. And we looked at what they do first thing in the morning. Your alarm goes off, you grab your phone, and you read emails from friends and family first. It really made sense to us to introduce a product that fit in with that routine. And email is very much in the routines of the demo that we’re going after.

There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. Meet your target audience where they’re already active.

How to Gather 100,000 Emails in One Week

I hope you’re noticing a trend in these case studies: Pulling off a wildly successful email campaign isn’t easy.

Even when the goals are simple, the logistics tend to get messy. The smartest companies dig in anyway.

In Harry’s case, they used a landing page to gather 100,000 emails in the week leading up their launch. As a shaving company, they are competing against institutions like Gillette. The only way to outsell them is to out-maneuver them.

Harry’s drove traffic to a landing page, asked for a signup, then used a referral mechanism to incentivize people to share the product. Those who referred friends earned free products. They gave away a ton of free razors that week but it cost way less than broadcasting the upcoming launch on traditional advertising channels.

This post gets into the nitty gritty of driving the traffic, managing the flood of interest and actually delivering the free products.

The Art and Science of Turning Free Trials Into Happy Customers

If you’re a small startup, you’ll be able to relate to this story.

Alex Smith runs marketing at ContactMonkey . As a growing company with a small team, it became too difficult to onboard new customers one at a time. So Alex created a series of events in the application that trigger emails or pause existing campaigns.

The result was not only happier customers, but faster growth. Once the triggers were in place, ContactMonkey was able to guarantee that each customer received the right messaging at the right time.

This post shares the exact emails and triggers ContactMonkey uses to onboarding their users, along with some ideas for blurring the lines between CRM and email marketing.

The Science Behind Those Obama Campaign E-Mails

I think this line will pique your interest about Obama’s last campaign: “Most of the $690 million Obama raised online came from fundraising e-mails.”

The Obama campaign famously used a casual, conversational in tone in the email subject lines. The most famous subject line was simply “Hey.” Another – “I will be outspent” – raised $2.6 million on its own.

Source: Slideshare

This didn’t happen by accident. The folks behind the campaigns tested incessantly, sometimes playing with a dozen or more variations on a single email. Here’s one of the most interesting findings revealed by digital analytics directo Amelia Showalter:

…these triumphs were fleeting. There was no such thing as the perfect e-mail; every breakthrough had a shelf life. “Eventually the novelty wore off, and we had to go back and retest,” says Showalter.

They bottled lightening over and over through rigorous testing and exceptional copywriting. The viral effect was manufactured, not serendipitous.

What We Learned From A Week Of Prototyping A Newsletter In Public

When Buzzfeed began developing a daily email newsletter, the editors turned to Facebook for feedback. They shared their prototypes ( here’s an example ) with their own friends. They made each iteration of the newsletter public to ensure they could patch any holes before launch.

Interestingly, editor Millie Tran said the most useful part of this exercise was the intense focus on the product/market fit:

The most valuable thing about this exercise was that it allowed us to avoid getting too emotionally attached to any one idea early on and to keep tweaking and adjusting the product to be better.

As we’ve written before, email is an extension of your product and should be treated with the appropriate care.

Buzzfeed also wrote a follow-up to this post about using email to test early versions of their mobile app.

Learning vs. Selling

This is a personal story based on my experience here at Vero. Last year, we created 14-step campaign to welcome new subscribers to the blog. The open rates were decent and we heard some positive feedback from customers about the campaign.

Then we nuked it.

Because it a) wasn’t helping us convert readers into customers and b) it wasn’t helping us learn about our readers. We replaced the entire campaign with a single email.

Tons of people replied and we’ve been able to shape our content and emails to match our readers’ challenges and needs. The lesson is here to create opportunities to learn before you try to sell your product.

The Most Successful E-mail I Ever Wrote

A single email can change a business.

Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, realized this after he created this masterpiece of a shipping confirmation email :

Source: Smashing Magazine

The email went viral. At the time, no one put any effort into their transactional emails . The personal touch resonated with a lot of people.

That one silly e-mail, sent out with every order, has been so loved that if you search Google for “private CD Baby jet” you’ll get over 20,000 results. Each one is somebody who got the e-mail and loved it enough to post on their website and tell all their friends. That one goofy e-mail created thousands of new customers.

Simon Schmid calls this finesse the “personality layer.” Here are a number of other examples.

A few more case studies from the Vero archives:

• TripAdvisor’s Unfair Email Marketing Advantage
• How Amazon Dominates E-Commerce with Email
• How Death to the Stock Photo Built a Profitable Business with Email
• Why Product Hunt’s Emails Are So Addictive
• Evernote’s Simple But Useful Onboarding Emails

And here’s a few suggestions from readers:

• How The New York Times gets a 70 percent open rate on its newsletters

Want to send more personalized mobile and email messages to your users?

Customer story.

How Vero helps Dribbble take full advantage of their customer data to improve personalization

Check out Vero , customer engagement software designed for product marketers. Message your users based on what they do (or don't do) in your product.

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How to Feature Customer Case Studies in Your Emails: 10+ Examples

Case studies are the best kind of social proof. But how exactly do you incorporate them in your SaaS emails to drive engagement?

Case studies, use cases, customer stories, community spotlights… You name it. They all serve the same purpose: to showcase the value of your product using real customer stories.

It's the best kind of social proof, and the best inspiration.

But how exactly do you incorporate case studies in your emails to drive engagement? Let's look at 10+ email examples featuring case studies from top SaaS brands.

Why you should use case studies in your email marketing strategy

Case studies in emails have the potential to increase engagement metrics and deliver powerful results. We asked experts about their results earned by incorporating customer case studies in their email campaigns. Here are two note-worthy achievements:

• Peter Michaels, CEO of Yeepsy , says that they saw a click-through rate of approximately 14%, which was significantly higher than their average CTR for similar campaigns.
• Simon Bacher, CEO and co-founder of Ling App , shares that an email marketing campaign that included a case study brought them a whopping 30% conversion rate.

Why do case studies in emails bring such great results?

The best kind of social proof. Case studies featuring real names from well-respected companies provide strong social proof, enhancing credibility and trustworthiness among prospects and existing customers.

Inspires action. Case studies showcase innovative uses of your product, inspiring customers to explore new and creative ways to maximize its potential.

Helps solve specific challenges. With real-world examples, case studies highlight how your product successfully addresses specific customer pain points. This provides practical insights that resonate with your audience.

Builds a moat of differentiation. There may be other companies that offer the same solution as yours, but your customer success stories are unique. This sets your brand apart from competitors and differentiates your offering in the market.

Establishes a sense of community. Sharing customer case studies fosters a sense of community among your customers. You encourage them to connect, share their experiences, and learn from one another.

Entertains readers. Case studies provide real-life stories and examples that entertain and captivate readers. By presenting relatable narratives in real-life scenarios, the content will be engaging and memorable.

How to incorporate customer case studies in emails

Here are some tips to help you craft an email with customer stories.

Use the before-during-after framework

Simplify your case study email by focusing on just the facts. Learn what the user experienced before, during, and after they used your product. We previously had a conversation with Joel Klettke about powerful case studies where he talks about this framework in detail.

Evoke emotion

Alternatively, you can choose to focus on the sentiment side. Case study emails don't have to be just focused on quantitative results. You can add a human element.

Structure your email based on how the experience made a personal impact on your customer (aside from how it solved a challenge). This will help distinguish your brand from your competitors who might also use case studies.

Include measurable results if possible

If your case study features results that your customer received, make sure to include that in your email. A statement like "X [company/person] who uses this feature for Y step, has saved Z number of hours" would work. This will help them quantify the benefit(s) of your product.

Keep it short

When featuring case studies in emails, it's best to keep it concise and engaging, leaving the reader curious for more. Let the full case study do the talking — a persuasive narrative, effectively showcasing the value and impact of your offering.

Make sure your email copy includes a hook that piques the reader's interest and lets them know what to expect from the case study.

Segment and personalize the right way

To maximize results, send targeted case studies based on interest, demographic, or buying stage. For this, you'll need to segment your email list properly.

Here's a segmentation hack that Nick Gaudio, Director of content at Rattle , shared with us:

"One major hack is tying case studies to domains of subscribers. So you get somebody who signs up for an account or your newsletter. Then, create an industry column, and group new subscribers into buckets based on what their email tells you. For instance, back when I was at Rev.com, when I'd get a .edu email, we'd send a case study catalog of all the ways transcription services had helped other big-name universities. It helped that we had a lot of big names in our pockets to pull from. For catch-all uses where the emails were general (think: your GMails and your Yahoos), we'd send the biggest logos we had."

The bottom line is: segment users as much as possible. Try to find out specific characteristics for segmentation. And then send case studies that would interest each group.

Additionally, personalize the email content to address specific pain points or interests.

Explore different formats as case studies

Case studies don't always have to be downloadable content pieces. You can include podcast episodes, articles, videos, and even webinars. You can also showcase customer's work as examples in your emails.

Below you can find helpful examples of case study emails in different formats by SaaS brands.

Mix and match the formats

Here are some ways you can use case study materials in your emails. You can mix and match those to fit your goals:

• As standalone emails in your lead nurture and lifecycle campaigns
• Within your newsletters, as a special block
• As community roundups (same as Webflow and others do below)

Examples of emails featuring case studies

Let's look at how some of the best SaaS brands creatively use case studies in their emails strategy.

#1. Webflow

Webflow is a tool that allows no-coders to create professional, custom websites with a visual canvas.

Webflow's newsletters showcase websites built by some of their customers. They use an image and a short description with a link to the customer's website.

Figma , a popular design software, showcases community accomplishments in their newsletter.

They also share plugins and other reusable creatives by other Figma users. While this isn't exactly a 'customer story', it has the essence of it, and email makes a great distribution channel for these.

#3. Descript

Descript is a video and podcast editing software.

They use email to share some of their case studies done as customer interviews. In this particular email, the author specifies a challenge the customer faced, which is likely a common pain point for others as well. The copy is short and catchy and tells the reader what to expect. They link to the interview at the end.

Loom is a screen recording software with async video.

Loom shares short customer creations during their onboarding flow. New users can get inspiration and quickly understand more about the product.

They also offer a round-up of case studies presented as a guide.

Note how they include a specific number, and include the results accomplished by their customers. The email promotes specific Loom features without sounding too promotional.

Toggl is a time tracking tool that helps save time and make the most of productive hours.

To provide new subscribers with inspiration, one of their onboarding emails features a case study about one of their clients.

Feedly is a tool that helps prioritize content you want to read across the internet with the help of an AI research assistant.

Feedly uses imaginary personas as case studies during their user onboarding. Instead of a long product demo video, they opted for a visual email that helps users understand the different ways they can use the product.

Although these aren't real case studies, they serve the purpose of informing the user about the product benefits with real scenarios.

#7. Mercury

Mercury , the startup bank, includes a "founder spotlight" section in their newsletter.

These customer stories, in the form of Q&As, are not necessarily product-focused. Rather, they tell the founder's story and the company they built. The email features one of the Q&A and links to the rest.

#8. Shopify

Shopify , an ecommerce platform, features multiple case studies on their blogs and other channels.

Another example of a case study promoted in a newsletter. This one promotes an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast, which has insightful conversations with Shopify store owners and industry experts.

#9. Airtable

Airtable is a low-code platform for teams that build apps and productivity tools.

In this newsletter, they showcase how one of their customers used Airtable to move their items. They include just enough information to spark curiosity on this use case.

Canva , an online graphic design tool, is known for its community-focused approach to marketing. They regularly initiate design activities and challenges that users participate in.

In some of their newsletters, Canva showcases a few creations by the Canva community. The one above has a few personal website designs by creators.

VSCO is a professional photo and video editing tool.

VSCO has a creator-focused newsletter. In this edition, they mention how two creators used the Montage feature available on their product and links to the VSCO journal, a visual blog.

Rev , an AI transcription company, sends out case study emails to new leads and customers.

The email copy has a light tone and uses learnings from Netflix and Hulu as lessons for their customers. They keep it concise and link to the downloadable case study at the end. Bravo!

Leverage case studies in emails to bring better results

Let's look at the key takeaways from the examples:

• Highlight a pain point that your product solves, or a challenge your product helped overcome.
• Include measurable results if possible, allowing customers to quantify the benefits of your product.
• Evoke emotion by adding a human element to your case study emails, going beyond just quantitative results.
• Segment and personalize case studies based on interests, demographics, or buying stage to maximize their relevance and impact.
• Explore different formats for case studies such as podcast episodes, articles, videos, or webinars to provide diverse content options in your emails.
• Keep case study emails short and engaging, enticing readers to learn more through a click for the full case study.
• Mix and match case study formats, incorporating them as standalone emails, within newsletters, or as community roundups, to suit your goals and campaigns.

Incorporating customer case studies in your email marketing strategy can be a game-changer for your business. We hope these examples gave you inspiration for your next email campaign.

Hibathu Naseer is a content marketer who specializes in writing actionable and value-driven long-form content for B2B SaaS brands. She also creates lead magnets and email newsletters that bring in and nurture leads.

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Case study request email templates

Case studies are a critical part of most B2B marketing strategies. They give you a chance to show your potential customers real-life examples of how your product was able to satisfy other customer’s needs, solve their problems, and ultimately help them achieve their business goals. Case studies go a long way in earning your prospects’ trust and validating that your product or service actually works. The following article outlines why case studies are an essential content marketing tool and provides helpful case study request email templates along with the basic case study interview questions to help you acquire case studies and success stories from your customers. With these resources and using case study templates , you can craft the perfect case study examples to get the most out of the customers’ experience.

Why use case studies in your marketing strategy?

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What is case study email.

A Case Study Email is a type of email marketing communication that highlights a specific success story or example of how a company's product, service, or solution has provided value to a customer or client. Case study emails are used to showcase real-world examples of how the company's offerings have addressed a customer's challenges, solved problems, and delivered positive outcomes.

The purpose of a case study email is to build credibility, demonstrate the effectiveness of the company's products or services, and provide potential customers with evidence of the company's expertise and track record.

Features of Mailmodo's case study email template

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How to write a case study — examples, templates, and tools

It’s a marketer’s job to communicate the effectiveness of a product or service to potential and current customers to convince them to buy and keep business moving. One of the best methods for doing this is to share success stories that are relatable to prospects and customers based on their pain points, experiences, and overall needs.

That’s where case studies come in. Case studies are an essential part of a content marketing plan. These in-depth stories of customer experiences are some of the most effective at demonstrating the value of a product or service. Yet many marketers don’t use them, whether because of their regimented formats or the process of customer involvement and approval.

A case study is a powerful tool for showcasing your hard work and the success your customer achieved. But writing a great case study can be difficult if you’ve never done it before or if it’s been a while. This guide will show you how to write an effective case study and provide real-world examples and templates that will keep readers engaged and support your business.

In this article, you’ll learn:

What is a case study?

How to write a case study, case study templates, case study examples, case study tools.

A case study is the detailed story of a customer’s experience with a product or service that demonstrates their success and often includes measurable outcomes. Case studies are used in a range of fields and for various reasons, from business to academic research. They’re especially impactful in marketing as brands work to convince and convert consumers with relatable, real-world stories of actual customer experiences.

The best case studies tell the story of a customer’s success, including the steps they took, the results they achieved, and the support they received from a brand along the way. To write a great case study, you need to:

• Celebrate the customer and make them — not a product or service — the star of the story.
• Craft the story with specific audiences or target segments in mind so that the story of one customer will be viewed as relatable and actionable for another customer.
• Write copy that is easy to read and engaging so that readers will gain the insights and messages intended.
• Follow a standardized format that includes all of the essentials a potential customer would find interesting and useful.
• Support all of the claims for success made in the story with data in the forms of hard numbers and customer statements.

Case studies are a type of review but more in depth, aiming to show — rather than just tell — the positive experiences that customers have with a brand. Notably, 89% of consumers read reviews before deciding to buy, and 79% view case study content as part of their purchasing process. When it comes to B2B sales, 52% of buyers rank case studies as an important part of their evaluation process.

Telling a brand story through the experience of a tried-and-true customer matters. The story is relatable to potential new customers as they imagine themselves in the shoes of the company or individual featured in the case study. Showcasing previous customers can help new ones see themselves engaging with your brand in the ways that are most meaningful to them.

Besides sharing the perspective of another customer, case studies stand out from other content marketing forms because they are based on evidence. Whether pulling from client testimonials or data-driven results, case studies tend to have more impact on new business because the story contains information that is both objective (data) and subjective (customer experience) — and the brand doesn’t sound too self-promotional.

Case studies are unique in that there’s a fairly standardized format for telling a customer’s story. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for creativity. It’s all about making sure that teams are clear on the goals for the case study — along with strategies for supporting content and channels — and understanding how the story fits within the framework of the company’s overall marketing goals.

Here are the basic steps to writing a good case study.

1. Identify your goal

Start by defining exactly who your case study will be designed to help. Case studies are about specific instances where a company works with a customer to achieve a goal. Identify which customers are likely to have these goals, as well as other needs the story should cover to appeal to them.

The answer is often found in one of the buyer personas that have been constructed as part of your larger marketing strategy. This can include anything from new leads generated by the marketing team to long-term customers that are being pressed for cross-sell opportunities. In all of these cases, demonstrating value through a relatable customer success story can be part of the solution to conversion.

2. Choose your client or subject

Who you highlight matters. Case studies tie brands together that might otherwise not cross paths. A writer will want to ensure that the highlighted customer aligns with their own company’s brand identity and offerings. Look for a customer with positive name recognition who has had great success with a product or service and is willing to be an advocate.

The client should also match up with the identified target audience. Whichever company or individual is selected should be a reflection of other potential customers who can see themselves in similar circumstances, having the same problems and possible solutions.

Some of the most compelling case studies feature customers who:

• Switch from one product or service to another while naming competitors that missed the mark.
• Experience measurable results that are relatable to others in a specific industry.
• Represent well-known brands and recognizable names that are likely to compel action.
• Advocate for a product or service as a champion and are well-versed in its advantages.

Whoever or whatever customer is selected, marketers must ensure they have the permission of the company involved before getting started. Some brands have strict review and approval procedures for any official marketing or promotional materials that include their name. Acquiring those approvals in advance will prevent any miscommunication or wasted effort if there is an issue with their legal or compliance teams.

3. Conduct research and compile data

Substantiating the claims made in a case study — either by the marketing team or customers themselves — adds validity to the story. To do this, include data and feedback from the client that defines what success looks like. This can be anything from demonstrating return on investment (ROI) to a specific metric the customer was striving to improve. Case studies should prove how an outcome was achieved and show tangible results that indicate to the customer that your solution is the right one.

This step could also include customer interviews. Make sure that the people being interviewed are key stakeholders in the purchase decision or deployment and use of the product or service that is being highlighted. Content writers should work off a set list of questions prepared in advance. It can be helpful to share these with the interviewees beforehand so they have time to consider and craft their responses. One of the best interview tactics to keep in mind is to ask questions where yes and no are not natural answers. This way, your subject will provide more open-ended responses that produce more meaningful content.

4. Choose the right format

There are a number of different ways to format a case study. Depending on what you hope to achieve, one style will be better than another. However, there are some common elements to include, such as:

• An engaging headline
• A subject and customer introduction
• The unique challenge or challenges the customer faced
• The solution the customer used to solve the problem
• The results achieved
• Data and statistics to back up claims of success
• A strong call to action (CTA) to engage with the vendor

It’s also important to note that while case studies are traditionally written as stories, they don’t have to be in a written format. Some companies choose to get more creative with their case studies and produce multimedia content, depending on their audience and objectives. Case study formats can include traditional print stories, interactive web or social content, data-heavy infographics, professionally shot videos, podcasts, and more.

5. Write your case study

We’ll go into more detail later about how exactly to write a case study, including templates and examples. Generally speaking, though, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing your case study.

• Be clear and concise. Readers want to get to the point of the story quickly and easily, and they’ll be looking to see themselves reflected in the story right from the start.
• Provide a big picture. Always make sure to explain who the client is, their goals, and how they achieved success in a short introduction to engage the reader.
• Construct a clear narrative. Stick to the story from the perspective of the customer and what they needed to solve instead of just listing product features or benefits.
• Leverage graphics. Incorporating infographics, charts, and sidebars can be a more engaging and eye-catching way to share key statistics and data in readable ways.
• Offer the right amount of detail. Most case studies are one or two pages with clear sections that a reader can skim to find the information most important to them.
• Include data to support claims. Show real results — both facts and figures and customer quotes — to demonstrate credibility and prove the solution works.

6. Promote your story

Marketers have a number of options for distribution of a freshly minted case study. Many brands choose to publish case studies on their website and post them on social media. This can help support SEO and organic content strategies while also boosting company credibility and trust as visitors see that other businesses have used the product or service.

Marketers are always looking for quality content they can use for lead generation. Consider offering a case study as gated content behind a form on a landing page or as an offer in an email message. One great way to do this is to summarize the content and tease the full story available for download after the user takes an action.

Sales teams can also leverage case studies, so be sure they are aware that the assets exist once they’re published. Especially when it comes to larger B2B sales, companies often ask for examples of similar customer challenges that have been solved.

Now that you’ve learned a bit about case studies and what they should include, you may be wondering how to start creating great customer story content. Here are a couple of templates you can use to structure your case study.

Template 1 — Challenge-solution-result format

• Start with an engaging title. This should be fewer than 70 characters long for SEO best practices. One of the best ways to approach the title is to include the customer’s name and a hint at the challenge they overcame in the end.
• Create an introduction. Lead with an explanation as to who the customer is, the need they had, and the opportunity they found with a specific product or solution. Writers can also suggest the success the customer experienced with the solution they chose.
• Present the challenge. This should be several paragraphs long and explain the problem the customer faced and the issues they were trying to solve. Details should tie into the company’s products and services naturally. This section needs to be the most relatable to the reader so they can picture themselves in a similar situation.
• Share the solution. Explain which product or service offered was the ideal fit for the customer and why. Feel free to delve into their experience setting up, purchasing, and onboarding the solution.
• Explain the results. Demonstrate the impact of the solution they chose by backing up their positive experience with data. Fill in with customer quotes and tangible, measurable results that show the effect of their choice.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that invites readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to nurture them further in the marketing pipeline. What you ask of the reader should tie directly into the goals that were established for the case study in the first place.

Template 2 — Data-driven format

• Start with an engaging title. Be sure to include a statistic or data point in the first 70 characters. Again, it’s best to include the customer’s name as part of the title.
• Create an overview. Share the customer’s background and a short version of the challenge they faced. Present the reason a particular product or service was chosen, and feel free to include quotes from the customer about their selection process.
• Present data point 1. Isolate the first metric that the customer used to define success and explain how the product or solution helped to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 2. Isolate the second metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Present data point 3. Isolate the final metric that the customer used to define success and explain what the product or solution did to achieve this goal. Provide data points and quotes to substantiate the claim that success was achieved.
• Summarize the results. Reiterate the fact that the customer was able to achieve success thanks to a specific product or service. Include quotes and statements that reflect customer satisfaction and suggest they plan to continue using the solution.
• Ask for action. Include a CTA at the end of the case study that asks readers to reach out for more information, try a demo, or learn more — to further nurture them in the marketing pipeline. Again, remember that this is where marketers can look to convert their content into action with the customer.

While templates are helpful, seeing a case study in action can also be a great way to learn. Here are some examples of how Adobe customers have experienced success.

Juniper Networks

One example is the Adobe and Juniper Networks case study , which puts the reader in the customer’s shoes. The beginning of the story quickly orients the reader so that they know exactly who the article is about and what they were trying to achieve. Solutions are outlined in a way that shows Adobe Experience Manager is the best choice and a natural fit for the customer. Along the way, quotes from the client are incorporated to help add validity to the statements. The results in the case study are conveyed with clear evidence of scale and volume using tangible data.

The story of Lenovo’s journey with Adobe is one that spans years of planning, implementation, and rollout. The Lenovo case study does a great job of consolidating all of this into a relatable journey that other enterprise organizations can see themselves taking, despite the project size. This case study also features descriptive headers and compelling visual elements that engage the reader and strengthen the content.

Tata Consulting

When it comes to using data to show customer results, this case study does an excellent job of conveying details and numbers in an easy-to-digest manner. Bullet points at the start break up the content while also helping the reader understand exactly what the case study will be about. Tata Consulting used Adobe to deliver elevated, engaging content experiences for a large telecommunications client of its own — an objective that’s relatable for a lot of companies.

Case studies are a vital tool for any marketing team as they enable you to demonstrate the value of your company’s products and services to others. They help marketers do their job and add credibility to a brand trying to promote its solutions by using the experiences and stories of real customers.

When you’re ready to get started with a case study:

• Think about a few goals you’d like to accomplish with your content.
• Make a list of successful clients that would be strong candidates for a case study.
• Reach out to the client to get their approval and conduct an interview.
• Gather the data to present an engaging and effective customer story.

Adobe can help

There are several Adobe products that can help you craft compelling case studies. Adobe Experience Platform helps you collect data and deliver great customer experiences across every channel. Once you’ve created your case studies, Experience Platform will help you deliver the right information to the right customer at the right time for maximum impact.

To learn more, watch the Adobe Experience Platform story .

Keep in mind that the best case studies are backed by data. That’s where Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform and Adobe Analytics come into play. With Real-Time CDP, you can gather the data you need to build a great case study and target specific customers to deliver the content to the right audience at the perfect moment.

Watch the Real-Time CDP overview video to learn more.

Finally, Adobe Analytics turns real-time data into real-time insights. It helps your business collect and synthesize data from multiple platforms to make more informed decisions and create the best case study possible.

Request a demo to learn more about Adobe Analytics.

https://business.adobe.com/blog/perspectives/b2b-ecommerce-10-case-studies-inspire-you

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/business-case

https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/what-is-real-time-analytics

Business growth

Marketing tips

16 case study examples (+ 3 templates to make your own)

I like to think of case studies as a business's version of a resume. It highlights what the business can do, lends credibility to its offer, and contains only the positive bullet points that paint it in the best light possible.

Imagine if the guy running your favorite taco truck followed you home so that he could "really dig into how that burrito changed your life." I see the value in the practice. People naturally prefer a tried-and-true burrito just as they prefer tried-and-true products or services.

To help you showcase your success and flesh out your burrito questionnaire, I've put together some case study examples and key takeaways.

What is a case study?

A case study is an in-depth analysis of how your business, product, or service has helped past clients. It can be a document, a webpage, or a slide deck that showcases measurable, real-life results.

For example, if you're a SaaS company, you can analyze your customers' results after a few months of using your product to measure its effectiveness. You can then turn this analysis into a case study that further proves to potential customers what your product can do and how it can help them overcome their challenges.

It changes the narrative from "I promise that we can do X and Y for you" to "Here's what we've done for businesses like yours, and we can do it for you, too."

16 case study examples 

While most case studies follow the same structure, quite a few try to break the mold and create something unique. Some businesses lean heavily on design and presentation, while others pursue a detailed, stat-oriented approach. Some businesses try to mix both.

There's no set formula to follow, but I've found that the best case studies utilize impactful design to engage readers and leverage statistics and case details to drive the point home. A case study typically highlights the companies, the challenges, the solution, and the results. The examples below will help inspire you to do it, too.

1. .css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class]{all:unset;box-sizing:border-box;-webkit-text-fill-color:currentColor;cursor:pointer;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class]{all:unset;box-sizing:border-box;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;cursor:pointer;-webkit-transition:all 300ms ease-in-out;transition:all 300ms ease-in-out;outline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-fill-color:currentColor;outline:1px solid transparent;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='ocean']{color:#3d4592;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='ocean']:hover{color:#2b2358;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='ocean']:focus{color:#3d4592;outline-color:#3d4592;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='white']{color:#fffdf9;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='white']:hover{color:#a8a5a0;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='white']:focus{color:#fffdf9;outline-color:#fffdf9;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='primary']{color:#3d4592;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='primary']:hover{color:#2b2358;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='primary']:focus{color:#3d4592;outline-color:#3d4592;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='secondary']{color:#fffdf9;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='secondary']:hover{color:#a8a5a0;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-color='secondary']:focus{color:#fffdf9;outline-color:#fffdf9;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-weight='inherit']{font-weight:inherit;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-weight='normal']{font-weight:400;}.css-1l9i3yq-Link[class][class][class][class][class][data-weight='bold']{font-weight:700;} Volcanica Coffee and AdRoll

People love a good farm-to-table coffee story, and boy am I one of them. But I've shared this case study with you for more reasons than my love of coffee. I enjoyed this study because it was written as though it was a letter.

In this case study, the founder of Volcanica Coffee talks about the journey from founding the company to personally struggling with learning and applying digital marketing to finding and enlisting AdRoll's services.

It felt more authentic, less about AdRoll showcasing their worth and more like a testimonial from a grateful and appreciative client. After the story, the case study wraps up with successes, milestones, and achievements. Note that quite a few percentages are prominently displayed at the top, providing supporting evidence that backs up an inspiring story.

Takeaway: Highlight your goals and measurable results to draw the reader in and provide concise, easily digestible information.

2. Taylor Guitars and Airtable

This Airtable case study on Taylor Guitars comes as close as one can to an optimal structure. It features a video that represents the artistic nature of the client, highlighting key achievements and dissecting each element of Airtable's influence.

It also supplements each section with a testimonial or quote from the client, using their insights as a catalyst for the case study's narrative. For example, the case study quotes the social media manager and project manager's insights regarding team-wide communication and access before explaining in greater detail.

Takeaway: Highlight pain points your business solves for its client, and explore that influence in greater detail.

3. EndeavourX and Figma

My favorite part of Figma's case study is highlighting why EndeavourX chose its solution. You'll notice an entire section on what Figma does for teams and then specifically for EndeavourX.

It also places a heavy emphasis on numbers and stats. The study, as brief as it is, still manages to pack in a lot of compelling statistics about what's possible with Figma.

Takeaway: Showcase the "how" and "why" of your product's differentiators and how they benefit your customers.

4. ActiveCampaign and Zapier

Zapier's case study leans heavily on design, using graphics to present statistics and goals in a manner that not only remains consistent with the branding but also actively pushes it forward, drawing users' eyes to the information most important to them. 

The graphics, emphasis on branding elements, and cause/effect style tell the story without requiring long, drawn-out copy that risks boring readers. Instead, the cause and effect are concisely portrayed alongside the client company's information for a brief and easily scannable case study.

Takeaway: Lean on design to call attention to the most important elements of your case study, and make sure it stays consistent with your branding.

5. Ironclad and OpenAI

In true OpenAI fashion, this case study is a block of text. There's a distinct lack of imagery, but the study features a narrated video walking readers through the product.

The lack of imagery and color may not be the most inviting, but utilizing video format is commendable. It helps thoroughly communicate how OpenAI supported Ironclad in a way that allows the user to sit back, relax, listen, and be impressed. 

Takeaway: Get creative with the media you implement in your case study. Videos can be a very powerful addition when a case study requires more detailed storytelling.

6. Shopify and GitHub

GitHub's case study on Shopify is a light read. It addresses client pain points and discusses the different aspects its product considers and improves for clients. It touches on workflow issues, internal systems, automation, and security. It does a great job of representing what one company can do with GitHub.

To drive the point home, the case study features colorful quote callouts from the Shopify team, sharing their insights and perspectives on the partnership, the key issues, and how they were addressed.

Takeaway: Leverage quotes to boost the authoritativeness and trustworthiness of your case study. 

7 . Audible and Contentful

Contentful's case study on Audible features almost every element a case study should. It includes not one but two videos and clearly outlines the challenge, solution, and outcome before diving deeper into what Contentful did for Audible. The language is simple, and the writing is heavy with quotes and personal insights.

This case study is a uniquely original experience. The fact that the companies in question are perhaps two of the most creative brands out there may be the reason. I expected nothing short of a detailed analysis, a compelling story, and video content. 

Takeaway: Inject some brand voice into the case study, and create assets that tell the story for you.

8 . Zoom and Asana

Asana's case study on Zoom is longer than the average piece and features detailed data on Zoom's growth since 2020. Instead of relying on imagery and graphics, it features several quotes and testimonials. 

It's designed to be direct, informative, and promotional. At some point, the case study reads more like a feature list. There were a few sections that felt a tad too promotional for my liking, but to each their own burrito.

Takeaway: Maintain a balance between promotional and informative. You want to showcase the high-level goals your product helped achieve without losing the reader.

9 . Hickies and Mailchimp

I've always been a fan of Mailchimp's comic-like branding, and this case study does an excellent job of sticking to their tradition of making information easy to understand, casual, and inviting.

It features a short video that briefly covers Hickies as a company and Mailchimp's efforts to serve its needs for customer relationships and education processes. Overall, this case study is a concise overview of the partnership that manages to convey success data and tell a story at the same time. What sets it apart is that it does so in a uniquely colorful and brand-consistent manner.

Takeaway: Be concise to provide as much value in as little text as possible.

10. NVIDIA and Workday

The gaming industry is notoriously difficult to recruit for, as it requires a very specific set of skills and experience. This case study focuses on how Workday was able to help fill that recruitment gap for NVIDIA, one of the biggest names in the gaming world.

Though it doesn't feature videos or graphics, this case study stood out to me in how it structures information like "key products used" to give readers insight into which tools helped achieve these results.

Takeaway: If your company offers multiple products or services, outline exactly which ones were involved in your case study, so readers can assess each tool.

11. KFC and Contentful

I'm personally not a big KFC fan, but that's only because I refuse to eat out of a bucket. My aversion to the bucket format aside, Contentful follows its consistent case study format in this one, outlining challenges, solutions, and outcomes before diving into the nitty-gritty details of the project.

Say what you will about KFC, but their primary product (chicken) does present a unique opportunity for wordplay like "Continuing to march to the beat of a digital-first drum(stick)" or "Delivering deep-fried goodness to every channel."

Takeaway: Inject humor into your case study if there's room for it and if it fits your brand. 

12. Intuit and Twilio

Twilio does an excellent job of delivering achievements at the very beginning of the case study and going into detail in this two-minute read. While there aren't many graphics, the way quotes from the Intuit team are implemented adds a certain flair to the study and breaks up the sections nicely.

It's simple, concise, and manages to fit a lot of information in easily digestible sections.

Takeaway: Make sure each section is long enough to inform but brief enough to avoid boring readers. Break down information for each section, and don't go into so much detail that you lose the reader halfway through.

13. Spotify and Salesforce

Salesforce created a video that accurately summarizes the key points of the case study. Beyond that, the page itself is very light on content, and sections are as short as one paragraph.

I especially like how information is broken down into "What you need to know," "Why it matters," and "What the difference looks like." I'm not ashamed of being spoon-fed information. When it's structured so well and so simply, it makes for an entertaining read.

Takeaway: Invest in videos that capture and promote your partnership with your case study subject. Video content plays a promotional role that extends beyond the case study in social media and marketing initiatives .

14. Benchling and Airtable

Benchling is an impressive entity in its own right. Biotech R&D and health care nuances go right over my head. But the research and digging I've been doing in the name of these burritos (case studies) revealed that these products are immensely complex. 

And that's precisely why this case study deserves a read—it succeeds at explaining a complex project that readers outside the industry wouldn't know much about.

Takeaway: Simplify complex information, and walk readers through the company's operations and how your business helped streamline them.

15. Chipotle and Hubble

The concision of this case study is refreshing. It features two sections—the challenge and the solution—all in 316 words. This goes to show that your case study doesn't necessarily need to be a four-figure investment with video shoots and studio time. 

Sometimes, the message is simple and short enough to convey in a handful of paragraphs.

Takeaway: Consider what you should include instead of what you can include. Assess the time, resources, and effort you're able and willing to invest in a case study, and choose which elements you want to include from there.

16. Hudl and Zapier

I may be biased, but I'm a big fan of seeing metrics and achievements represented in branded graphics. It can be a jarring experience to navigate a website, then visit a case study page and feel as though you've gone to a completely different website.

The Zapier format provides nuggets of high-level insights, milestones, and achievements, as well as the challenge, solution, and results. My favorite part of this case study is how it's supplemented with a blog post detailing how Hudl uses Zapier automation to build a seamless user experience.

The case study is essentially the summary, and the blog article is the detailed analysis that provides context beyond X achievement or Y goal.

Takeaway: Keep your case study concise and informative. Create other resources to provide context under your blog, media or press, and product pages.

3 case study templates

Now that you've had your fill of case studies (if that's possible), I've got just what you need: an infinite number of case studies, which you can create yourself with these case study templates.

Case study template 1

If you've got a quick hit of stats you want to show off, try this template. The opening section gives space for a short summary and three visually appealing stats you can highlight, followed by a headline and body where you can break the case study down more thoroughly. This one's pretty simple, with only sections for solutions and results, but you can easily continue the formatting to add more sections as needed.

Case study template 2

For a case study template with a little more detail, use this one. Opening with a striking cover page for a quick overview, this one goes on to include context, stakeholders, challenges, multiple quote callouts, and quick-hit stats. 

Case study template 3

Whether you want a little structural variation or just like a nice dark green, this template has similar components to the last template but is designed to help tell a story. Move from the client overview through a description of your company before getting to the details of how you fixed said company's problems.

Tips for writing a case study

Examples are all well and good, but you don't learn how to make a burrito just by watching tutorials on YouTube without knowing what any of the ingredients are. You could , but it probably wouldn't be all that good.

Writing a good case study comes down to a mix of creativity, branding, and the capacity to invest in the project. With those details in mind, here are some case study tips to follow:

Have an objective: Define your objective by identifying the challenge, solution, and results. Assess your work with the client and focus on the most prominent wins. You're speaking to multiple businesses and industries through the case study, so make sure you know what you want to say to them.

Focus on persuasive data: Growth percentages and measurable results are your best friends. Extract your most compelling data and highlight it in your case study.

Use eye-grabbing graphics: Branded design goes a long way in accurately representing your brand and retaining readers as they review the study. Leverage unique and eye-catching graphics to keep readers engaged. 

Simplify data presentation: Some industries are more complex than others, and sometimes, data can be difficult to understand at a glance. Make sure you present your data in the simplest way possible. Make it concise, informative, and easy to understand.

Use automation to drive results for your case study

A case study example is a source of inspiration you can leverage to determine how to best position your brand's work. Find your unique angle, and refine it over time to help your business stand out. Ask anyone: the best burrito in town doesn't just appear at the number one spot. They find their angle (usually the house sauce) and leverage it to stand out.

In fact, with the right technology, it can be refined to work better . Explore how Zapier's automation features can help drive results for your case study by making your case study a part of a developed workflow that creates a user journey through your website, your case studies, and into the pipeline.

Case study FAQ

Got your case study template? Great—it's time to gather the team for an awkward semi-vague data collection task. While you do that, here are some case study quick answers for you to skim through while you contemplate what to call your team meeting.

What is an example of a case study?

An example of a case study is when a software company analyzes its results from a client project and creates a webpage, presentation, or document that focuses on high-level results, challenges, and solutions in an attempt to showcase effectiveness and promote the software.

How do you write a case study?

To write a good case study, you should have an objective, identify persuasive and compelling data, leverage graphics, and simplify data. Case studies typically include an analysis of the challenge, solution, and results of the partnership.

What is the format of a case study?

While case studies don't have a set format, they're often portrayed as reports or essays that inform readers about the partnership and its results. 

Related reading:

How Hudl uses automation to create a seamless user experience

How to make your case studies high-stakes—and why it matters

How experts write case studies that convert, not bore

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Hachem Ramki

Hachem is a writer and digital marketer from Montreal. After graduating with a degree in English, Hachem spent seven years traveling around the world before moving to Canada. When he's not writing, he enjoys Basketball, Dungeons and Dragons, and playing music for friends and family.

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28 Email Examples to Inspire Your Email Marketing Strategy [CASE STUDY]

• October 27, 2022

Email examples are all over the web, and it’s no secret that a comprehensive  email marketing strategy  can significantly impact your online business.

But as your shoppers are inundated with numerous emails daily, you’ve got to make your messages stand out. After all, around  200 billion emails  are sent and received every single day!

To help you out, we’ve compiled 28 inspiring email examples that cover each part of the sales funnel from the moment a shopper opts in all the way through to post-sale.

We’ve collected email examples that span the entire online sales process including examples of:

• Welcome series
• Browse abandonment campaigns
• Cart abandonment campaigns
• Transactional (order confirmation) emails
• Post-purchase campaigns
• Retention campaigns
• Newsletters and promotions

Use the sales funnel to the left to navigate through each campaign type and view these inspiring email examples and our pro critiques to help implement your next email marketing campaign.

Welcome Email Series Examples

You successfully convinced your shoppers to subscribe to your email list. Now what? The  Welcome Email  is the perfect message to introduce new opt-ins to your brand, build loyalty from the get-go, and encourage a quick first purchase.

According to this infographic from SmartInsights, Welcome Emails can generate 320% more revenue than regular promotional emails in addition to achieving impressive open, click-through, and conversion rates.

Enjoying this content? Join the other 5,473 eCommerce business owners.

Fab – Highlight Your App

Email Example Critique: Fab does a great job highlighting perks such as free shipping and returns in addition to making it easy for new subscribers to set their email preferences off the bat. Showcasing the Fab app makes it easy for shoppers to download Fab for their smartphones, building continuity and cross-device engagement.

Related:   The Anatomy of a Perfect Welcome Email

Karen Millen – Boost Your Brand

Email Example Critique: This welcome email from British designer Karen Millen has nice imagery and branding. The only question is, is it enough to encourage shoppers to make that first purchase?

Target – Push Your Discount Program

Email Example Critique: It’s no secret that Target has always done a fantastic job at branding. In this welcome email, the focus is on value and discounts positioning the REDcard front and center which boasts free shipping and 5% off every purchase in addition to clearance items promoted directly below.

Michael’s – Display Your Discounts Smartly

Email Example Critique: This welcome email makes a nice attempt to let new subscribers know what they can expect to see in their inbox, however placing the discount below the fold may not be the best use of email real estate.

Welcome Email Key Takeaways

• 74.4% of shoppers expect to receive a welcome email when they subscribe. [ source ]
• People that read at least one welcome message tend to read more than 40% of their messages from the same sending brand during the next 180 days. [ source ]
• Welcome emails tend to average open rates that are 50% — 86% higher than newsletters. [ source ]
• Use welcome emails to show shoppers who you are and why shoppers should buy your products. Make it easy for them to complete that first purchase by emphasizing special offers and unique selling points that are hard to ignore.

Welcome emails can generate 320% more revenue than regular promo emails #ecommerce #emailmarketing CLICK TO TWEET

Browse Abandonment Email Examples

Send  browse abandonment emails  to shoppers who view your homepage, category, product, or site search pages yet never made their way to your cart page. Browse abandonment campaigns can be personalized to match the behavior of your shoppers which makes them especially effective at driving traffic back to a site and converting more sales.

Since around 95% of eCommerce traffic never even makes it to the cart page, browse abandonment emails can be especially effective at generating up to 80% of the revenue that comes from your lifecycle email marketing campaign.

J. Crew – Category Browse Email

Email Example Critique:  This is an example of an email that would be sent to a shopper who viewed the “shirts and tops” category on J. Crew. Nice, high quality imagery plus related categories displayed below. The only thing missing from this browse abandonment email is personalized recommendations from the browsed category to increase the changes of this abandoning shopper actually returning.

Fresh Photos – Product Browse Email

Email Example Critique:  This is an example of an email that would be sent to a shopper who browsed specific products yet did not add any of them to a cart or purchase. The product images with the number of other shoppers who bought the same product is a nice touch but might be more effective if placed above the fold.

Calvin Klein – Site Search Email

Email Example Critique:  This is a great example of an email that would be sent to shoppers who searched for the terms “shirts” and “dress shirts”, displaying product recommendations related to their search in the hopes to bring that shopper back to complete a sale.

Illy – Homepage Browse Email

Email Example Critique:  This is an example of an email that could be sent to shoppers who browsed the Illy site but never got any further down the sales funnel. It’s nice that Illy is offering a discount at the bottom of the email, and their placement of social icons at the bottom of the email is smart. The top of the email, however, is a bit busy for an email that’s focused on directing shoppers to make a purchase.

Browse Abandonment Email Takeaways

• Use the on-site behavior of your shoppers to personalize browse abandonment emails and get them back to your store after they’ve left without completing a purchase.
• Make sure to always match the frequency and tone of your emails to the level of purchase intent a shopper has exhibited towards a particular product.
• Display  personalized product recommendations  to give shoppers more buying options and increase CTR by over 30%.
• Keep calls to action simple and direct matching the behavior of each shopper for best results.

Personalized product recommendations can increase CTR by over 30% #emailmarketing #ecommerce… CLICK TO TWEET

Ghurka – Large Product Image + Personal Tone

Email Example Critique:  This cart abandonment email from Ghurka has a nice personal touch coming from an actual person at the company plus the large, high quality product imagery is on-brand and great for CTR.

2. Dyson – Less is More

Email Example Critique:  This cart abandonment email example from Dyson is simple and direct. When it comes to cart abandonment emails, sometimes less detail is more effective.

3. Doggy Loot – Create a (Friendly) Sense of Urgency

Email Example Critique:  This cart abandonment email from Doggy Loot is cute and on-brand. The tone expresses urgency without being too pushy. The cute dog and language to match helps achieve the balance.

4. Urban Outfitters – Mention Shipping Offers

Email Example Critique:  Urban Outfitters has a strong brand and email design to match. The only thing is that the cart display is so far down on the email, it’s questionable whether shoppers will click through and return to their carts. The saving grace of this email is that they highlight their “free shipping on orders over $50” policy which addresses on of the top reasons for cart abandonment in the first place: shipping costs.

Cart Abandonment Email Takeaways

• Display the actual products left behind in each shopper’s cart to make it easy for the shopper to come back and complete the purchase.
• Create a sense of urgency with the tone of the email to encourage shoppers to act fast.
• Think about what prevents shoppers from completing a purchase and tackle those issues, like shipping and customer service call outs, within your cart abandonment email to put shoppers at ease.
• Keep the focus on returning to the cart so that shoppers don’t get distracted with other, less lucrative calls to action.

Transactional Email Examples

These are the one-to-one emails containing information that completes a transaction or process completed by your shopper.  Think: order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails. Because these emails are sent to shoppers who have just purchased on your site, they offer you, as a merchant, the opportunity to leave a lasting impression on the recipients that can even lead to additional conversions.

Although confirmation emails tend to be one of the least developed customer touchpoints in the sales funnel, they boast an average CTR of 12 to 20% which is around 5x the rate of bulk mailings.

Confirmation emails outperform bulk mailings 5 to 1 #emailmarketing #ecommerce CLICK TO TWEET

Philosophy – Display All the Right Elements

Email Example Critique:  This order confirmation email from Philosophy may look jam-packed with info, but it’s got all the right components to both satisfy the shopper’s need for critical post-purchase information and offer multiple opportunities for the shopper to come back to the site and hopefully complete an additional purchase.

Amazon – Make it Easy For Your Shopper

Email Example Critique:  Amazon definitely gets it right with this order confirmation. Related product recommendations encourage the shopper to buy more, and the “track your package” button makes it easy for the shopper to keep tabs on the purchase.

Kickstarter – Encourage Social Sharing

Email Example Critique:  This Kickstarter order confirmation email is great because it uses social sharing to encourage buyers to promote the product when the purchase is fresh in their minds.

Warby Parker – Build Trust Through Simplicity

Email Example Critique:  Totally on brand, this order confirmation email from  Warby Parker  found on  ReallyGoodEmails.com  is unique with its super clean layout and large text. Presenting order information clearly builds trust, which is key.

Transactional Email Key Takeaways

• Clearly display all the order and shipping information shoppers need to know they can trust that their order is safe.
• Since the purchase is freshest in the mind of your shoppers at this point, use confirmation emails to upsell or cross-sell shoppers by displaying related product recommendations that match their purchase.
• Transactional emails have 8x more opens and clicks than any other type of email and can generate up to 6x more revenue. –  [source]

Post-Purchase Email Examples

Post-purchase emails help generate repeat purchases and build brand loyalty by helping your customers reconnect to your brand. Send these emails to follow up recent purchases while your store is still fresh in your shoppers’ minds.

Repeat customers tend to spend 500% more than new customers , and although they make up only 8% of site traffic they account for around 40% of your revenue.

Zulily – Referral Program

Email Example Critique:  Zulily is all about their referral program with this post-purchase email. They make it easy for shoppers to share by including a total of 5 different ways to click through and invite friends in addition to incentivizing shoppers with credits.

Pottery Barn Kids – Related Product Recommendations

Email Example Critique:  This post-purchase email is a great example of how you can continue the sales process post-purchase. Pottery Barn Kids takes a personalized approach by offering product recommendations that are related to a previous, recent purchase.

Returning customers tend to spend 500% more than new customers #ecommerce #onlineretail CLICK TO TWEET

Mark & Spencer – Ratings and Reviews

Email Example Critique:  Ratings and reviews can really impact your business. This post-purchase email is a terrific example of how you can ask your customers to rate and review recent purchases while the sale is still fresh in their minds.

Sephora – Social Sharing

Email Example Critique: This post-purchase email from Sephora is awesome because it gives shoppers multiple options to share and save their beauty picks on social media plus it offers helpful, pro-inspired content to establish Sephora’s brand as a true industry leader.

Post-Purchase Email Takeaways

• Re-engage recent customers while your brand is at the front of their minds with post-purchase emails.
• 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and 72% of consumers say positive customer reviews make them trust a business more, according to  Profitero .
• Use a friendly tone thanking shoppers for their recent purchases.
• Don’t be afraid to ask shoppers to share their purchase on social media or submit a review. Shoppers like to help brands they love.

Retention Email Examples

Retention emails are sent to customers who may not have interacted with your brand in a while. Win-back campaigns and replenishment campaigns are powerful messages to get those shoppers back onto your site after some time has passed.

Follow up campaigns like retention emails can average an extremely high open rate of well over 40%. – [source]

Starbucks – We Miss You, Here’s a Discount

Email Example Critique:  Simple, straight to the point. We miss you, here’s a discount. Who wouldn’t want 15% off their coffee purchase?

Clinique – Replenishment Campaign

Email Example Critique:  This is an excellent example of a replenishment campaign that uses high quality imagery and multiple cross-sells.

Related:   The Anatomy of a Perfect Replenishment Email

Brickell – Refer a Friend Program

Email Example Critique: Brickell’s referral program email is a perfect example of how you can easily encourage your best advocates, your customers, to share your brand with their friends by simply offering a few bucks off their next purchase.

eBay – Rediscovery Campaign

Email Example Critique:  Another win-back campaign using a discount to re-engage with past customers. eBay does a great job of making it easy for customers to claim their discount by including detailed instructions for checkout (although it may seem obvious…).

Retention Email Takeaways

Acquiring a new customer is  10x more expensive  than selling to repeat customers so retention emails are a great way to get more bang for your buck.

Use win-back campaigns to offer dormant shoppers a special offer or discount making it easy for them to complete a repeat purchase.

Replenishment campaigns are perfect for increasing your customers’ lifetime value, based around the standard purchase cycle for your products or a customer’s individual average order frequency.

Newsletter & Promotional Email Examples

Newsletters and promotional emails are often considered a given when it comes to email marketing for eCommerce, and especially with Gmail filtering out promotional emails from the inbox, it’s critical to make your newsletters and promos stand out with captivating content for your shoppers.

Although newsletters and promotional emails tend to have a very low conversion rate , they can be extremely effective at building brand awareness and loyalty.

Yoyo – Large, HQ Imagery

Email Example Critique:  Awesome imagery and nice showcase of special offers related to shipping, delivery, and returns. The best sellers as product recommendations are a great way to offer shoppers multiple options.

iShop – Display a Testimonial

Email Example Critique:  Although buried below the fold, iShop displays a customer testimonial to help shoppers feel safe to complete a purchase.

Email Example Critique:  This promo email from Gainger is both informative and helpful by making it easy for customers to share products.

4. Southern

Email Example Critique:  In this promo email, it’s all about the brand and the fun(ny) tone.

Promotional Email Takeaways

• Get your shopper’s attention by starting things off with a deal or a giveaway.
• Establish your brand an industry leader by offering advice and helpful content.
• Include social media call outs to offer shoppers an opportunity to engage with your brand off-site.
• To make your newsletters and promos engaging make sure that your content is relevant and on-brand.

Check out these  email marketing tips and best practices to help you implement your next email marketing campaign.

About The Author

More email marketing articles.

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Boost Email Replies

9 Cold Email Case Studies with Great Reply Rates

Be sure to check out our previous post in this series:  Cold Emailing: Best Outbound Sales Automation Tools

Cold e-mailing is hard.

It’s tough to get people’s attention through all the noise that’s out there. On average, we get 147 e-mails a day , only spend significant time answering about 12 of them, and delete 71 e-mails in under 3.2 seconds .

It takes a lot of work to build a successful cold e-mail campaign. You have to:

• do in-depth research to make sure you’re not just spamming out generic templates
• make sure your messages are personalized to your specific target
• manage data entry for your leads
• send out massive volume to see results

And the truth is, your customers judge you on your ability to sell. So if you have an off day, you not only have to deal with not getting any conversions, but also with the negative judgements from your prospects.

When you’re crafting your cold e-mail campaigns, it can be helpful to know what everyone else is doing to benchmark your own numbers so you know that you’re on the right track.

What’s a good email open rate ? What’s a good reply rate? What does a good cold e-mail template look like? How many people should you be able to convert to a sales call?

Today, we’ll answer those questions for you. We’ll peel back the curtain on some cold e-mail case studies and discuss which strategies companies used to boost their reply rates and conversions.

Their expertise has helped Nextiva grow its brand and overall business

Case Study #1: Ambition

Ambition  is a software product that helps companies increase employee productivity. They built their platform with millennial employees in mind, and are used by such companies as  Lyft , Carbonite , and Continuum .

In this case study , they wrote about how they cold-emailed 578 prospects, got a total of 6 responses, and used follow up e-mails to get 67 additional responses (for a total response rate of about 12.6%).

They ran a six-week campaign, targeted 291 VPs of sales as well as 287 VPs of sales operations, and ended up with a total of 73 new leads.

Check out this graph that is instructive about the overall nature of the campaign as well as cold e-mailing in general:

Source: Ambition.com

Around half the recipients opened the initial e-mail but zero people replied.

However, with each additional touchpoint, or follow up, more prospects replied to the initial e-mail. Notice that no single e-mail generated more than 18% of the grand total number of leads. In fact, the eighth e-mail generated just as many leads as the second!

According to Ambition , the factor that mattered most here was just pure persistence. By following up constantly with prospects, they were able to skyrocket the number of leads they got versus if they just followed up once like most other sales reps. 

Because they were following up so often, they split the time interval between each e-mail by at least a week:

In fact, this was one of the problems we had at Growth Everywhere — there was a lot of manual work involved in keeping track of follow ups, and that was a major point of failure that kept cold e-mail response rates low. Once that was fixed, we saw a 333% increase in response rates !

For prospects, your product isn’t at the center of their world, so if they don’t respond, it’s likely just because they’re busy — not because they’re not interested. The moral of the story is to always follow up more than you think is necessary.

Dive Deeper: * How to Write a Follow-up Email (That People Actually Respond To)

Case Study #2: Shane Snow

Shane Snow is the bestselling author of a book called Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success . He wrote the book to outline the process that highly accomplished people throughout history have used to achieve success in a short period of time. He’s also a journalist at Fast Company.

In this post , he wrote about how he explored a cold e-mail strategy for anyone who wanted to connect with important people for mentorship and advice.

To start off, he got the e-mail addresses of the 1,000 busiest business people in America — C and VP level executives from Fortune 500 companies and C level executives from the Inc 500.

The average person gets 147 emails a day , but these execs get significantly more as a result of their status. Shane wanted to see whether he could come up with a strategy to “cut through the noise” in their inbox to grab their attention and get a response from them.

After gathering the e-mail addresses, he wrote a cold e-mail with a simple CTA where he asked them what type of cold e-mail they preferred to receive. Here’s a sample e-mail script he and his team sent out:

Hi [Exec’s First Name],

I’m doing a study on cold emails and want to ask if you could share some thoughts on what differentiates an effective cold email from a bad one?

Your insight will contribute to research I’m conducting to help a lot of people get better at email, which will make the world a little better for us all.

He then changed different elements in this “base” e-mail to test out the results when adding in differences.  For example, he tested variables like:

• Subject lines (vague vs specific subject lines)
• Saying thank you (e-mails with no thank you vs e-mails that said something like “thanks in advance”)
• Length (short vs long e-mails)
• Purpose (selfless vs selfish — i.e. he changed the benefit from “your insight will contribute to…make the world a little better for us all” to “it would be great for me and my project”)
• Request (asking for their knowledge — i.e. “sharing your thoughts” — vs asking for a favor).

Here’s a quick summary of the results he saw out of the 1,000 e-mails sent to high level executives from Fortune 500 and Inc 500 companies:

• 293 e-mails bounced
• 45.5% open rate (this was exceptionally good, since according to Mailchimp , the open rate for most business-related e-mails is barely over 20%)
• short, vague subject lines (i.e. “quick question”) got 51.2% opens while longer, specific subject lines got slightly less opens at 48.8% — interestingly enough, the reply rate on the “quick question” subject line was around double that of the longer subject line.

However, according to the case study , the previously mentioned variables (i.e. subject lines, length, purpose, etc.) played a much lower role in determining the results than expected — only 1.7% of those who received Shane’s e-mails actually responded.

Shane came to the conclusion that the one thing he could have implemented in the study which would have made all the difference in terms of bumping up his reply rates was personalization . He wrote: 

“With the right subject line, it’s not inherently harder to get a busy executive to click on your email than someone else. The important part is making the content speak to the question, ‘why me?’”

Case Study #3: Jake Jorgovan

Jake Jorgovan is a creative strategist who helps consulting companies win dream clients. He wrote in this pos t how he was able to generate $12,030 just through cold email  — including some Fortune 500 clients.

According to Jake, there are two different ways you can approach cold e-mailing.

• The “quantity” approach  — if you e-mail enough prospects, then you will inevitably land a sale. The only thing that matters here is playing the numbers game: send enough e-mails and you’ll probably close some deals. Shane Snow’s cold e-mail campaign of getting a 1.7% reply rate is a good example of this.
• The “quality” approach — focus on sending out fewer pitches, but make them top notch. For example, you might pick around 20-25 dream customers who you would do anything to get.

Once you define your approach, Jake suggests that you create at least one high-quality case study . The case study should show a portfolio piece that you’re proud of, feature a raving testimonial, and outline three major things:

• the situation the client was in
• the solution that you provided
• the end result for the client

Then you should choose your specific target audience. Ideally, this target audience should be similar to the customer you helped in your case study. For example, if you’re reaching out to dentists, then you should have a case study where you helped a dentist. If you’re reaching out to a Fortune 500 tech company, you should have a case study where you helped a tech company.

It’s a psychological fact  that people believe that they’re special  and that their situation is unique. Because of that, they want solutions that feel like a “tailored fit” for them. If you worked with a tech company, you might be able to use those same fundamentals to help dentists, but dentists won’t feel like you can help them unless you show them that you’ve already worked with dentists.

Next, Jake writes that you need to find a list of prospects. The ideal place to look for this kind of information is in sales or trade organization directories for the industry that you’re in.

Finally, it’s time to write an e-mail that actually gets responses. Here’s an e-mail script that landed Jake a $4,250 client:

[Prospect names],

Recently I came across [Company name] in the [Directory where I found their information] and I wanted to reach out. My name is Jake Jorgovan and recently I finished up a website design project for [case study client] and wanted to reach out to similar companies.

When I came across the [Client’s website], I noticed [review of 2-3 things that I found wrong with the client’s website]. With the [case study client], we were able to build a professional site and get it up and running in under three weeks. Their site is mobile friendly and extremely easy for anyone at the company to update.

If you are interested in rebuilding your website, please let me know and we would be more than happy to help you out. Also, I have attached a case study for [Case study client] with a raving testimonial from the owner of the company.

Thank you [Prospect name] and I look forward to hearing from you.

Jake Jorgovan

According to Jake, the most important part of the e-mail is in the second paragraph where you list the 2-3 things you found regarding the client’s site/product/service that you feel you can fix. If you’re writing blanket statements that don’t feel tailored to the prospect’s specific situation, your response rates go down.

Jake also sends follow up e-mails 7-10 days after the initial inquiry. Here’s a sample e-mail script he uses for this:

[Prospect name],

I wanted to send a quick follow up to see if you received my e-mail from last week in regards to your new website design. Please let me know if you are interested and I look forward to hearing from you.

Much like the Ambition case study, Jake was surprised to find that many prospects responded to the second e-mail after ignoring the first.

Learn More:  4 Reasons Why You Should Be Pushing Email Marketing

Case Study #4: LeadFuze

LeadFuze is a lead generation product that helps salespeople quickly gather contact information of prospects and automatically send personalized e-mails. They’ve been used by companies like Bidsketch and CrazyEgg .

Justin McGill, the founder LeadFuze, used cold e-mail to grow his company’s revenue to $30k/month in 12 months.

As a first step, he used his own software to find leads and build out his outbound campaign. Here’s how he used the search feature within LeadFuze to find the e-mail addresses for his target audience:

Source: Pagely

From there he was able to look at a list of prospects that he could potentially add to a list. Once the relevant prospects were added, the software pulled information about the prospect.

Once you have your leads, the next step is to write a high-quality cold e-mail. Justin has a formula for writing cold e-mails which he calls the “QVC Formula” (Question, Value prop, and CTA). Here’s how all those components fit together:

• Question. The first sentence is absolutely crucial in an e-mail. This is the sentence that will show up on their phones and as a preview in their inbox. According to Justin, it’s not advisable to start off with an introduction about yourself because that just shows your prospects that they don’t know you.
• Value prop . Don’t go on and on about how amazing your service is and all that you have to offer. Cut to the core of your message quickly and talk about what makes you different from everyone else.
• CTA . Most salespeople end their e-mails in a generic, weak way (usually something like “I look forward to hearing from you.”). The best way to close an e-mail is to ask directly to schedule a call or ask a question to get a specific response.

Here’s an example of a cold e-mail that Justin sent on behalf of LeadFuze:

Like a normal e-mail blast, it’s important to let your prospects know that there’s a “way out” from receiving your e-mails and your follow ups. If you’re sending out e-mails to a list, then you already have an “unsubscribe” link that readers can click on to opt out of your e-mails.

For cold e-mails, Justin uses the following line in his “P.S.” below the signature:

He explicitly states that it’s okay for the prospect to tell him not to follow up anymore.

After the initial e-mail is written and sent, you should also have a follow up sequence ready. As we’ve seen before, the magic is in the follow up . Most salespeople never follow up, or if they do, they stop after the first or second time.

Steli Efti from Close.io writes that he follows up as many times as necessary until he gets a response. In fact, once he followed up with an investor 48 times before getting a meeting — which led to that person investing in Close.io.

In follow up e-mails, you shouldn’t just “check in” or rehash the same exact message that you already sent the first time. Instead, you should use this opportunity to send new, valuable information that could help your prospect move closer to making the decision. For example, you might want to include a relevant case study, or results that you got for someone else.

Justin from LeadFuze writes that he has seen success with the following cold e-mail sequence:

• Initial “QVC” outreach e-mail
• Case study (follow up #1)
• Value add, i.e. blog post link, relevant news article, another case study, etc. (follow up #2)
• Let them know that you won’t be writing to them anymore (break-up e-mail)

Here’s an example of a break-up e-mail :

Source: HubSpot

By using a sales automation service like Outreach , Mailshake , or Reply , you can craft your own custom follow up sequence for prospects who don’t respond so that you don’t have to manually go in and send every single e-mail.

Using this simple process, LeadFuze scaled to $30k/month within just one year.

Case Study #5: Crazy Eye Marketing

Crazy Eye Marketing helps small businesses and entrepreneurs plan, build, and optimize sales funnels. They use marketing automation systems to convert more leads into customers.

In this case study , they wrote about a cold e-mail campaign they ran for a small mobile app company: they sent out 4,897 cold e-mails and analyzed what worked and what didn’t.

First, Crazy Eye started off with a list of leads provided to them by the client, a mobile app company. After removing duplicates, they ran the list through a service called Kickbox ,  which helps verify whether the e-mail addresses are actually legit or not, and had a final number of  2,160 good addresses.

Next, they used Reply  to set up a cold e-mail autoreponder campaign. This way, you won’t have to comb through your inbox to see which prospects responded and which didn’t, and then copy and paste the right follow up e-mails to the right prospect. There’s a lot of potential for human error in this process, which is why using an outbound sales automation tool can save you lots of valuable time while doing the work more effectively.

Crazy Eye then connected Reply to Gmail for the cold e-mail campaign. They created five different e-mail series and sent them to a few hundred people to test the effectiveness. From there, they sent the most effective series to the rest of the list.

The winning series was a three-email sequence along with a CTA that asked for 15 minutes of the prospect’s time :

Subject : Quick question

Hi [first name]

My name is Nathan and I am the founder of the Car App. We work with used car dealerships to help them stay connected with their prospective customers.

The Car App is a mobile app for used car dealers. Our solution is 7 times more likely to result in vehicle sales than Craigslist, Autotrader, and eBay combined.

Is it possible to get 15 minutes on your calendar to further discuss the benefits the Car App would bring to [company]?

Subject: (replied in the same thread)

I’m sorry to trouble you again. At my company, the Car App, we make keeping in touch with prospective customers a breeze through our one-of-a-kind “push” messaging system that instantly, and automatically, notifies them when the car they want is in stock.

Our mobile app not only makes your life easier, but generates more sales and revenue without any added effort. Who would be the person to speak to about this at [company]?

Subject: Just checking

Hi [first name],

I wanted to make sure that you saw my earlier message. I’d like to learn about the struggles you have with staying in touch with prospective customers at [company].

If you’re the appropriate person to speak with, what does your calendar look like for early next week? If not, who do you recommend that I talk to?

T hese were the results of their three-email sequence.

Source: Crazy Eye Marketing

They received open rates around 50% for every one of their e-mails, and got reply rates just under 10%.

Notice how the reply rate for the second and third e-mails is similar to the reply rate for the first e-mail. This shows that your follow up e-mails are equally as valuable as your initial outreach e-mails.

Salespeople who don’t follow up are leaving a lot of money on the table.

Case Study #6: Marco Massaro

Marco Massaro runs a web consultancy that works with tech companies and high-growth startups. The consultancy works on UX design and web development.

Marco closed a $15,000 consulting project with a cold e-mail campaign.

Before diving in and blasting out e-mails to hundreds of people, he started off by outlining who exactly he was targeting. He needed to identify his ideal clients.

The more specific you can get at this step, the more targeted your cold e-mails will be when you send them out. Marco got extremely specific about who he wanted to work with. Here are the main categories he filtered companies by:

• Industry. Marco wanted to work with tech companies: SaaS, B2B, B2C, social.
• Company location . He wanted to work with English speaking companies only that were based in USA, UK, and Europe.
• Funding . To make sure they could afford his rates, he focused on companies that were at seed sage and Series A with at least $200,000 in funding.
• Revenue . If the companies had no funding, they would have to at least have $500,000 to $1,000,000 in yearly revenue.
• Company size . Marco targeted smaller companies because larger companies were able to afford employees to handle their web development and design in house.
• Person to e-mail . Lastly, he made a note of the people within the company who he would have to e-mail — the decision makers.

Next, he had to find companies that matched this profile.

He used Crunchbase because his target was mostly early stage tech companies, but other lead gen sources might include AngelList , or even software products like LeadFuze . Outreach  also has a Chrome plugin that allows you to quickly extract contact information from professional profiles on LinkedIn which makes lead gen more efficient.

The next step was actually writing up the cold e-mail pitches and sending them out.

Marco crafted a quick e-mail with the goal of grabbing the recipient’s attention right off the bat, and getting them interested in his services:

Subject: Work together

I wanted to find out if you have any design needs at [company] (redesign, landing pages, UX, etc)?

We can increase sales, engagement, conversions, and more through our design and UX strategies.

Interested? Email me back, I’d love to chat.

Notice how this e-mail doesn’t jump right into an introduction in the first sentence?  People don’t care about you until they are interested in what you have to offer first. You shouldn’t waste your valuable first few sentences talking about something that your prospect isn’t going to read anyway.

The e-mail also addresses the recipient by name. However, it could be a bit more personalized as it doesn’t include how web development or design consulting could help the prospect with their specific situation.

Marco sent this e-mail to 500 prospects, received 67 replies, and got a response rate of around 13.4%.

Apart from personalizing it more, other ways that the process could be improved include 1) A/B testing subject lines or CTAs, and 2) integrating with an outbound sales automation tool to keep the campaign more efficient. According to Marco, the lack of structure here made it confusing at times to remember where they were in the sales process for each prospect.

Learn More: Cold Email Templates that Get Responses

Case Study #7: Bryan Harris

Bryan Harris is the founder of Videofruit , a company that provides step-by-step plans for entrepreneurs to grow their business. He decided to pitch HubSpot about creating a video series for their blog.

HubSpot is notoriously difficult to write for. Because they’re one of the biggest names in marketing and have a prominent blog, they get tons of pitches everyday — and they reject most of them. But Bryan was not only able to get his e-mail noticed , he got HubSpot to say “yes.”

This is the e-mail Bryan sent:

I’m Bryan. I’m a huge HubSpot fan. I especially liked your recent piece on business card design. I work with companies like KISSmetrics and make weekly videos for their blog. Here’s one that published earlier this week on their site.

Just wanted to email you to see if HubSpot might be interested in a similar series.

I made a demo for you to show you what it might look like:

[insert demo]

Is this something you would be interested in?

— Bryan

Here’s why his pitch stood out from the rest, according to HubSpot :

His name was already familiar

Even though this was the first time he was sending them an e-mail pitch, it wasn’t the first time that the folks at HubSpot heard his name. Bryan had already been interacting with HubSpot bloggers and content for nearly two years. He was reading, commenting, sending “thank you” e-mails, and more.

So when Ginny Mineo – the person on the receiving end of his pitch – looked up his contact “record” in the HubSpot system, she quickly discovered that he wasn’t just a random stranger.

He knew HubSpot’s tone

Since Bryan had been regularly reading HubSpot’s blog, he had context on what they like to see in their cold e-mail pitches. He knew that they preferred a conversational tone, rather than a formulaic pitch that had terms like “keyword rich” or “SEO focused.”

By reading their blog and understanding the sort of guest post pitches they like getting, he was able to write an e-mail that stood out compared to most other e-mails.

He went above and beyond

One of the things marketers hate most about being on the receiving end of a cold e-mail pitch is that the fact that the sender doesn’t consider them “special.” In many cases, the sender is just copying and pasting a template, and blasting it to hundreds of people from a contact list. This makes recipients feel like the sender doesn’t really care about them.

But Bryan took a different approach. Instead of sending HubSpot a generic cold e-mail, he decided to invest time in creating a custom-made, minute-long video sample of what he could do for them.

This isn’t something that can be cranked out in a few seconds through copy and paste; creating a custom video takes hours or even days. Bryan had to write a script, produce the video, go through the editing process, etc. And after all that work, he had to be okay with the possibility of not getting a response from HubSpot.

The more personalized you make your pitch and the more time you spend crafting something that doesn’t seem like it can be (or was) replicated, the more likely it is that you’ll get a response.

Case Study #8: The Print Industry

Most cold e-mails usually end with an “ask” of some kind, like the sender trying to get a phone call or an in-person meeting with a prospect.

But according to Jeff Molander , that might not be the best idea. Instead, he suggests a different approach – getting prospects to talk about themselves.

Rather than trying to get an appointment for a phone call or a meeting, you could incentivize them to respond by revealing a conversation that’s already occurring in their mind . For example, here’s how a company in the print industry successfully starts cold e-mail conversations with new prospects:

Subject: How secure are your printers?

Real quick – how secure are your copiers and printers at XYZ LLC? Did you hear about the Illinois law firm – sued because the janitor removed their hard drives? He walked away with hundreds of thousands of documents.

Are you doing everything possible to mitigate your risk?

I don’t pretend to know your situation, but I’m curious. How are you managing security of your printers/copiers at XYZ LLC?

Thanks for considering, [first name],

[signature]

The reason this works is because it helps customers realize that they have a problem, and encourages them to talk to you about it. It starts the conversation painlessly.

By asking customers about their problems before you try to jump on a call and talk to them, you’ll have a better chance of developing a relationship. You’ll also separate your e-mail from the hundreds of other cold e-mails that your prospects get in their inbox.

Related Content: How Neville Medhora Grew AppSumo’s Customer Base to 750k With Email [podcast]

Case Study #9: Lead Genius

One of Lead Genius ’s clients ended up increasing their response rate from zero to 28% with one cold e-mail.

Here’s the e-mail template they used:

Source: JS-Marketing

Here are a few reasons why this worked so well:

• Intriguing headline. Adding a time constraint to achieving a desired result makes the proposition seem more appealing. For example, “15 minutes to get [company] more customers” sounds more compelling than “Get more customers for [company].”
• The introductory sentence. The first sentence of the e-mail says: “Would you like to hear an idea for a 15 minute hack that could significantly increase [company’s] conversion rate?” The word “hack” and “15 minute” both make it sound like something that won’t take up much of the prospect’s time.
• Credibility. The e-mail builds credibility by sharing a quick case study of a B2B client who saw a 47% increase in signups.
• Call to action. The call to action for a 15 minute call sounds much more appealing after the recipient sees that they’ll get a “15 minute hack” to increase their conversion rates. Nobody wants to get on the phone and be sold to, but they would want to hear about how they can improve their conversions.

Learn More: 7 Ways To Get More People To Open Your Email [podcast]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: cold e-mails are tough. There are many steps involved, and for most people it can be pretty time consuming.

You have to identify who exactly you’re targeting, scrape the Internet to figure out where those people are hanging out, and then figure out what their e-mail addresses are.

Finally, it comes down to how well you conduct your research of the people and the companies you’re targeting, how personalized your message is, how much of an attention grabber your subject line is, and how specific your call to action is.

To make things more efficient, remember that you can always use software tools to automate your processes. Tools like Outreach , Sendbloom  and  Reply  can help you craft the perfect follow up sequence for your prospects (so you never have to remember who’s in what part of the sales sequence) and also track all your data.

Now that you’ve had an “insider’s look” into some highly successful cold e-mail campaigns, you know exactly what sort of templates to use, what numbers to expect, and how to improve the templates going forward.

If you get all these points right and send out a massive volume of e-mails, you could see a number of responses that are large enough to change the course of your business.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Measuring and improving public space resilience to the covid-19 pandemic: chongqing-china as a case study provisionally accepted.

• 1 Chongqing University, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the importance of public spaces. Accessing public spaces during the pandemic improves physical health, reduces feelings of loneliness, and lessens depression. However, not all public spaces can provide an effective response during the pandemic. The public spaces' ability to respond to the pandemic varies depending on their resilience level, which refers to the capability of those spaces to adapt to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and maintain functionality to meet users' needs during this crisis. By investigating the response of existing public spaces to the COVID-19 pandemic and identifying and examining the criteria of pandemic resilience, this study aims to explore and improve public spaces' capability to respond effectively during the pandemic. 169 public spaces in three regions in Chongqing City in China are studied. Four main criteria involving 9 sub-criteria of pandemic resilience that can be integrated into public spaces' planning and design are studied. Three questionnaire surveys are used in this study to examine how public spaces adapt to the pandemic and evaluate the pandemic resilience criteria. The questionnaire data is analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The pandemic resilience criteria are assessed and analyzed using a Geographic Information System (GIS). The study utilized the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to assign weights to the criteria of pandemic resilience. Weighted overlay analysis (WOA) is applied to assess the pandemic resilience level in public spaces. Results indicate various possibilities for pandemic resilience depending on the characteristics of the area. However, these resilience levels are inadequate to respond effectively to the pandemic, resulting in diminished utilization of public spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic across all studied regions compared to the periods preceding the pandemic and after the complete reopening. This study presents a remarkable source for strengthening the resilience of cities against pandemic emergencies.

Keywords: Chongqing, COVID-19 pandemic, Planning and design, preparedness, public space, resilience, response, Sustainable cities

Received: 08 Feb 2024; Accepted: 13 May 2024.

Copyright: © 2024 ALAWI, Chu and Rui. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Prof. Dongzhu Chu, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400030, China

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Ironscales achieves channel program's q1 2024 category leader badge.

We are thrilled to announce that IRONSCALES has once again been recognized by the Channel Program as a Category Leader for Q1 2024. This prestigious badge highlights our commitment to excellence and innovation in the IT channel space.  

Building on our previous success as the Q4 2023 Category Leader , this latest achievement reflects our consistent dedication to delivering industry leading products and services. As the cybersecurity landscape continues to evolve, staying ahead of threats is crucial. We understand the critical importance of email security and combatting phishing attacks, and we're proud to be at the forefront of these efforts.  

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