Portfolio & Case Studies: Powerful Evidence

Like the early sprouts that promise spring, a strong portfolio is powerful evidence of your value.

A starter website for a new business may feature only the most basic pages … such as Home, Services, About and Contact. As your business matures, additional meaningful assets can raise the bar. These may include a blog, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and resources, as well as testimonials, case studies or portfolio samples.

Well-crafted case studies offer evidence that you understand a client’s challenge and possess the skills to enable a positive outcome. As we shared in a prior post about case studies,

“While it’s important to communicate your expertise and solutions to potential customers, it’s their challenge — not your product — that must be central to the equation. If the problem part of the real-life example is relatable, it captures the attention of the prospect and enables them to see themselves. 

How are case studies similar to (or different from) a portfolio?

A portfolio for a creative professional like an artisan, photographer or designer is typically a collection of images that serve as a visual showcase of their work.

For businesses outside of creative fields, case studies serve a similar purpose — but are more data-driven. Case studies are written summaries describing individual client challenges and the results enabled through your support. They may include visual elements such as a client’s logo or photo in the attribution of a testimonial.

For the non-artisan, a portfolio is a collection of case studies that illustrates the scope of services and chronicles projects from a variety of clients.

Case studies and portfolios both utilize a storytelling approach to highlight your expertise in a way that doesn’t feel forced or self-promotive. Client stories build relatability and kinship by demonstrating your ability to understand a client’s challenge and guide them to a successful end result.

Tips for crafting case studies

To resonate with prospects, case studies must convey both your capacity to understand a client’s need, and your dexterity in driving to a resolution. The individual components to include in a case study are as follows:

• The issue: Describe a relatable challenge or situation. It’s important to be specific, but avoid industry parlance … you want the case studies to be relatable.
• Actions taken: The process, approach or action plan you devised to address the issue based on your unique skills. Be explicit yet succinct in your phrasing.
• Outcome: Share the end result or outcome following implementation of your plan. Include metrics that illustrate success, if feasible.
• Accolades: Include an attributed direct quote, testimony or review from the client.

While they may be focused on a unique client needs, case studies must be consumable, easy to digest and compelling. Utilize phrasing that connects with client pain points.

Cultivate a set of case studies for your portfolio that illustrate your scope and breadth of offerings. While you may follow a similar process with many clients, essentially telling the same story in multiple testimonials is less effective than focusing on the nuances that differentiate one from another — both in the problem and your action plan.

The presentation of case studies is also key to their effectiveness: A highly visual format and a nimble user experience will encourage engagement by prospective clients. Attaining that compelling look and feel brings us to our next topic: the platform.

The nitty gritty … creation alternatives to build your portfolio

Website developers use various tools to provide a compelling presentation for case studies. Website plugins (free and paid) are also available for this purpose. Some WordPress themes include functionality to create portfolios of case studies. Another alternative is to design a page or post using a custom post type or a page table. We expand on each of these options below.

Option #1: Website plugins

Website plugins provide a template that enables users to create a portfolio to display case studies. Data is stored in designated fields — problem, action taken, results, and and client testimonial, for example. In the back end, users select and populate fields they wish to populate and display.

Plugins (both free and paid versions) offer various portfolio layout alternatives, most commonly slider or grid formats. Individual field customization options include star ratings and visual elements like quotation marks or speech bubbles to designate client testimonials.

Plugin functionality also includes user experience animation features such as hover effects, rotation, and the ability to link an abbreviated teaser to an expanded case study viewable on a separate page.

Option #2: WordPress themes

Many website themes include built-in portfolio functionality portfolio, with various layouts and styles for individual case studies and myriad features that can be utilized or omitted.

Site owners can select font styles, colors, sizing of elements and animation features. Alternatives for the entire portfolio include grids of various shapes and sizes, as well as masonry styles. Individual case studies can be linked to display on their own pages, if desired.

Option #3: DIY portfolio options: Custom post types and page tables

While a variety of alternatives for creating portfolios are built into templates within plugins or themes, there are occasions where creating a layout from scratch can be more efficient or provide a better fit.

A custom post type is often used by developers to create a unique page layout with features for a particular purpose. For case studies, the developer creates a layout which includes functionality and formatting for each element. The layout serves as a template for future case studies to be created nimbly (perhaps by the website owner) with a consistent look and feel.

A similar approach is to utilize a standard page template, with case study content laid out within a table. The styling of each element (such as font choice, color and style, image dimensions, border type and spacing) is designated within the table. Again, the structure is built manually by the developer, enabling a site owner to add future case studies, if desired.

Ready to start building evidence of your value? Get started on your portfolio with our free downloadable guide.