Episode 13: Why EVERY Service Provider Should be Creating Case Studies

Tiffany Barry (00:00):
Every service based entrepreneur should be creating case studies. Think of the last big investment you made and remind yourself how powerful those written testimonials client videos and especially case studies were to you in that moment. So powerful rights. That’s what we’re talking about on this week’s episode of fast of profit marketing. Welcome to the passion to profit show, where we talk about how to scale your passionate business into a profitable empire. I’m Tiffany Barry, a marketing expert and relationship marketing enthusiast. Join me for 20 minutes or less every week to talk about business, scaling up CEO, mindset, freedom and flex for entrepreneurs leveling up to six and seven figures. Let’s get started

Tiffany Barry (00:49):
On this week’s episode. I wanna talk about case studies and specifically case studies for service based entrepreneurs, because every service based entrepreneur should be creating them. They are so powerful. And we’re gonna talk about two powerful reasons why you should be creating them in your business too. But despite the power of case studies, many business owners are hesitant to create them. They worry about their results, not being good enough. You know, they kind of get caught up in the, the head drama, the mindset drama of it, and they worry about how to exactly even create an effective case study. And I got to thinking about this topic specifically because I saw several posts go up recently in some of the Facebook groups that I network in, where people were talking about, you know, I wanna create a case study funnel. I wanna create case studies for my clients.

Tiffany Barry (01:43):
I don’t even know where to start. I wanna hire somebody and hiring somebody to develop case studies can be an amazing thing to do if you have the resources and this just isn’t your jam, but I’m here to tell you that case studies don’t have to be super, super complicated. They can be simple and still be just as effective. So first let’s go kind of break down what exactly is a case study, because I think a lot of the worry and fear around creating them comes from this idea that they’re way more complicated than they actually are, because at their core, a case study is really just a document that tells the story of how you helped one of your clients achieve success. It could be someone who came to you for help for their business. It could be a personal growth case study of kind of your own growth as a business owner.

Tiffany Barry (02:30):
It could also be something where you are doing kind of like what HubSpot is, is a big one who does this, where they analyze activities that other companies are doing, not necessarily companies that they work with. So in this case, I’m gonna be talking specifically about case studies that show your work with clients, but that’s a good thing to keep in your head for the future. If you wanna be seen as an industry leader, as an industry expert, doing case studies on other people’s work and evaluating the pros and the cons and the successes and the strengths and the weaknesses and, and what you may have done differently, that can be a really great way to stand out to your audience as well. So we’re gonna talk specifically about case studies for your clients. Okay. because the, of a case study is to show potential clients what they can expect if they work with you.

Tiffany Barry (03:25):
Now, like I said, there are some case studies where you’re kind of pulling an I see what you’re doing out there, looking at a different company, and that can show your expertise. But in this case, we’re taught about the, the other type of case study, right? The case study that shows your work with a particular client. All right. You’re essentially saying to your potential clients with this case study, Hey, this is how I get helped client a get X, Y, Z results. So I can help you two, see, and case studies are so effective because they are a combination of storytelling and evidence. And if you’ve been around here with me long enough, you know, how I feel about storytelling and marketing together beyond just showing what you can do. Case studies are a way to held a story of how you got there.

Tiffany Barry (04:21):
They show potential clients, the journey that you’re an expert in taking someone on that journey through your niche, through your field, and that you are a trustworthy source of expertise to help them achieve their goals. So let’s dig into these concepts a little bit more. Okay. So I talked about you know, the, the main reason I wanted to talk about this in the podcast episode is because case studies are so effective, and I think there’s two main you know, reasons why they are so effective. So the first thing you know, that comes to mind when I think of why case studies are more effecti of than, than, you know, other forms of, you know, testimonials and stuff like that is, is because they show tangible results. Right? One of the reasons why people want to work with you is because of the results that you have that you can bring them, that you have, have achieved with other similar clients.

Tiffany Barry (05:24):
So case studies show those tangible results. And even more than that, they show the breakdown of how you helped your clients get those results. So, for example, if you helped a client increase their web traffic by save 200%, your case study might show how you did it, you can talk about the tactics you use, the tools you recommended maybe even break down the results of any like split tests or AB tests or experiments that you ran. Because I work in marketing where we’re often developing creatives for marketing content or ads, sometimes I even add mock ups of graphics that we’ve made for clients to the case studies that you can kind of see, you know, the different facets of, of various marketing projects that I’ve worked on. And that’s something that you can do too. You can kind of showcase what you’ve done.

Tiffany Barry (06:16):
Case studies are powerful because they help potential clients see that working with you drives very specific results and how you get them. It’s a kind of a chance for you to pull like a wizard of Oz and kind of show you know, be the man behind the curtain, show a peek at, you know, the scenes at kind of, you know, your process and why working with you will be a unique experience. All right. Now, the second reason why case studies are so amazing and why I’m so in support of them is because they are more powerful than testimonials, right? How someone feels about working with you is absolutely important, but their experience working with you is just as important and testimonials kind of only typically show one side of the story. Now you do have some kind of things where like testimonial videos can be really great because usually that’s more interview style and, you know you can, you can record a video and, and lean into some of those specific data points and the things you wanna highlight.

Tiffany Barry (07:28):
I think testimonial videos are kind of like a combination of testimonial and case study. But but I, but I digress. So testimonials essentially on their own only show that that feeling side of the story, you know, they, they, they’re important, but it’s, it’s the I loved working with this person. Communication was great. We achieved our goals, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But case studies are, are a step further than that. They’re written evidence of what you’ve done. So beyond someone’s opinion, they’re a data representation. They’re a factual representation of what happened when you worked with a client. Now, one of the, the questions I get asked by, by some of the coaches and service providers in, in my space is what if I don’t of data? And so my, my first suggestion, if you don’t have data is find a way to collect it, right?

Tiffany Barry (08:27):
If you are say in that space, like a mindset coach where you’re not really impacting a client’s revenue directly you know, say you’re working with more, or, you know, consumer not necessarily business owner, maybe have as part of your offboarding experience, as part of your offboarding process, have a survey, you know, do a pre client survey. How are you feeling about these five to 10 data points? And then in your offboarding survey, ask the same questions again, that gives you tangible evidence that gives you data saying I worked with this client for six weeks and they reported a 25% increase in confidence. They reported a fifth percent decrease in conflict with their spouse. You know, something, there are absolutely ways that you can create data for your case studies, even if what you do doesn’t necessarily focus on businesses or revenue or things that you would traditionally think of when you’re thinking of tracking no numbers.

Tiffany Barry (09:35):
All right. Now, when it comes to conversion rates, this is another reason why I think that case studies are so much more powerful than testimonials in this cuz there’s data showing it. So when it comes to conversion rates case studies have been shown to convert at a rate that is nearly double that of more traditional forms of marketing collateral, like brochures around 20% versus 11.4, 5%. Okay. In, and in my own experience, that absolutely reads true. In fact, my case studies page views spike in a big way, anytime I do a big marketing push or run ads to a sales page, or I send even when I send out a proposal, and this is likely because case studies are so specific and they show those tangible results, they’re not just someone saying they liked working with me, but instead they’re showing exactly what I did and I achieved.

Tiffany Barry (10:37):
And so for someone who’s considering working with me going through those case studies can be an incredibly effective way for them to make sure that I’m trustworthy to see what I’ve done in the past and to make sure to aligns with their business. I sent an email out to my list just this week where I talked to about closing $4,000 in sales. I booked two V I P days by having case studies both clients had asked to see case studies from previous clients that I’d worked with. And and so, so I sent them the, the case studies that were specifically around marketing strategy and some of the pivot that these clients were doing so that they could see how I had, you know, worked, you know, on marketing strategy and created a strategy that would help my client get to that end goal, right.

Tiffany Barry (11:32):
And break down what we did to get there. And so that really helped seal the deal for them. You know, I had already had sales calls you know, I’d already put together a proposal, but that was the thing that really helped them feel confident working with me. And when, you know, when I am, you know, sitting down with somebody for a marketing V I P day, which is you know, not a, not a crazy big investment, but it’s a, it’s a nice investment. And you, you know, clients wanna make sure if I’m spending this money on a V I P day, and I am getting, you know, I’m gonna walk away with this really comprehensive marketing study or marketing strategy and action plan. They wanna know the, that they can confidently implement it and see those results. Right. So how do we take this and actually do something with it?

Tiffany Barry (12:22):
Right. So I find that the best way to create effective case studies is to one, remind myself that there’s no one size fits all answer to this question. I’ve seen case studies that are gigantic fancy slideshow. You know, I have seen case studies that are one page PDFs. My case studies are typically one to two pages, sometimes three pages, depending on how many like assets I add in like add examples and things like that. But you know, I keep mine pretty, pretty short and simple because I just, I, I want to condense that information into a really easy digestible format. I’m not interested in creating giant reports. Now, there are companies where that is a good thing to do, and that’s where you want to do it. So it really start out. But just reminding if there’s no one size fits all and you can change how you do this as you go, you know, I like to start with that, keep it simple model, right.

Tiffany Barry (13:22):
You don’t have to start out with the fancy slideshow templates and the fancy softwares, like don’t overthink it. Right. and you can even use yourself as your own first case study to kind of get your feet wet and get used to putting ’em together. If you’re brand new, that’s a really great way to start look at some of the projects you’ve worked on and create a case study out of it. Now, from there, you wanna just compile the information, this includes any results you achieved, your process, tactics and tools you use any relevant inform. And I find that grabbing screenshots, wherever I can is really helpful. Sometimes I’ll take graphs straight from marketing reports. But some, you know, I find that clients really like seeing screenshots too, because it just kind of verifies that the data is accurate and that it’s true.

Tiffany Barry (14:10):
And, you know, in the online space where people can kind of invent anything that can really help trust. And then from there you wanna create and customize your document, right? So I use Canva because it’s easy. I can share it across my team you know, dry and drop template, no fancy knowledge to use it. I love it. Okay. I know there’s, there’s some graphic designers out there who are like rolling in their graves and cring at that, but I’m sorry. I like to create a, kind of a standard template document and then use use that to just speed up the process from there. And you wanna create three essential sections, one for the problem, one where you outline the goal and one where you break down how you solve the problem and what results you achieved for the client.

Tiffany Barry (15:00):
And again, I like to write it, like you’re telling a story, you know, start with that brief introduction of who the client is and what their goals were, walk through your process step by step, and then add in visuals as you go. Right. So, so that’s kind of like the last step of the case study is make it visually appealing visuals matter because it’s the way something looks is crucial to how we take that information and how we process that information. So, you know, you wanna make sure that it’s on brand, that the colors are easy to read. The fonts are easy to read that there’s enough white space on the document. You know, you wanna pay attention to what words and sections you’re highlighting. All of this kind of helps our brains prioritize and take in that information. So highlight, inform that is, you know, really important for you that you really want someone to, to see as important when they read your case study.

Tiffany Barry (16:01):
And, and again, you know, I, I always air one, keep it on brand, but also I always air on staying nice and clean and simple. All right. And you’re all done. You download it as an image or a nice handed, handy PDF document that prevents it from being edited and use it to grow your business. All right. So you can use it to create a case study funnel where you’re looking to get people booked into high ticket calls. You can, you can use it to to establish trust with people who’ve booked sales calls with you. You know, you can have an automated reminder email, that’s reminding them of their upcoming sales call, and you can include a case study in there before they even get on that call. Right. you know, you can, you can run ads and send them straight to a case study page.

Tiffany Barry (16:54):
Like I said, like a case study funnel. Alright. And, and don’t forget about social media too. So using case studies as blog posts is, is a fantastic way to disperse them really maximize the time and the effort that you spent creating it. And you can share them across all of your channels, have a call to action, driving traffic back to your website you know, or booking a call and, and really again, maximize the time and effort that you spent actually creating it. So over the years, I have done a variety of, of case studies in, in a variety of ways. I’ve created really simple one page case studies, and that’s kind of where I lean towards now. And I’ve done really more intensive multi-age presentations, but the focus is always on the client, the goal and how we achieved it. So, and, and that focus is why case studies have and remain such a highly effective part of my marketing strategy and why I recommend that you use them too. That’s it for this episode of passion to profit, if you found it, how helpful, insightful, or just entertaining subscribe wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. And if you’re ready to scale your business from passion to six figure profits, don’t forget to watch the free masterclass tiffanyebarry.Com/Masterclass.