The story angles of your case studies determine how you structure your story, which customers you select to interview, and what you ask them.
So they’re pretty important.
But most people don’t think through their case study story angles. They decide they want to show off a client’s success or a new feature. And then they’re off.
This causes immediate issues because lack of clarity on the story angle means lack of clarity on how to identify the right customer and what questions to ask them.
And the last thing you want when producing case studies is to kill your momentum right off the bat.
Good thing it only takes 20 to 30 minutes to prevent this whole mess. Let’s get into it.
Identifying story angles
The ingredients of your story angles are the facts that help in-market buyers understand the value of your offering.
These “facts” are your product’s use cases, quantifiable results, and features. Put another way:
- What problem do customers solve with your product?
- What are the quantifiable results your buyers need to see to understand the value of your offering?
- What is the feature(s) that helps customers solve the problem?
For example:
Use case: Syndicating property listings
Quantifiable result: Increased marketing reach
Feature: Automated syndication network
Once you have these facts, you can use this format to synthesize your story angle:
This story will highlight how customers use [product feature(s)] to [use case] so they can [quantifiable result].
Here’s an example using the facts above:
Story Angle: The story will highlight how Hypothetical Property Management uses an automated syndication network (feature) to market their listings (use case) to reach a broad audience (quantifiable result).
With a story angle like this you know how to identify the best customer story candidates because they must use the target feature(s), achieve measurable results with it, and showcase the desired use case.
Grab my customer story sheet to list all your story “facts”
This example is overly simplistic. In reality, your product likely has several use cases, potential quantifiable results, and features.
To keep track of these, make a copy of my Customer Story Sheet and list your use cases, results, and features in the tab called “Use case, results, & features”.
You’ll probably identify several story angles. Survey your team and ask how they’d rank these story angles to determine how to prioritize them.
And if you need guidance on the next steps, read my post on how to reach out to your first customer and get ready for the case study interview.