Content Marketing for Consultants and Solo Practitioners: Playing to Your Strengths
Tag: Content Writing
How to Write a Case Study That Actually Converts
Most case studies read like press releases. Here’s how to write ones that actually persuade.
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
A case study is a detailed, evidence-based account of how a specific client or customer achieved a measurable outcome using a product, service, or approach. Case studies are told in narrative form to help prospective buyers understand what results are possible and how they might be achieved in their own context. A well-written case study is one of the most persuasive content formats available to B2B marketers because it combines social proof (‘someone like me has done this’) with specificity (‘here’s exactly what happened and what it produced’).
I’ve written a lot of case studies over the years for clients across industries, in formats ranging from one-page snapshots to 3,000-word deep dives. Over that time I’ve read even more: the ones clients show me as examples of what they want, the ones competitors publish, the ones that show up as thought leadership assets in B2B sales cycles.
The pattern I see most often: case studies written for the company that produced them, not for the prospect who is supposed to be persuaded by them.
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LinkedIn Groups in 2026: What My 2011 Article Got Right — And What Changed
Fifteen years ago I interviewed a half-dozen experts about LinkedIn Groups. Here’s how their advice has aged.
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The Content Marketing Metrics That Actually Matter (And the Ones to Ignore)
Most content marketers are measuring the wrong things. Here’s how to tell the difference.
By Linda Pophal, MA, SPHR · Strategic Communications, LLC
Content marketing metrics are the quantitative and qualitative measures used to evaluate whether a content program is achieving its intended business objectives. They include audience growth, lead generation, search visibility, and revenue attribution. The distinction between meaningful metrics and vanity metrics is critical: vanity metrics (page views, social media likes, follower counts) may look impressive but reveal little about business impact, while meaningful metrics connect content activity directly to outcomes that matter to the organization.
Every content marketer I’ve worked with has felt the pull of the vanity metric. The blog post that got 2,000 views. The LinkedIn post with 150 likes. The social media following that crossed a round number.
These numbers feel like progress. They’re easy to report. But they’re often meaningless.
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