10 Questions to Ask When Writing Brand Strategy Case Studies
By Levina Kusumadjaja
Does writing case studies feel like a daunting task?
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed about writing case studies, you’re not alone. I write case studies for a living and in my journey, I’ve met many brand strategists and designers who don’t enjoy writing their own case studies. But through this experience, I’ve observed patterns and uncovered key questions that could help you write your own.
If you don’t know where to start when it comes to writing a case study, these questions can help you get going.
I’ve compiled a list of 10 basic questions that you can use to recap your brand strategy and design projects. I suggest answering these questions as soon as possible after wrapping things up with your client, so that your memory is still fresh.
Think of these questions as building blocks that you can play with.
Each question (or building block) represents a certain aspect, moment, or insight from the whole client experience. The idea is to go answer these questions, zoom out, and structure them into 1 case study that you feel proud to showcase.
10 questions you can use to write your brand strategy case study:
1. Who was the client?
This question isn’t just about mentioning the client’s brand name. Articulate your client’s vision and what the brand is all about. Describe what they do and offer, but try to leave out the jargon-y, corporate-y way of defining the client’s brand. Use words and phrases that a 5th-grader can understand.
Highlight and emphasize aspects from your client’s brand that aligns with your ideal client persona. It’s important that your audience know the type of clients that you work with so that they can identify themselves as your ideal client if they are one.
2. What were their goals?
The next question is about their goals.
When your client came to you at the beginning of the project, they came in with goals that they wanted to accomplish. And then later on as you walk through the strategy workshop with them, you further hone in on where they want to take their brand and what success looks like for your client.
Outline these goals and success metrics as a part of your case study. You don’t have to mention all the goals, but you can focus on ones that you helped solve through your service and your work together with them.
3. What were their challenges?
Now that you are clear on your client’s goals, it’s time to summarize your client’s challenges. What things were getting in their way?
Review your sales calls, your workshop notes, and your roadmap notes. These challenges might be roadblocks that your client was able to identify on their own, or even challenges that you uncovered through your strategy workshops.
4. What was at stake?
This fourth question is an important one. Knowing what was at stake for your client means you are articulating why it matters for potential clients to hire you. It communicates the value of the work that you do.
Think about what prompted your client to hire you at that time. Why couldn’t it have been done 2 years later? What was at risk if they didn’t do brand strategy at that time? What would they have missed out on? What could they potentially accomplish if they set a strong, strategic foundation for their brand ‘now’?
5. What did you do for them? (Deliverables, results, services, etc.)
Make a list of the services and deliverables that you did for your client. For best results, show this list at the very top of your case study. For example, you can list: brand strategy, brand identity, customer research, social media templates, packaging design, and so on.
When building this list, think about the services and deliverables that you want to do more of. Don’t highlight the ones that you want to do less of. Focus on the services that you want to get hired for. If you want to pivot from design to brand strategy, make sure the list includes brand strategy and other strategic deliverables more than visual assets.
6. What interesting things did you uncover during the strategy sessions?
It’s time to pull out your workshop recordings because this is where all your workshop notes will come in handy. Reflect on the brand strategy workshop sessions that you went through with your client.
Anything funny, unique, or unexpected come up in your discussions? Were there insights that weren’t obvious in your discovery call, but became apparent and key as you talked through the problems with your client? Perhaps getting to the core problem was the most interesting part. Think about what the root problem of the brand was and how you got to that core in the strategy workshop.
7. What was the strategy behind solving the brand problem?
Spend a good amount of time thinking about this question, because this is the meat of your case study. If you are a brand strategist, you want to describe the solution you come up with as the result of the brand strategy workshop. Elaborate on the strategy and describe how the strategy can help your client get to their goals and align their brand with their ideal customers.
For example, if your client wanted to onboard new customers but their onboarding process is making it difficult for potential leads to sign up, your strategy might be to streamline your client’s onboarding process based on the customer journey.
8. If you worked on their brand identity and visual assets, what was the thinking behind the design?
If your deliverables include doing some design work for them, describe the concept behind the visual identity. Breakdown the logo and color palette, and connect the designs with the goals, brand attributes, and ideal clients.
It’s especially important to show that every piece is intentional and grounded on a clear direction—not just preferences and assumptions. This will show the audience that you implement a strategic process and this strategy is a valuable aspect of your problem solving and creative work.
9. What was the impact on the client?
Another important thing you want to show in your case studies is how working together on your client’s brand strategy has impacted their brand. This is where the transformation stories come in. And these stories can be just about the ROI they got as a business, or it can even be their personal transformation—from an overwhelmed entrepreneur to a confident CEO.
Schedule check-in calls with your client a few months after finishing the project to find out their progress. Ask them about statistics that reflect the growth in numbers and tangible success metrics (Note: don’t forget to make sure that your client is good with you sharing these numbers on your case study!).
Read through your feedback forms and find out how your client described the experience of working together with you. Ask them questions about how they feel about the results at your final meeting with them before closing the project, and take notes on what they say. These are valuable testimonials and ‘juicy language’ you can use to communicate the value of your work to your future clients.
10. Which part of the project are you most proud of?
Highlight parts of the project that you love. Is it the set of icons you made for the brand? Is it the brand strategy process itself? Is it the impact that your client wants to bring through their product and service?
Make the space to talk about your favorite parts of the project. Talk about why you’re proud of those aspects and why they bring you joy when you think about them. There are no rules—you’re allowed to have fun and embrace your creative side in your case study!
One important thing to keep in mind:
Have fun ✨
Writing case studies doesn’t have to be full of pressure and overwhelm. It’s about celebrating your creative work and feeling proud about the impact you’ve brought to your client’s brand and life by working together.
Remember that you can always make edits after publishing them and you can always upload new case studies if you feel you have outgrown your old case studies. As long as you’re having fun and you feel that you’re happy about your case studies, you’re good to go!
Cheers!
Levina
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These are the types of topics we love talking about in the Brand Strategy Basecamp. If you’d like to join Levina and a community of other brand strategists (with all kinds of creative backgrounds) working to improve their process, click here to see if the Basecamp is the right fit for you!
About the author:
Levina writes case studies for brand strategists and designers. She loves having 1-on-1 deep conversations about life, eating desserts, and playing basketball. Say hi and connect with her here.