Creating Case Studies? The Math You Have to Master
I have a confession. I’m bad at math.
Writers and marketers out there, I know some of you are with me. We were the spelling bee champions, the honors English students and the school newspaper editors.
But algebra was not our thing. Sure, there were some kids talented at both, at which I’m always amazed.
After elementary school, my attitude become one of, "I’ll never use this stuff. I’m going to be a writer!"
Well, here I am in a career mostly about writing and I’m Googling my math questions, or instant messaging a quick story problem to my computer science/math husband.
If you are a mathlete, then stop reading here, or forward this to your "word" friends.
Persnickety Percentages
Customer case studies are about documenting results, showing that actual customers experienced the benefits that marketing and sales promised.
Whether you’re a marketer, business owner or writer producing case studies, there are likely times when you have to do the math on your own. It’s fairly rare that featured customers come ready with all their numbers worked out about how your solution made a difference.
So what do you need to know? Percentages!
In case studies, it’s all about the before and after. How much did the customer reduce costs? How much time are they saving? By what percent did their sales grow?
Percents are sometimes the fallback approach when you can’t name actual dollar figures. Customers will let you mention percentages instead, so you have to know how to calculate them.
Percentages can be easy if you’re going one direction with them, but not other directions.
Fortunately, I found a handy guide for the math-challenged among us. This page gives you a simple formula no matter which number you’re missing and how to do your calculations. There are even problems to test yourself.
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Love it. It’s easier than Mrs. Swafford’s approach in 6th grade. (They probably learn this in 3rd grade now.)
Bookmark the page. I know I have. You simply have to do the math in this job sometimes.
Just today, I needed to determine what percent 1752 is of 1,807,125. Can you?
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