What’s the difference between Case Studies and Success Stories? A case study is something you hope to get published in a trade magazine, usually through your PR firm. A Success Story is something your sales force will use in lieu of giving out references - the names and phone numbers of your best customers. The requirements, and style of writing are quite different.

A Success Story focuses exclusively on your customer’s success. What did they achieve, by purchasing your product, that they otherwise couldn’t have achieved? In order to close sales, you want Success Stories to highlight your best customers’ experiences using your product. It should describe the problem(s) they needed to solve and features of your product that helped them solve that problem. It will contain direct quotes describing the benefits they feel they receive from owning your product, praising any features that make it powerful or easy to use, and a discussion of the results, return-on-investment, or whatever else proves success with your product.

In general, no editor is going to print that. It’s advertising. You might consider paying them to print it as an advertorial, but don’t waste your time trying to get them to print it as a feature article. Instead, most firms will print Success Stories as collateral to hand out, and also post Success Stories on their website.

To get something published in a trade magazine it needs to be written up as a Case Study, and not nearly so enthusiastically worded. A case study focuses on the customer’s problem(s) much more than their success. It focuses on how they went about solving their problem rather than their unbridled success utilizing a particular commercial product. It must include good and bad, for example, discussing any limitations of the tools they used or the solution they arrived at. It will frequently talk about their environment - other tools or products they use as well as yours.

Mention of a single commercial product must be limited - talking about a "class" of solution rather than the single product they chose (yours) is more acceptable to editors. Please note that the staff writers and editors of a magazine allow themselves to write much more glowing case studies than they’ll accept as external submissions.

In general, you don’t get a case study published by writing it and submitting it to your favorite trade magazine. Instead, you or your PR agency contacts the editor, discusses an idea you have for a case study, and you proceed from there. Typically you’ll work up an outline and obtain the editor’s approval on that before you begin writing. You’ll submit a first draft and frequently work through several revisions before it goes to publication. It can be a long road. You can expect to pay a writer or PR firm a lot more to write case studies because of that - often, by the hour.

Submitting a finished article to any magazine "Over the transom," so to speak, is a recipe for rejection. Querying an editor with an idea, and allowing them to put their "spin" or "angle" on the idea, followed by agreeing on an outline is the way most professionals work together.

A Success Story can be re-worked into a Case Study, and vice versa. Knowing the difference before you start, and deciding which you need is the key. The bottom line is deciding which will boost your sales more--giving your sales force instant credibility with a stack of Customer Success Stories to hand out to prospects, or "informing" potential prospects about your product with a Case Study placed in a suitable trade magazine.

Wade H. Nelson is a professional writer who specializes in writing Customer Success Stories (and the occasional Case Study) for hi-tech companies. He can be reached at wadenelson@frontier.net