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Is It Time to Rethink the Agency Case Study?
Creating case studies for agencies comes with its own special set of challenges. First, agency customers are a particularly skeptical bunch because they’ve either been burned by an agency in the past or heard horror stories. Maybe they didn’t get the results they wanted. Or the work was poorly performed. Or communication was terrible. Whatever the problem was, they’re not likely to be won over by cheery case studies that consist of a laundry list of tasks performed and summary...
A Surprising Way to Repurpose Your Customer Interview
You could be sitting on a goldmine and not even know it… Especially if you already have a handful of case studies under your belt. You may think you’ve squeezed every ounce of marketing juice out of those studies, but there’s a byproduct of the creation process that you probably haven’t tapped. I’m talking about the audio files of your customer interviews. These files are chock full of persuasive content and quotes that are just begging to be used—and you...
How to Prepare for Customer Interviews in 7 Easy Steps
You might not realize it, but the success of your case study starts before a word is written. Here are our secrets to nailing great interviews. Every. Single. Time. You hop on a call with your biggest customer. You need to get all the information for your case study in a single phone call. You need to keep it quick, so you don’t waste their time. You hit RECORD and… You freeze. What do you ask first? What do you...
How to Build a Money-Making Case Study Strategy in 4 Steps (and What to Do Next)
If you’re asking, “What the heck is a case study strategy, and why do I need one?”—you’re not alone. Most companies seem to believe that a great customer success story is something that “just happens.” It spontaneously explodes into existence when they help a customer achieve something great. Only… that’s not the way it usually goes, is it? Sure, after a big win, high-fives abound. You gush about the customer’s success during your next meet-up. Maybe you regale prospects with...
How Growth Tools Collects Over 120 Client Wins Every Week (and How You Can Too)
Bryan Harris, Founder of Growth Tools, shares how his company systematized the collection of customer success stories — and how those wins impact marketing, sales, and everything in between. “How can we simplify customer feedback collection?” That was the question that set Bryan Harris, Founder of Growth Tools, and his team on the fast track to collecting, synthesizing, and leveraging hundreds of client wins every month. It started with a goal that was easy to communicate and difficult to track:...
The Stories We Should Be Telling In Times of Crisis
In the past 72 hours, I’ve received 37 emails with the word “COVID-19” in the subject line. Most of those are from businesses, outlining the steps they’re taking to deal with the crisis. I have one from my bank. My phone carrier. My movie theatre. Heck, I have one from KFC. But the messages that inspire me have nothing to do with “cleaning measures” or “enforcing hand washing.” The stories that keep me reading, caring, and engaging as a customer...
How to Write a Killer Case Study Intro
The blinking cursor of death… You’ve read the client brief, recorded the interview, and found the perfect case study template. Now you’re sitting in front of your computer with a strong cup of coffee (your most important writing tool), and you’re ready to crank out a killer case study. But where do you begin? Oftentimes, the hardest part of writing a case study (other than putting together the headline, which we’ll cover in another post) is just getting started. How...
Client won’t approve your case study? Don’t give up – try this!
You’ve written a case study, but your client won’t approve it. What now? It happens more often than it should: a client agrees to do a case study but then backs out after you’ve gone to all the trouble to write it up. Yes, it’s discouraging – but it doesn’t have to mean scrapping the case study entirely. In this post, I’ll share the step-by-step process Case Study Buddy follows to try to turn around this setback – and one last-ditch option...
When is the Best Time to Ask a Client for a Case Study?
Back in junior high school, I was the kid with the worst possible timing. See, there were girls I dreamed of hesitantly putting my arm around while watching the latest PG 13 movie and sipping back an ice cold Tahiti Treat (boy, I miss those), but I never got the timing right. I either blurted my feelings out too soon (“Nice to meet you. Wanna be my girlfriend?!”) or way too late (“I heard you liked me last year and even though you’re in love with...