Determining How Many Questions to Ask for a Video Case Study

Case study videos are some of the most powerful forms of marketing content used by brands large and small in virtually any and all industries. The right case study has the power to visually share a story that captivates the audience and drives their decision making down the purchase funnel toward conversions that matter for the brand. But figuring out exactly how many questions to ask for a video case study can be particularly challenging, especially to someone that doesn’t have a strong background in interviewing.

Each case study is unique and has its own set of challenges. Different subject matter, different experts, and different use cases make coming up with a set number of questions that are right or wrong for a case study interview impossible to determine. The process of figuring out how many questions to ask for a video case study is almost journalistic in nature. The interviewer needs to ask the right amount of questions to get the story across, without going overboard and becoming a total annoyance for the subject.

Essentially, you need to ask a series of questions in order to build the case study story that you intend to share with your target audience. This means planning out questions for your subject, the customer or client, as well as for the project manager or any subject matter experts that you’ll be interviewing in addition to the customer. 

Questions to Ask the Customer

There are fundamental questions to ask the customer when producing a case study video. These questions are going to help you to formulate the story background and the details that are necessary in order to visually depict the data that you’re trying to portray about your brand. Consider asking the following questions for the customer of your case study video:

1. What is your name and company?
2. What is your background or occupation?
3. How did you find out about us?
4. What challenges did you face or what problems were you looking to solve?
5. Did you happen to evaluate other competitor brands or possibly use competitor products before finding us?
6. If you used competitor brands, what was the outcome and why did you continue seeking something different?
7. How did our products help you to solve the problems or challenges that you were dealing with?
8. Did you need assistance in using our products or otherwise solving your problem?
9. What are the key benefits that you’ve found in having our products?
10. What are some of the things you love most about our brand?
11. What would you share with others if you could tell prospective customers about our brand?

As you can see, there are at least 11 questions that you should ask of your customer if you’re producing a video case study, but you might find that you need to ask additional questions, guided by the answers that the customer provides during the interview process. Naturally, figuring out exactly how many questions to ask for a video case study is challenging because of the journalistic nature of the interview process and the fact that it’s always possible for additional questions to come to mind over the course of your discussion with the customer.

Questions to Ask the Project Manager

In addition to asking certain questions of the customer, it’s important to ask questions of the project manager too. These are the questions that are going to help you to define the background, details, and important data behind the project or case study that you’re trying to produce. Asking questions of the project manager will give you a good idea of the expertise behind the brand and will present an ideal foundation upon which you can build your expert testimony and interviews on.

Asking questions of the project manager is essential if you’re creating a case study for a B2B brand but you might also find these questions valuable to ask subject matter experts that are going to be included in the case studies for D2C brands, as well:

1. What challenges did you initially encounter when working with the client that you knew our brand was going to be able to help with?
2. When you decided to implement a solution for the client, what was your process like?
3. Did you hit any unforeseen roadblocks or additional challenges as you attempted to implement a solution for the client?
4. How has our brand been able to help the client, solving their unique problems along the way?
5. What statistics or figures can you share in regards to how far our brand has helped the client come from prior to our relationship to post?
6. What successes did the client have in working with our brand? Can you share hard results with us?

These 6 questions are important to ask of your project manager or of the experts that are backing up the claims that your customer has made. As you can see, sometimes determining exactly how many questions to ask for a video case study isn’t exactly easy, but coming up with a list of topics or questions to consider as a starting point is essential. 

Want to learn more about how to interview for a case study video? Beverly Boy Productions has expert interviewers that will present your case study video with professionalism that cannot be beat. Give us a call to learn more.