How to turn a customer story into a press-worthy case study

If you’re a business or brand, no one can show your benefits better than your customers or clients who have achieved something great after using your product or service. Sharing their story effectively - often called a ‘case study’ - is a good way to ensure your customer story works well in the media. There are a few simple rules and a structure to follow to be effective. 

Being able to showcase the value of your work through real-world experiences can be beneficial for your website or in new business proposals, to gain the trust of prospective buyers. But when done right, case studies can also be an effective tool for securing press coverage to help boost your brand awareness and authority. As the media landscape evolves to adapt to the age of AI, these human-first stories are only growing in importance and value. 

Whether you’re a B2B food and drink or property and construction business, or an e-commerce brand working in a sector like health and wellness, here are some tips to follow to make the most of every customer story:

• A customer story is a powerful way to gain press coverage as original content becomes key 
• It’s important to show authenticity as AI makes it easier for fake stories to be created, losing trust with journalists 
• Case studies can help to back up your own data-led stories or report findings or help to secure coverage around trending news hooks 

By offering a journalist a case study, you’re giving them a unique insight that no one else has covered before. This is currently one of the most valuable things to the media. 

Large publishing companies such as Reach, which has national outlets such as the Daily Record and The Mirror and regional publications like the Manchester Evening News, have recently stated their plans to move away from producing large ‘volumes’ of articles and instead focus on longer, original content, which is exactly what a case study can provide.  

This is being echoed across the media landscape as better access to tools such as AI means press teams creating stories based on analysis of reports and data is becoming more common. However, sharing a personal experience of someone directly affected by the findings holds the key to creating a quality piece of unique content to back them up. And by sending one of these stories to a journalist’s inbox, you’re saving them time and creating a better opportunity to secure coverage. 

Finding a good case study relies on strong communication between teams. B2B businesses should ensure that everyone who speaks to customers is aware that if they’ve sold a unique service, their client is fixing a complicated problem or they know that something was completed to a really high standard, they should be telling their marketing team about it. The team can then confirm if the story is newsworthy and get in touch to find out more. 

For consumer brands, look out for standout customer reviews or social media tags, or consider completing your own outreach to find someone with that perfect story to tell. It’s a good idea to keep a ‘bank’ of case studies stored somewhere too, so that your PR team can quickly access relevant stories when required. 

If relevant, you should always be sure that whoever you choose has had a completely positive experience with your company. A PR team can turn someone’s personal experience into a piece of content or a quote to share with the press, but can’t control what’s said if a journalist requests a further interview.

This is how you can show rather than just tell how effective your product or service really is, or why your data and insights matter. 

B2B businesses must show measurable impact, such as money saved, efficiencies made or a unique challenge that was overcome, with statistics to prove it. Consumer case studies can rely more on someone sharing their personal story rather than statistics, though it must often be exclusive to the journalist and share an experience that is out of the ordinary.  

Photographs are important for both instances, especially if you can show a transformation, and for B2B case studies, reports or infographics can be helpful too.

There are a few fundamental elements to include in your case study structure, such as painting the scene with context about the problem, showing the chosen solution, including direct quotes and sharing statistics that show a project's success or impact. But the need to show credibility goes beyond the story you're telling, and extends to how you tell it. 

A recent high-profile Press Gazette investigation led to leading publishers deleting numerous of stories after it was revealed that fake – possibly AI-generated – comments were included, portraying themselves as an 'expert voice'.  

This is an unethical tactic, only done by a minority, but it helps to showcase why trust needs to be built between a communications team and the media now more than ever.  

Sharing a good quality photograph helps to humanise a customer story -  doing so has helped us to secure coverage in titles such as The Sun and The Mirror and more. Sometimes, journalists will even commission their own photography when running the piece as a feature.  

Case studies, or even anyone providing a comment from a brand, also often need to be willing to speak to journalists on the phone or through a video call, to qualify them as a 'real’ person. Otherwise, it's a good idea to include other signifiers of trust such as linking to work websites and team pages, or even social media accounts, to showcase the authenticity of the person behind the story. 

If a customer story is strong enough, it could be of interest to journalists all year round. Otherwise, case studies can be effective when shared as part of a data-led digital PR campaign, to back up your findings, or to contribute towards trending news hooks. 

For example, if new homebuying initiatives have come into force and your case study can show the benefits of it in effect, that makes an interesting story. Equally, if your customer story can link in with a big cultural moment such as the return of Glastonbury Festival, it gives journalists a unique way to add to the conversation that everyone is talking about.