Few activities are more critical to the success of a private equity firm than deal sourcing. In the past, private equity firms have relied on their own networks to generate deal flow and nurture relationships, but as competition has increased, it’s become even more important for firms to broaden their tactics and strategies. 

Investing in the development of case studies—which work to highlight the growth of companies currently within your portfolio and those that have successfully exited—can not only demonstrate your ability to deliver on your promises, but it can reassure founders and business owners seeking a partnership that your firm is the right fit. It can also solidify your track record, helping your firm to stand out to investment bankers, who help bring prospective companies into your fold, and to investors, who invest capital into private equity funds.

In this post, we’ll walk through what a case study is, why you should invest in this form of content, and provide baseline steps on how to create your own. We’ll also highlight a few examples of private equity firms already taking advantage of this tactic to inspire your own ideas.

What is A Case Study and Why Does It Matter?

For a private equity firm, a marketing case study serves as a detailed summary that examines an initial challenge a portfolio company has faced, and the tactics and strategies that were deployed to solve the challenge, and ultimately grow the company. Case studies can vary greatly in length and can take the form of a web page, blog post, downloadable, or video—or even a combination of both written and video components. 

When done well, these case studies can effectively showcase real-world examples of your strategies at play, as well as your authority and expertise as a potential partner for similar companies. Founders and business owners want to see businesses like themselves in your portfolio and be reassured that you understand the ins and outs of their industry and have relevant experience.

The Benefits of Leveraging Case Studies

Although case studies require more effort, time, and resources to put together compared to a client testimonial or other marketing materials, the payoff is very high. When used as part of your overall marketing toolkit, case studies can help generate new potential leads, nurture prospect relationships, and even close deals, winning new business. Below are more benefits:

1. Provides social proof
Case studies are prospect-focused—not firm-focused—and as a result, they are extremely adept at building trust and providing social proof. A case study should aim to effectively outline the founder’s or business owner’s journey from their own point of view, explaining initial challenges, strategies used, and solutions, as well as the overall experience. Within the story, relevance and impact can be brought to life, and can help put business owners or executives reading the case study at ease, and motivate them to take the next step in partnering with your firm.

2. Builds credibility
By including data and analysis in your case study, it can help demonstrate the value that your firm brings to the table, while also providing proof points that back up your track record to intermediaries and investors. Highlighting portfolio companies throughout different industry niches can also build credibility across your vertical focus, and show your portfolio’s diversity.

3. Boosts SEO rankings
Case studies, when digitally published to a webpage or as a blog post, provide an ample opportunity to strategically seed relevant keywords into your content. Over time, as new case study content is added to your site, this will not only help boost your SEO ranking by reinforcing your relevance to those keywords, but increase quality traffic to your website.

4. Reusable marketing materials
Case studies are not only an effective marketing tool, but a very powerful sales tool. Repackaging a case study into different types of media assets—from a standalone video, downloadable one-pager or whitepaper, social posts, to a series of blog posts—can allow your firm to syndicate the content to your audiences through a variety of channels or share directly to prospects through your business development team. Diversifying the format and reusing the content in new ways can also help boost SEO efforts.

How to Get Started Creating A Case Study

Sharing your portfolio company’s story is a delicate balance between highlighting their point of view and growth over time, while naturally incorporating how your firm helped contribute to the success. To ensure that your case study lands correctly, check out the preliminary tips below for getting started.

1. Find the right investment to highlight
Crafting an effective case study requires more than simply selecting a company within your portfolio and writing a story. When considering which investment to highlight, start by narrowing your focus to a grouping of companies who are your ideal fit and that has seen good results that you know can be repeated by other companies that partner with you (aka, leave extreme outliers aside). This company must also be willing to participate in the case study in order to strengthen its narrative.

The investment you choose from your portfolio should resemble the following:

  • Experienced tremendous growth with your partnership.
  • Have a recognizable brand that is familiar to, or will resonate with, founders and business owners who will read the case study.
  • Be willing to participate in the case study, enabling you to not only get a clear understanding of their perspectives, but also allow you to gather accompanying testimonial quotes, video footage, or photography.  

2. Determine your objective
While all business case studies are designed to showcase the value your firm provides to its investments, the value itself and the strategies used can take on many shapes. You’ll want to ensure the story you choose highlights your firm’s biggest strengths and pertains to your most specialized industry focus.

3. Choose your case study medium and other deliverables.
As mentioned earlier, a case study doesn’t have to exist only as a web page or PDF download, but can instead take on other formats. It can also greatly vary in length and can include mixed media such as written content alongside photography and video, in order to deliver a compelling and multi-faceted story. 

When determining the primary format and length, keep in mind the sensibilities of your target audience—will they want to dig into the details or want a high-level overview? Would a video component make a difference by providing a deeper testimony into the firm’s approach or is it unnecessary?

Below are several formats worth considering:

  • Web Page: This format can be the most interactive. It can house written content alongside video clips or photography to tell a complete story.
  • Report or One-Pager Download: Keep your message short and sweet in a format that can be readily emailed to prospective leads.
  • Video: Showcase the culture and approach visually, appealing to the emotional journey, while still providing the hard-hitting facts.
  • Social Posts: Syndicate the case study to professional networks like LinkedIn.

4. Pull together data and insights from the investment team and portfolio company.
Private equity firms have a unique vantage point of having access to, and an intimate understanding of, their portfolio company’s data points and insights. The investment team can work with the portfolio company to begin collecting this data, and begin formulating interview questions to discuss with the executive team. This interview will allow you to begin to develop a narrative that speaks to their point of view, as well as provide an opportunity to capture testimonial quotes and even video footage.

5. Begin writing your case study or find a partner to work with.
When it comes time to take all of the information you’ve collected and turn it into the case study itself, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Starting from a brief outline, like outlined below, can help you get started on the right track. 

  • Title and executive summary: The executive summary allows for speed readers to scan through longer formats of the case study, while still digesting the highlights.
  • Introduction to the portfolio company: Sets the stage for the case study, while providing background on the executive team of the company.
  • Challenges and objectives: Explain the problem that you helped the portfolio company overcome, while keying into the larger impact of the issues.
  • Deployed strategies and tactics: This section allows you to provide a real-world example of your services to prospective founders and business owners who want to better understand how your firm would work with them.
  • Results: Provide an overview of the hard-hitting stats, and highlight the company’s emotional journey and excitement in response to the growth.
  • Supporting visuals, video, or testimonial quotes: These supporting elements are most effective when used throughout the entire case study.

Alternatively, instead of writing your own case study, you may also choose to work with an agency partner specialized in content marketing to develop it. Not only will an agency partner be able to offload the work from your internal team, but they have the expertise to lead the SEO keyword research, interviews, copywriting, video, and syndication, while also providing guidance on the overall strategy. Drop us a message and connect with us if you’re seeking a professional partner to develop a case study or other content.

Hands opening a box with stream of light bulbs flowing from it

Case Study Inspiration to Get You Started

If you’re new to developing case studies, or any form of content for your firm, having inspiration to draw from can help you establish a baseline to ideate further. We’ve rounded up four private equity case study examples below to help you get started.

  • Carlyle: Carlyle leads with compelling storytelling and a first-hand audio testimonial that immediately engages users. The case study provides a strategic overview on how ZoomInfo and Carlyle worked together without over disclosing sensitive, private details.
  • CVC: CVC kicks off its case study by providing an executive summary of the company’s background. CVC also provides in-depth details on revenue growth on key focus areas, ending with a succinct profile card of the company.
  • American Industrial Partners: This case study is ideal for readers who quickly scan content for the most important insights. Very quickly, readers can gather information on what the portfolio company does, how they partnered with American Industrial Partners, as well as company highlights.
  • Brockway Moran & Partners: While Brockway Moran & Partner’s isn’t the strongest example in this subset, its case studies are thorough and provide detail. We recommend strengthening the storytelling narrative to focus on the portfolio team’s perspective.

Need Help Making Case Studies Part of Your Toolkit?

Earning trust in the private equity space can—at times—be a challenging feat. But, by leveraging case studies to showcase real-life examples of growth, you can not only build credibility with intermediaries and investors, but also alleviate the concerns of founders and business owners when they approach a potential partnership with your firm.

Whether you need help executing a full content marketing strategy or want to begin to explore more deeply whether case studies can help your firm, we’re here to help. Connect with us and subscribe to our newsletter to get relevant industry perspectives sent straight to your inbox.