PORTFOLIO CASE STUDY TEMPLATE ============================== From SoloStack — solostack.madethis.app Free to use. No attribution required. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 1: FILL-IN CASE STUDY TEMPLATE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PROJECT TITLE: [e.g. "Homepage Redesign for Acme SaaS" or "Email Campaign for Spring Launch"] CLIENT / PROJECT NAME: [Real client name — or "Spec Project: [Brand Name] Concept" for hypothetical work] INDUSTRY: [e.g. B2B SaaS / E-commerce / Health & Wellness / Non-profit] PROJECT TYPE: [e.g. Copywriting / Web Design / SEO / Social Media / Brand Strategy] CHALLENGE (What the client needed): [2–3 sentences. What problem were they facing? What was the outcome they were hoping for? What had already been tried or failed?] Example: "The client's homepage had a 78% bounce rate and was generating fewer than 5 inbound leads per month. Their existing copy hadn't been updated in 3 years and didn't reflect their new positioning as a mid-market solution. They needed a complete homepage rewrite before their Q3 product launch." MY ROLE: [What specifically did YOU do? If you were one of several contributors, be clear.] Example: "I led all copywriting — from messaging strategy through final copy. I collaborated with their in-house designer on layout recommendations and participated in two rounds of stakeholder reviews." PROCESS (3 phases): Phase 1 — [e.g. Discovery / Research / Audit]: [What did you do first? What did you learn? This shows strategic thinking, not just execution.] Phase 2 — [e.g. Draft / Design / Build]: [What did you create? How did you approach it? What decisions did you make and why?] Phase 3 — [e.g. Revision / Testing / Launch]: [How did you refine the work? What was the feedback loop? How did you finalize the deliverable?] RESULT (Quantified where possible): [This is the most important part. What changed after your work? If you don't have hard numbers, use directional language: "significantly improved," "increased," "reduced."] Examples of strong results: - "Bounce rate dropped from 78% to 43% in the first 30 days" - "Inbound leads increased from 5/month to 22/month within 60 days of launch" - "Open rate on new email sequence: 38% (industry average: 21%)" - "Client reported the new onboarding process saved their team ~4 hours per week" TESTIMONIAL (Leave blank if none yet — add when available): "[Client quote here]" — [Name, Title, Company] TOOLS USED: [List 3–6 tools you used. Clients find this helpful and it signals professionalism.] [e.g. Figma / Webflow / Notion / Ahrefs / Mailchimp / Google Analytics] LINK TO WORK (if public): [URL or "Not publicly available — screenshots available on request"] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 2: 5 COMPLETE EXAMPLE CASE STUDIES ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── EXAMPLE 1: COPYWRITING — B2B SaaS Homepage ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PROJECT TITLE: Homepage Copy Overhaul — Taskline (Project Management SaaS) CLIENT: Taskline (B2B SaaS, 12-person company) INDUSTRY: Project Management Software PROJECT TYPE: Conversion Copywriting CHALLENGE: Taskline had a 74% homepage bounce rate and was relying entirely on outbound sales for new customers. Their homepage opened with "Streamline your workflow with Taskline" — a generic, benefit-less headline that could describe any of 200 competitors. They were spending $8,000/month on Google Ads driving traffic to a page that converted at 1.2%. They needed a homepage that communicated their specific differentiator (async-first project management for remote teams) before visitors clicked away. MY ROLE: I handled all copy strategy and execution — from customer interview synthesis through final copy. I interviewed 5 of their best customers to identify language patterns, ran a competitive analysis of 8 direct competitors, and wrote three headline concepts for stakeholder review before producing the full page. PROCESS: Phase 1 — Discovery (Week 1): Conducted 45-minute interviews with 5 Taskline customers, focusing on: what they were using before, what finally convinced them to switch, and what they'd tell a friend about the product. Identified the recurring theme: "I can finally see what's happening without scheduling another meeting." That became the strategic insight. Phase 2 — Copy Strategy + Draft (Weeks 2–3): Developed 3 headline options rooted in the customer insight. The winning concept: "Remote teams that run on Taskline cut check-in meetings by half." Wrote full page copy (hero, features, social proof, FAQ, and two CTAs) calibrated for the ICP: engineering managers and ops leads at 10–50 person remote-first companies. Phase 3 — Revision + Delivery (Week 4): Two rounds of revisions incorporating CEO and product team feedback. Delivered final copy in Google Docs with annotations explaining every strategic decision, plus an A/B test recommendation for the primary CTA. RESULT: - Homepage conversion rate: 1.2% → 3.1% (3 months post-launch) - Bounce rate: 74% → 49% - Monthly inbound demo requests: 8 → 21 - Client reported Google Ads cost-per-demo dropped from $380 to $148 TESTIMONIAL: "Working with [Name] was different from every other copywriter I've hired. They asked the right questions before writing a single word, and the copy they delivered felt like it came from inside the company. The results speak for themselves." — Sarah K., CEO, Taskline TOOLS USED: Typeform (customer survey), Google Docs, Hotjar (reviewing recordings), Semrush (competitor research), Figma (wireframe annotations) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── EXAMPLE 2: WEB DEVELOPMENT — E-commerce Site Rebuild ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PROJECT TITLE: Shopify Store Rebuild — Briar & Bloom Candles CLIENT: Briar & Bloom (D2C e-commerce, founder-led) INDUSTRY: Home & Lifestyle (E-commerce) PROJECT TYPE: Shopify Development + UX CHALLENGE: Briar & Bloom's Shopify store was built on a 3-year-old theme that loaded in 7+ seconds on mobile and had a checkout abandonment rate of 82%. The founder was running paid ads on Instagram but seeing minimal ROI because the site experience was killing conversions. They needed a complete store rebuild before peak Q4 season — with a hard deadline of November 1st. MY ROLE: Full-stack Shopify development lead. I handled theme selection and customization, metafield architecture, mobile optimization, app integration, and a complete checkout flow review. The founder handled brand direction and product copy — I translated everything into a performant, conversion-optimized storefront. PROCESS: Phase 1 — Audit + Architecture (Week 1): Audited the existing store: identified 4 bloated third-party apps, unoptimized images, and a navigation structure that buried bestsellers 3 clicks deep. Built a revised site map and presented it with rationale. Client approved with one change (moved the gift bundle section up). Phase 2 — Build (Weeks 2–4): Rebuilt on Shopify Dawn theme (customized heavily). Implemented: lazy image loading, WebP conversion for all product images, sticky add-to-cart on PDPs, cross-sell blocks on cart page, and a custom collection filter. Replaced 4 apps with leaner alternatives, reducing page weight by 43%. Phase 3 — QA + Launch (Week 5): Cross-browser and cross-device testing on 6 devices. Speed optimization pass: achieved Lighthouse score of 91 on mobile (was 34). Staged launch with founder on a Sunday evening, full rollback plan in place. Zero issues. RESULT: - Mobile page load: 7.2s → 1.8s (PageSpeed Insights) - Checkout abandonment: 82% → 61% - November revenue: $14,200 (prior November: $8,700) — 63% YoY increase - Client renewed for ongoing maintenance retainer at $600/month TESTIMONIAL: "Our store looks and performs like a real brand now. The speed difference alone was worth it — but the checkout changes are what I keep coming back to. We had our best November ever." — Maya T., Founder, Briar & Bloom TOOLS USED: Shopify, Liquid, PageSpeed Insights, Figma, Chrome DevTools, Notion (project management) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── EXAMPLE 3: SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT — LinkedIn B2B ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PROJECT TITLE: LinkedIn Content Strategy — Meridian Consulting CLIENT: Meridian Consulting (B2B management consulting, 6 partners) INDUSTRY: Professional Services PROJECT TYPE: Social Media Strategy + Content Management CHALLENGE: Meridian's managing partner had 1,400 LinkedIn followers, posted sporadically (averaging 1 post per month), and was getting zero inbound from the platform — despite having case studies and expertise that could have attracted ideal clients. They'd tried outsourcing to a generic social media agency twice and were disappointed both times with content that felt "corporate and hollow." They needed a thought leadership strategy that sounded like the partner actually wrote it. MY ROLE: Social media strategist and ghostwriter. I developed the overall content strategy, conducted monthly "content mining" calls with the managing partner (45 min), wrote 3 posts per week based on her ideas and expertise, and managed all scheduling and engagement monitoring. PROCESS: Phase 1 — Voice & Strategy (Weeks 1–2): Conducted 2 deep-dive calls to capture the partner's communication style, strongest opinions, and 5 "content pillars" (transformation stories, hard truths about consulting, founder lessons, hiring & culture, and client decision-making). Built a style guide with example posts in her voice. Phase 2 — Content Production (Months 1–3): Delivered 3 posts per week: 2 educational/opinion posts and 1 story-based post. Monthly calls to extract new material. Weekly performance review to identify which formats and topics were getting traction. Phase 3 — Optimization (Month 4 onward): Identified that personal founder stories outperformed frameworks 3:1 in engagement. Shifted content mix accordingly. Introduced a "case study" format (anonymized) that started generating DM inquiries. RESULT: - Followers: 1,400 → 4,800 (6 months) - Average post impressions: 180 → 2,400 - 3 inbound consulting inquiries directly attributable to LinkedIn in Month 6 - One inquiry converted to a $28,000 engagement TESTIMONIAL: "I was skeptical anyone could write in my voice, but [Name] got it within the first two weeks. The content actually sounds like me — and it's working in a way my own posts never did." — Caroline M., Managing Partner, Meridian Consulting TOOLS USED: LinkedIn Analytics, Notion (content calendar), Taplio (scheduling), Google Docs (drafts and approvals) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── EXAMPLE 4: GRAPHIC DESIGN — Brand Identity (Spec Project) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── NOTE: This is a spec project. Maplewood Provisions is a fictional brand concept created for portfolio purposes. All work is original. PROJECT TITLE: Brand Identity Concept — Maplewood Provisions (Spec) CLIENT: Spec project (fictional brand — artisan food subscription) INDUSTRY: D2C Food & Beverage PROJECT TYPE: Brand Identity Design CHALLENGE (Conceptual): Maplewood Provisions is a hypothetical artisan pantry subscription brand targeting affluent home cooks aged 30–50. The design challenge: create a visual identity that feels premium and hand-crafted without falling into the "farmhouse cliché" (distressed fonts, mason jars, plaid). The brand needed to feel modern, editorial, and worthy of shelf space in a high-end kitchen. MY ROLE: Complete brand identity design — logo suite, color palette, typography system, packaging mockup (two products), and brand guidelines document. PROCESS: Phase 1 — Research + Moodboarding: Analyzed 15 direct and indirect competitors. Identified the visual gap: most artisan food brands rely on warm browns and handwritten scripts. Built a moodboard exploring a different direction — cool neutrals, structured typography, and botanical illustration. Presented two distinct directions for conceptual feedback. Phase 2 — Identity Development: Developed the selected direction (editorial/botanical) into a full identity: primary logo (wordmark with custom ligature), secondary mark (monogram), color palette (forest green, cream, warm black, dusty rose accent), and typography pair (Freight Display + Suisse Works). Phase 3 — Applications + Guidelines: Applied the identity to: kraft paper pouch (front/back), shipping box exterior, and loyalty card. Produced a 12-page brand guidelines PDF covering logo usage, color values (Pantone/CMYK/RGB/HEX), typography rules, and photography direction. RESULT (Conceptual): This project demonstrates my ability to develop a coherent brand identity from strategic brief to production-ready assets. The design system is fully buildable — all assets are packaged in Figma with component variants and export-ready files. TESTIMONIAL: N/A (spec project) TOOLS USED: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Procreate (illustration), Unsplash (placeholder photography) ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── EXAMPLE 5: SEO — Local Service Business ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── PROJECT TITLE: Local SEO Campaign — Peak Plumbing & Heating CLIENT: Peak Plumbing & Heating (local service business, 8 technicians) INDUSTRY: Home Services PROJECT TYPE: Local SEO + Content Strategy CHALLENGE: Peak Plumbing was generating most new business through paid Google Local Services Ads at a cost of $85–$120 per lead. They had zero organic rankings for their 12 core service keywords and had never invested in SEO. The goal: build organic search visibility for their service area (metro Denver + 6 suburbs) to reduce reliance on paid leads within 12 months. MY ROLE: SEO strategist and content lead. I handled technical audit, keyword strategy, on-page optimization, local citation building, and content production (one landing page per service area per month). PROCESS: Phase 1 — Audit + Strategy (Month 1): Technical audit identified: no structured data, duplicate location pages, thin homepage content, and 34 broken internal links. Keyword research surfaced 47 high-intent local terms with low-to-medium competition. Built a 12-month content roadmap: one service+location landing page per month, two supporting blog posts per month. Phase 2 — Technical Fixes + On-Page (Months 1–2): Fixed all technical issues, implemented LocalBusiness schema, optimized Google Business Profile (added 200+ photos, updated service descriptions, built a review-request system for technicians). Rewrote homepage and 6 service pages with proper keyword targeting. Phase 3 — Content Execution (Months 3–12): Published 47 location + service landing pages (e.g. "Emergency Plumber in Highlands Ranch") and 20 supporting blog posts. Built 65 local citations (NAP consistency across directories). Monitored rankings monthly and adjusted targeting based on performance data. RESULT (at 12-month mark): - Organic search traffic: 280 sessions/month → 2,100 sessions/month - Top-3 rankings: 0 → 31 keywords - Organic inbound calls: 3/month → 38/month - Estimated reduction in paid ad spend: $2,800/month TESTIMONIAL: "We hired [Name] skeptical that SEO could actually work for a plumbing company. Twelve months later we're getting 35–40 calls a month from Google that we don't have to pay for. That's real money." — Derek P., Owner, Peak Plumbing & Heating TOOLS USED: Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, BrightLocal (citation building), WordPress ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 3: SPEC WORK LABELING GUIDE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ THE HONESTY PRINCIPLE Spec work is legitimate portfolio work. Label it clearly — clients respect transparency far more than they'd respect discovering you misrepresented something. HOW TO LABEL SPEC WORK: Use one of these approaches consistently: Option A (Project title line): "[Project Name] (Spec Project)" or: "[Project Name] — Concept Piece" Option B (Visible note at the top of the case study): "Note: This is a self-initiated spec project. [Brand Name] is a real company, but this work was not commissioned by or affiliated with them. Created to demonstrate my [copywriting / design / development] approach." Option C (For fictional/hypothetical brands): "Note: [Brand Name] is a fictional brand concept created for portfolio purposes. All strategy, copy, and design is original." WHAT TO INCLUDE IN A SPEC CASE STUDY: - A clear, realistic brief (what would a real client in this situation have needed?) - Your actual process (research, iterations, decisions made) - A finished deliverable (not a half-done mockup) - What you were trying to achieve with your creative/strategic choices - Tools used WHAT CLIENTS ACTUALLY THINK: Most clients review spec work the same way they review paid work — they're evaluating your thinking, not your client list. A spec project with a clear brief, visible process, and polished output demonstrates your capabilities just as well as a paid one. Common question: "Should I tell clients which pieces are spec?" Answer: Yes — if they ask. If you label them clearly in your portfolio, you won't need to announce it separately. Clients who review your work carefully will see the label. Clients who only care about the output quality won't ask. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ PART 4: 8 QUESTIONS TO EXTRACT RESULTS FROM CLIENTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Ask these within 30–60 days of project delivery, when the client has had time to see results. Frame it as a brief check-in, not a survey. 1. "Has anything measurably changed since we launched / delivered?" → Opens the door for any kind of result — they'll tell you what moved. 2. "Are you tracking [the metric we discussed at the start]? What's it showing?" → References your original goal. Pulls a specific number. 3. "Would you estimate the new [copy / design / system] is saving you time? How much?" → Time saved is a result. $X/hour × hours saved = economic value. 4. "Has anyone on your team or from outside said anything specifically about the work?" → Surfaces social proof you didn't know existed. 5. "Are you getting more inbound from [the channel we optimized]?" → For SEO, social, or paid channels — quantifies lead impact. 6. "How would you describe the ROI so far — is it tracking where you'd hoped?" → Gets them to state value in their own words. Great for testimonials. 7. "What's working better now that wasn't before?" → Directional result when no hard numbers exist yet. 8. "Would you be comfortable sharing a brief written testimonial? Even 2–3 sentences works." → Ask directly. Most clients say yes when you make it easy. Offer to draft a few options for them to edit — they almost always use one of them. TIP: Ask questions 1–7 casually in a follow-up email or check-in call. Only ask #8 after they've expressed satisfaction. Use the exact language from their answers in your case study. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Get more free freelance resources at solostack.madethis.app/resources ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━