Hi friends - August is winding down, but I’m not! I’m the busiest I’ve been all year, and I’ll take it. I guess my marketing is really marketing.

Thankfully, I love my work. 💝 

Ok so for the newbies, we’re on a marketing streak at the moment. You can catch up here -

• Marketing fundamentals 

• Phase I: Building an audience you can activate

• Phase II: Show and tell, part I - customer reviews

Next up - case studies! 🤓 

Your case study playbook

The next step in your ‘show and tell’ playbook is to create case studies.

I aim to get 3 to start and then add 1 per quarter (minimum) from there.

What is the goal of a case study?

Goal #1: Decrease buyer doubt and deal friction + increase buyer confidence, and accelerate your deal cycle.

Various surveys have reported that 40-60% of B2B sales are lost to indecision. Yep. Not to your competitors…but to inaction.

When a buyer can’t get enough conviction, when you can’t remove enough doubt, or reduce enough risk…they choose to do nothing over doing something.

Case studies are one strong way you can hedge against that risk.

Goal #2: Help people better understand your product through problem → solution storytelling.

A case study should be a strong story about a customer's specific challenge, goal, or set of circumstances…and how your product was the answer. It helps your prospects better visualize and comprehend when and how you’d add value to their business.

How do you write case studies?

I approach this in 3 steps -

Step #1 - Reflect internally.

• Identify 1 client from each ICP type or industry or product use case you serve (i.e. maybe 1 fintech client, 1 healthcare tech client, etc.). Whichever 3 client profiles or use cases you want to replicate the most (“we want more of this”).

• Next, for each target customer, document -

  • How you met them,

  • Why they chose you (if you know),

  • How they use your product (what problems does it solve for them),

  • What quantifiable value have they received (if you know)

I coach my clients to put this in a format like this so we go into the interview fully prepared. 

Step #2 - Interview your customers.

Next, we need to speak to the customer live to confirm our responses, get more information, fill in the holes, capture some quotes, etc.

Preferably, the person conducting this interview is not the person who sold them or who services them because that way, you’ll get less biased and more honest feedback. Even better, if you have an external party that can do it, like a consultant or advisor (like me!).

Here is the list of questions I typically ask in a customer interview.

In the interview, I have 3 goals -

1. Capture details and quotes for my case study

2. Better understand their buying process to inform my GTM strategy and sales enablement

3. Better understand the value of the product through their eyes and in their words to influence my positioning and messaging

So many times, I’ve interviewed my customer’s customers and realized they cared a lot more about value prop #4 than we thought…and it becomes the more prominent thing we highlight going forward.

Listen to learn and understand, not to confirm your own opinions.

Step #3 - Bring it all together.

I like to structure case studies into 4 key sections, with supporting quotes:

The end result might look like this. 👇️ 

Good, better, best -

• Good - Your client agrees to let you distribute the case study privately during your sales process.

• Better - Your client agrees to the written case study published on your website.

• Best - Your client agrees to the study being published on your website AND lets you use some video clips or the full video in your marketing.

Squeeze as much juice as you can from every marketing effort. It’s critical when you’re working with a small budget and team.

See ya next week!

Want to learn more about how I help startups increase their revenue by 150-590%? 👀 

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With love and gratitude,