Case studies can be one of the most important deciding factors for a client when considering your business; which is why it's no wonder 63% of content marketers consider it a highly effective tactic.

Clients don't just want to know 'if you can do branding/marketing/SEO/etc.', though. They typically want to know:

• Have they provided these services for companies like mine in the past?
• What's their style?
• How do they go about solving any challenges that arise?
• And, most importantly, what firm (read: bottom line) results did their client see as a result of completing this project?

A good case study should help the right types of clients tick the box next to each of those key questions and feel eager to speak with you about a project.

Despite the value of having a strong case study portfolio on your site, or as an attachment for prospects to view--it can be a pain to pull one together. In fact, as far as the list of 'things most procrastinated on', case studies and portfolios must be toward the top of the list for creatives and marketing professionals... (I speak from personal experience, here, too 😅).

Fortunately, case studies really don't need to be that complicated, and following a template can be a shortcut to getting yourself a decent case study gallery up and running in no time (often the hardest part is just that first step!).

So, in this post I'll walk through this Notion Case Study Template, what's included and how you can start using it to create and share your own portfolio of case studies.

Notion Case Study Template

In the template, you'll find a few things:

• A Gallery view of all your case studies;
• A board view categorizing your case studies by segment, and another view by deliverables;
• A template inside the case studies database to kick off writing each new case study; and
• A few properties to help you tag and sort your various case studies.

The Case Studies Database

The benefit of using Notion databases to host your case studies is the simple ability to add properties and tag your past work accordingly. The properties in this database are:

• Services: What did you actually do (or were hired to do) for the client?
• Length: How many weeks did you spend on the project?
• Segment: Which industry or customer segment did this client belong to?
• Deliverables: What did the client actually receive at the end of it all?
• One-liner: A simple summary sentence describing the project.

Simple and to the point, these properties let you categorize your case studies to make them easier to navigate for prospective clients ('Hmm, have they ever worked with any other Tech clients?', 'How long do their projects typically last?').

Publishing and Sharing Your Case Studies In Notion

Another benefit of preparing and listing your case studies in Notion is the ability to easily publish your case studies page to anyone with the link.

Once you've finished preparing your first case studies, you can:

1. Hit 'Share' in the top right corner of the page;
2. Toggle on the 'Share to web' option;
3. Hit the 'Show link options' dropdown menu and unselect any options you don't want to give access for; then
4. Copy the link to your Case Studies page and share it on your website, across social accounts and with any prospective clients that may be interested.

Duplicating and Using The Case Studies Template

You'll notice the template itself includes both a copy of the Case Studies Gallery and a '+ Case Studies Gallery' template button.

When you duplicate the full 'Case Studies Gallery: Template' file from Landmark Labs to your Notion account, you can:

• Remove all the info around the callout box with the Case Studies Gallery inside it, and simple use that page as your case studies page;
• Move the case studies gallery and database to another page in your account where you'd prefer it to live; or
• Copy the '+ Case Studies Gallery' template button and paste it wherever you like in your Notion workspace--then, if you ever want a fresh Case Studies Gallery, just hit the button and it will spawn a new database.

The last option is most useful if you plan on creating multiple galleries (say, for clients or for multiple of your own internal projects).

Once you're ready to get started, hit the 'Clone' button on this page (when logged into your Notion account) and start adding your own case studies to the gallery.

May they bring you ever more (and better) client opportunities 🧘🙏

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