The Right Way To Use Case Studies To Increase Leads and Sales with Anfernee Chansamooth
In the podcast: 04:29 – Importance of In-Depth Case Studies
08:24 – Specific Metric-Driven Headline
17:10 – Knowing the Pain Points
19:21 – The Process to Produce the Outcome
22:14 – How Much Information You Have to Give Away
27:35 – Results, Testimonials, & Call-To-Action
30:45 – Classic Mistakes in Writing Case Studies
36:22 – Anfernee’s Process to Promote his Case Studies
45:29 – Learn More About Anfernee Chansamooth
Ilana: Welcome to another episode of Teach traffic. This is episode number 74. And I’m thrilled to have a very special guest on today’s episode, Anfernee Chansamooth from Simply Creative Marketing. And I invited Anfernee to talk about this episode, all about case study marketing. I’ve seen samples of his work of how he uses case studies to really probably essentially provide social proof for businesses but done in a really elegant way. And I think there’s a fine line between sort of doing it case study marketing elegantly versus, you know, really sort of, I don’t know what the word is, but inelegantly, I guess, whatever is the opposite of that. So I wanted to invite Anfernee On today’s episode to talk about his process, what he includes, in a case study, what’s the nicest way to promote it, and then, I guess, the process that he goes through because I do genuinely believe that always, regardless of what type of business you have, whether it’s a service business, an e-commerce, business, or even a bricks and mortar business, right, everyone can and should be using case study marketing, in their marketing suite. So welcome to the show. Anfernee. Anfernee Chansamooth: Ilana: It’s been a long journey, let’s just say I would like to be a bit more consistent with it. But I do really love chatting to people like yourself, really. And that’s what I feel this podcast is all about, about providing really good value to people and talking to really interesting people who’ve got really good content to share. So yeah, thank you. Anfernee Chansamooth: So it’s launched by Simple Creative Marketing, my business and we seamlessly…well, not so much traffic focused, but more so just real stories from real entrepreneurs. And for me, it does relate to this whole case study conversation we’re having today, because who made the why I’m so big on case studies and supporting business owners and businesses to get those out, is the best way to market a business, in my experience, and I’ve been in this world for over a decade now is to tell stories that are real, right? And we get so caught up on, you know, trying to be the expert to you know, write really long pieces of content, or long videos and these sorts of things, and they have their place, right? But when it comes to a point of really convincing someone that you can do what you say, a case study is one of the most powerful things that you can put out there. Because not only are you showing someone, hey, this is the result that our business has been able to achieve for somebody else. And, you know, these are the types of businesses that we support, right? Because they highlight them in your case studies, you also then show the process and the methodology that you’re using to achieve those results. Testimonials are like I worked with Ilana. I did a Teach Traffic course. And it was wonderful. Right? But what results Did you get from implementing the things that were taught in that course? Right? You know, you hired a content writer or an agency to do PPC ads for you, whatever it may be, okay, how did that transform and solve a problem that you had before you went to that? Ilana: Okay, so for our listeners who, let’s say, have not done any kind of case study type marketing, or perhaps haven’t been very successful at it. You sort of touched on this a little bit, but what would be the main, Why would someone really engage in going in-depth in case studies? What sort of strategy behind this? Anfernee Chansamooth: Like that’s going to solve all my marketing yams. It really makes sense to use case studies at the point of consideration. So when the prospect or the person who’s looking at hiring you, or doing your program with whatever it may be, when they’re evaluating multiple options, and they’re going well, should I do this, you know, work with you? I’m just trying to now identify who’s the right person to solve it for? And that’s when they’re going to look at the question that’s typically on their mind is, you know, have they worked with a business like mine before? Have they worked with, you know, if it’s a personal trainer, have they, you know, I’m 10 kilos at 20 kilos, overweight, how they work with someone like me, and I’m a male, and I have three kids, and I don’t have time, right? Can I see case studies of, you know, evidence that this particular business has worked with someone like me and produced a great result, right? And so, at the point of the buyer journey, where we’re looking at evaluation, and they’re ready to be, essentially hand money over, that’s when a case studies really work really well. So that’s one thing. Now, I will also say that I have, I can share a story of using case studies to generate leads, and we’ve done that, too. So you know, Ilana, I work and support a company called Bean Ninjas. You’ve had Meryl Johnston on your show before and, you know, we’ve recently like in the last two months, we put out a case study for one of her clients, which was an I think it was a software provider that supports eCommerce businesses, and the name is Bento, and I can share that case study with you. And essentially, I interviewed Jesse, who is the CEO, we put, we turned that interview into a long-form article, which sits on the customer, if you go to B news website, you’ll see a customer success stories link on the menu. Ilana: Amazing. So really, I guess what you’re saying is, typically, it’s used at the bottom of the funnel, as you say, where somebody is, you know, at the moment of making a purchasing decision, they’re just trying to decide who they’re going to buy from, rather than if they’re going to buy it. But you can also then use it at the top of the funnel in situations like that to acquire new customers. Anfernee Chansamooth: Ilana: Yeah. Awesome. So I would imagine that case studies need certain critical elements in them in order to be effective to illustrate a transformation, which is really what you’re illustrating, in a case study. So what is generally or what sort of critical to be included in a really powerful case study example. So I will break down the structure of the case study in an article format, so I’m not going to get into video, it’s really the same anyway. But it’s, I primarily work with articles. So we always start with now this is where, if you’ve, if you know anything about copywriting, or if you’re new to it, I highly recommend you learn a bit about sort of just story format because a case study really is just a story. Like I say it’s a transformation. So before and after, right? And so we start off with always, what is the end result? The headline, okay, and you think about that’s got to be short and punchy, and it’s got to where a lot of business owners get it wrong, is it’s very vague, right. Ilana: Admittedly they were written years ago. Anfernee Chansamooth: That’s a reduction of 90%. Ilana: True story. That’s powerful. Bang! right? So I’m reading that going, I’m looking to hire someone to outsource this, you know, PPC, whatever. Maybe that’s what I’m looking for. Another one is we reduced the cost per lead from $1400 to $42. Right? The reduction is 87%. Bang! Great, right? So these are really powerful… Ilana: A specific one. Anfernee Chansamooth: In the third one, we have identified wasted ad spend. Right? We have stopped this unnecessary ad spend from continuing. Okay. So that to me is like, very it’s vague. Like it’s I get what you’re doing there and I get what you were able to achieve for the client. But what I like to see is how much at it, right? How much were they spending? Because what when you highlight that for me, it also allows me to understand how much your clients typically have in terms of spending, right when they come to you. Right? And so you can quickly use that to qualify potentials as well, because then they’re reading that and go, Well, I don’t spend $10,000 a month for ads. Right? So I’m probably not a fit. Okay. But then I’m so interested. So I might read the case study, and I could see on a case study page as a call to action to go get your free course. And that’s why, right. But that’s the headline. So that’s step one. Ilana: So a really strong and specific headline. Anfernee Chansamooth: In Jesse’s case, the metric now, in certain industries like accounting, a lot of the businesses don’t want to share their revenue figures. And that’s fine. We respect that. You know, and we ask ahead of time, we say, look, the UK sharing numbers, and they say it typically they’ll say no, right, for whatever reasons. And that’s okay. So some of your clients might be in the same bucket. And so what we look for then instead is, well, what are the other metrics that really make a difference to the business owner to the business? And in Jesse’s case, what he’s won was, was he really hated doing his books. So he didn’t want to be sitting in zero, you know, more than an hour a month. And with his last bookkeeping service, he literally had to do that he had to go and spend a couple of hours a month going to check if their work was right. And you don’t want to do that if you’re hiring a professional, is you’re assuming that they can do the work for you and give you know, reduce the amount of time you’re doing the thing. So what we, during the interview process, I, what I was able to get out of Jessie was that now the process change. They that he then reviews the like, they basically send him a checklist of things that he needs to look at. He goes into zero for five minutes. He does those things. And he’s done. Right? And so and he’s what he said to me was, all that time that I’m not in zero, I’m doing sales calls, I’m doing customer support calls with my clients. So I’m actually working on how do I improve the product, right? Business Development. And that’s a much more valuable use of his time as the business owner and in the role that he’s in, then trying to try and work out zero, right. And so that’s what the hell I became, you came reducing Bentos bookkeeping time from you know, two hours a month to five minutes a month. So when someone’s looking at that, you know, whether it’s on social media or on the blog, on the website, or wherever may be the person you can immediately work out, okay. Is that of interest to me? Right? And if you’re someone looking to get that result, you’re going Yes, click, I’m going to read that rest of the thing. Yeah. Right. So that’s a good old, you know, copywriting thing as well. So that’s, so you get Attention, attention-grabbing headline. And then you go into, okay, we always start with who is the client you’re working with? Give them a profile, give them five minutes, five seconds of fame, where you talk about what the business is, you know, or type of business. If they don’t want their name shown, that’s okay. And then, you know, give some profile of the company, because what that does for the reader, the reader goes, I can, yep, on one of those contracts, it makes sense for me. Right, I can see straight away, Ilana, that you work with, you know, agencies like mine. And so that’s the profile, you can get down to granular get into who the entrepreneur or the person is that you’ve interviewed. So for one of my software companies that we do case studies for, they get right into who’s the person being interviewed, because they, they, their clients, research companies, and usually they’re big, we’re talking 500 people, companies, and usually it’s ahead of research that’s being interviewed and like the CEO of the company. Yeah. Right. And so they always point out, this is the person, this is the years of experience in that role. And then we get into, okay, profile the company, then we get into what specific challenges were they looking at when it came to hiring you? Yeah. Or to sign up for your course whatever it may be. And in the challenges, the key thing that we’re looking for, and challenges is like, what’s the primary pain point? Right. My pain point was too high. Okay, that is an example. Right. Okay, so then I would ask in the interview, well, what did you try? Did you hire another agency? before that? Did you do a different course? Did you? What were the things that you had already tried that didn’t work? Ilana: They’re really scratching the problems? Anfernee Chansamooth: What were the things that this particular business tried to do? And have I tried those things? And in most cases, probably Yes. Right? And then, okay, so this was what’s going on for them, right. And I dig more into like, this might sound weird for some people. But for me, I like to get into the personal stuff as well. So we Jesse are saying, Okay, well, how is that, like, all that time spent? Not doing the thing you should be doing? How is that impacting you on a personal level? Right? And he’d be going, Well, you know, my just hit my head was messed up and wasn’t thinking, right. And I couldn’t, like do sales properly, because I was worried about my numbers and tax time. And so these, these things come out in the conversation, right? Another really good one for someone else was I asked the lady, what was the benefit of going through this particular program that she had done for my client? And then she said, okay, that saved me a lot of time. You know, working on admin work, right? And I said, Okay, well, why is that important to write? And she said, because, on Sundays, all my Sundays were spent doing admin work, and not spending time with my 10-year-old son. Right? And so guess what? The headline? So time, you know, we removed the admin from her so she could have more time with her son. And that’s important for entrepreneurs who are busy who just want to just like I want with my kids, right? And that’s also the buyer persona. That’s who, you know, he was trying to reach more parents who are in those types of roles. And so that’s kind of the problem statement. And as you say, eliciting what are the challenges with the problem? So what’s the main thing you’re trying to solve? But also, what’s the impact of that on your business? In your personal life? Right? Ilana: Do you kind of think about it as starting…like working backward to some degree, as you kind of touched on that of thinking about who you are is your ideal customer, and then writing a case study that fits in nicely with who you’re trying to attract? So, in deciding who is your ultimate target customer? How do you know what those pain points are for those people to then really reflect it through a case study? Anfernee Chansamooth: So you know, if you haven’t already done so the empathy map process for your ideal client, so avatar, you know, by persona does a really good one on DigitalMarketer.com if you’re looking for a resource, you basically sit down and go, well, who are the types of clients we serve? So you have one, that’s fine. But if you have three, as an idea, and maybe you do, you know, like, I think you showed me a lot of agencies, Ecomm businesses, services, and pre startups, right, so so then for each one of those, I would sit down a whiteboard, like you’ve got a whiteboard behind you, and just go, Okay, let’s map out each one of those. What are the key pain points? What are the key desires or goals they’re trying to achieve? Right? What are the things that? What are the avenues that they’re trying to go through to get the problem solved? Right? Whatever it might be, and then you work out. Okay. Coming back to the pain points, what are the key problems? Right, so for us, that Jessie the example again, is time money, right? So spending money on accounting can be expensive, or bookkeeping service that isn’t doing the work that you want to be done? That becomes expensive, right? time, right? I don’t want to be spending two hours a month inside of zero, right? Then, okay, that time-saving thing, what does that relate to in terms of your personal life? Okay, well, that means I can’t spend time with my wife or my girlfriend or my boyfriend or my kids, or whatever it might be. Yeah. Or I can’t go out and surf like James Schramko might do, right, whatever these things are, right. Ilana: The classic copywriting situation of its hot features, this has benefits, right? And so, that fine line between, you know, what’s the page what, what’s the benefit and often, like the method that I use when you know, and I write obviously, a lot of ad copy, you know, is I insert so then what you know, so, for the case study, right, it’s like well, I save five hours. So then what so then I’ve got time to just be talking to my family and go to the beach with my son and All that kind of stuff. Okay, so we’ve got the specific metric-driven headline, we’ve talked about the problems prior to a transformation. What, what else is included? I’m assuming you’re talking about the results now. Anfernee Chansamooth: So, my clients, I would say, Okay, well, Ilana, what were the steps you took to get, you know, Margaret, her result? Right? So we know. So she’s, this is what I would share that that what the client has shared with me in the interview with the business owner, go, here’s what was presented, right? Can you give me an insight into what steps were taken to produce the outcome, right, and I’ve seen on the Green Arrow, website, those the way that there’s perfect Oh, I’ve got screenshots of, you know, this is what the AD account looked like before we touched it, you know, this was the spin that they were doing. And then you’ve got screenshots after. So you’re a nice before and after, kind of like the personal trainer doing this. This is what they looked like before they came to me. In other words, this looks like they look like four right? So that’s, that’s perfect. That’s what we want to see, you want to see these, you know, basically not just social proof, we’re looking for proof of work, right? Like, What’s your secret sauce? What do you do, right? And if you break that down, and go into, oh, here’s the four or five things that we did to accomplish this. You know, that’s wonderful, because it gives the person reading it and insight into Oh, my God, I wasn’t aware that that’s the kind of work that it takes to get the result, right, especially if they’re not experts, or they’re not trained up, you know, in a similar fashion to what you might be prior to providing, right. So it would take me a long time to explain to clients what the copywriting process looks like, right? Like, like, really, if I were to go, I can give them a nice five-point snapshot. But to go into like headline research, and I gotta write 100 different headlines with what picks the right one, and all these other things. It’s a lot of work, right? So I kind of give a bit of an insight into that. So in the process piece, he will take the steps that we took to achieve the result, right, and then remove any questions on the process. Before we move on. Ilana: I’m just been thinking that I wonder if I listeners, I guess it’s my job as the person interviewing you is to ask the question, what I believe somebody would be thinking, and if I would imagine that some people might be thinking, well, how much do I give away of my, of my process, and they’re worried about revealing the secret sauce and giving away the farm in that respect? So what’s your response to that? Anfernee Chansamooth: And it’s around what’s your framework in your mind around what is actually valuable to be here? Right? Because if you only give it if you just give a bullet point, here’s three steps, right. And it’s really like literally three sentences. And it’s very simple. Right? That’s something they could have googled and gone to YouTube and got that from someone else. Right? Like, that doesn’t necessarily show the amount of work and effort required. And so what I do, I try to give as much, now I’m not saying write a whole, like 10,000, word breakdown, right? And you might have a seven-step process, a five-step process, that’s fine. And you might sort of gloss on each one of those, but enough that the person reading that goes, “Okay, yes, this person, you know, I can see, like, these are things that were done, but I can also say, these are the things that I would never do”. And that’s important, right? Like, you want them to know, and feel like, I don’t know how to, like, look at, you know, do a B split testing on an ad campaign. I don’t even get my head around what that concept means. Right? And that’s how we got the final result. straightaway. I’m going, I want that. I know, I want that because I can’t do it. Right. And so that’s, Does that answer the question? Ilana: Yeah, it does. I guess it’s some it’s funny, you know, like, I speak at a number of events. And always my intention at speaking at events is, is just to give away the farm. You know, I’m not like content. And I personally not but I know just from speaking to so many people that that is an objection in their head of they worried about giving away their IP, and they’re giving away all their knowledge that the person’s like, Oh, great. Well, I’ve read this case study, I’ve got the steps. I don’t need these guys anymore. Anfernee Chansamooth: Like it’s not from one SEO provider to the other, they’re doing the same things. There may be some tweaks and yes, there is some unique IP, in my experience it is quite rare. Like if I pulled up 20 different digital agencies, I would say a lot of the core processes are the same. If I looked at all the SMEs. It’s more around, are we a good fit and personality? Are we good fit and fit and values? Do we care about the same things? Can we be mates? You know, there’s other intangibles that come into the equation, right? So in the case study that I did for bento, one of the questions that I asked the client was, why did you choose Bean Ninjas over other providers? Because you actually, I know that you were like, We mentioned that you were doing that. I mean, he said, literally, because you’re in the same community that I’m in. So I know there’s trust there. So that also helps people understand, you know, your associations, okay. So if you’re involved in different communities, you flag that you’re in those communities, in your case studies, people can go straightaway, I mean, that community, I want to be working with someone that I know, the community, like, I’m in that community, I’m active in. Right? That’s actually helpful in a sales process. Right. So that’s the process and we, we both agree, it’s better to give more than less. And, honestly, if you had 10, people read the article, and they would get like a study and they went, Okay, I’ve got the process, I’d say, you know, maybe one or two people walk away and try and do it themselves. And most people will, like, not just not gonna do that. That’s the reason they’re looking at your site and considering you, because they know they’re not going to do it. So that that actually helps. Ilana: Cool. Alrighty. So, headline, before the process, what’s next? Anfernee Chansamooth: So we just want to restate this was the actual outcome, the result that was created? Alright and we might elaborate and expand on what was in the headline, obviously, that the headline, the headings, just one sentence, but here we can go into, okay, this was the result, we were able to reduce their cost per lead from a $1400 to $42 reduction 87%. Okay, what was the impact of that? To the business? What was the impact to the, to the marketing person who, who runs the campaigns, or the market manager or the business owner? “Oh, you meant that I could then, you know, that spent 10 hours a week less on just trying to evaluate my metrics and trying to work out all these numbers, and explaining it to my team, right?” It meant that I could actually focus on creative, which is where I actually Excel, right? It meant that, you know, I got a pay rise, and I, you know, my job was extended for another year. Whatever these things you can get into with the client and go beyond just that, that punchy headline to Okay, here’s the benefit. And I gave the example of Justine. And, you know, it was yes, I was able to implement a process and free up my time, get my VA trained on certain things. So she could take over. And then it meant that I could spend time with my kids. So that’s where we’re getting to with the result. Right. Ilana: Awesome. Anfernee Chansamooth: Okay, so I usually go out there and go testimonials versus Oh, there’s a common question. I get testimonials or case studies, which is better, right? Both have a place. And in our case study, we actually want the testimonial we want the client in their words, to tell us what was the benefit to you. Okay. And if you have a good question, if you’re in a pub with a mate, who might be interested in this particular service, how would you tell them? How would you say like, what, how, what would you say to them to explain what we did for you? And you want to get it in their words. And this is important because a lot of testimonials can come across very dry, it can come across, like if you give someone a question and say, can you write me a testimonial and he’s happens with LinkedIn recommendations, if you look at them, you know, it’s very professional, and it’s like, blah, like, I’m reading that going, Man, I’m falling asleep. Like that’s not exciting to me. Because you’ve written in a very, like, jargony way, and it’s just, you’re not human. So what I want to hear is, if you were sitting Ilana in a pub, I said, tell me about the best seo consulting you ever worked with? And you just go, they did this, this and this, and I love this thing about them. Right? That’s what I want for the first time. Ilana: Very cool. What about a call to action? Anfernee Chansamooth: So typically, if it’s a conversion point, book a call, or whatever it is, the next logical next step is for the prospect. Or like you have on yours, you can introduce them to a DIY course or whatever, it may be some kind of lead magnet there. It’s up to you to decide but doesn’t have a call to action. Ilana: Awesome. What would you say, are some of the classic mistakes that people make? When they’re writing case studies? Anfernee Chansamooth: We covered a few. So I’ll recap the ones that are really important. The headline sucks, just not strong, just not no metrics, right? It’s very, and I get this a lot in the health and wellness space, like, like, I’ve worked with wellness coaches and mindset coaches and things like this. And it’s like, you know, it’s just so fake, just like, I’m like, I get that you’re about the Spirit. And you’re like, helping people work through emotions and things like that. But what was the end result of that, of that coaching work? You know, like, what changed for them, like, in the real world, I’m not talking about I felt amazing, like, I want to know, you know, are because of that I was able to find my ideal partner and get married or, you know, whatever it was, I want to know that. So that’s important. Ilana: I just want to say that, you know, like, as somebody who writes ads for a living, and I help people, you know, make really good ads. Headline is just so important, I kind of used the analogy of it’s like, it’s the front door, right? They’re not going to go and look around your house, if you’re selling a house, for example, if the front, they don’t walk through that front door, it’s the same as email subject lines, you know, it’s like, they’re just, they’re not going through the front door, like you can’t sell them something if they don’t walk through the door, you know? Anfernee Chansamooth: It’s like, Oh, my gosh, yeah. And the way you can test it is, you know, you would do this as well if you literally pick four or five different variations of the headline, I get to set out on social media, and see what people click, like the people responding to it. You can ask the question, if you’re in groups, like, you know, some, like in different communities and whatnot, you can even ask in your forums and say, you know, I’m thinking about these three different headlines. Which one? Do you guys like this? Which one like, makes you go, Wow, I want to read that thing. Right. And you can test those before you put them live on your site. Right? We want to be specific. And this is the biggest problem is lack of metrics. Right. So I want to see metrics, I want to see data. Now I’m, what I will admit, that I’m not the strongest data geek on the planet. But like I said, What works really well with your case studies is that is where snapshots are, this is what ad Account was before? This is what was after? And with permission from the client, of course, you can’t share that information without them giving you permission. Right? And that’s a common question I get from a lot of larger organizations who typically all agencies who typically work with, with clients, or they do white label services, and they’re saying, Well, you know, we’re scared of putting case studies out in what if the client doesn’t approve, and I say, well, you shouldn’t be putting case studies out without the clients. Like, they need to be involved in the process. And I never put anything to live, I don’t give it like anything never gets published until the client reviews it, and gives me feedback to improve it. Now, obviously, if you’re doing it yourself, it’s just you and your client. So that’s one not using the structure. So we ran through sort of the six point structure, right? When you’re doing case studies, and you just go problem result, and you don’t include your process, I’ve seen that a lot. You know, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot. Right? Because you’re not demonstrating your expertise, right. I would go into yet in terms of the results as well, like most people go for that one result. You might even go back when you’re interviewing a person, you might say, Hey, you know, how long did it take you to actually achieve this particular result? And you might find, oh my gosh, we spent the last 10 years trying to create that result. Okay. And so what you can then say is, Well, look, we did that in three months. Yeah. You know, and so you know, when you’re doing going out there now and doing your maybe the hiring Ilana to do that work on Facebook ad copy, I think Is your ad copy, you can say, you know, save 10 years of doing this thing, you know, in three months we working with, you know, whatever. Right. So that’s another one. And I think I’ll give you one more, which I see a lot is because I don’t know why but some business owners like to avoid talking to clients. And they don’t want to jump on a call, like they just want to fast track it. And maybe it’s a time thing. Maybe it’s that I want to be a nuisance for the day’s clients. Right? And so they typically send in an email interview. So it’s basically the questions. And as you would know, we’ve copied if you want someone on the underline, zoom, call a phone call, however you want to do it? Or even if they record their response, you know, in an audio format, and send it to you, you want them? And I would always be going. But I need to know more about that. Like this. One thing, you said that I end up sending 1085 emails back saying, you know, can you clarify this, this, this means? And you’ve just booked the 20 minute call with that person that would have been done? Yeah. You know. And I think that’s probably another big problem I see business owners making with FaceTime. Ilana: Cool and like anything, you know, you go to the effort and the hard work of creating this awesome case study. If no one sees that, then as we both agree, what’s the point? Anfernee Chansamooth: And, you know, you can set it up as an article, or blog, whatever it might be, but you definitely want to have a section or page, which is customer success stories, right? Or case studies, whatever you want to call it, it’s fine. Now on that page, one tip I’ll give is you want to segment by industry. So a beautiful example, how does this is done like probably no, a plus right result is zero website zero.com. And they’re all they’re all video, but it’s video with sort of the text transcription on the bottom. And they’ve done it by segments. So when you go in there, and you go, I’m an ecommerce store, there’s e-commerce, right? I’m an agency, there’s agencies, right, so you literally click through, or you can sort the pages set. So you can filter based on whatever you choose by the type of business or the industry vertical. Right? I suggest you add more case studies, as you build them up and get into the habit of really collecting them every few months, every month if you’ve got enough clients to do that. But as you’re generating results, one thing that I say to business owners I work with is when you’re onboarding your clients, let them know that within three months, you know, whatever your timeframe is to get a good result for the client. You said at the end of that time frame, I’d like to come back to you and interview for a case study. And that’s actually gonna force me to make sure that I perform. Ilana: Yeah, I like that. Anfernee Chansamooth: Clients like to hear that, right. They want to know that you care about actually getting me a result and not just getting my money, right? And so that, then you’ve set you’ve pre framed it. So then it’s you can, VA system, whatever you want to do it schedule that three months later, boom, you send an email to your client. Okay, it’s time for your case studies. This is the result we produced for you. Let’s talk about Yeah. So it’s not a surprise, like, Hey, you know, you don’t want the client to feel like you’re just doing it as a marketing exercise. And a common question I get here is how do you get the agreement from the client to actually do the case study, right? And I say, well, just like any other thing that you’re going to do for your clients, what’s in it for them? And so typically, what we do is we say, you know, well, it’s a chance for us to profile your business in front of our audience. Now, if it’s a match, you know, that their audience is also our audience, then that’s beautiful and it’s really easy for them to say yes. For example, their agencies, and they don’t want their profile sitting in on a case study page or 20 other agencies, right? Then you got to look at Okay, what other benefits are there for them getting a case study. Now if you’ve got a world ranking site, you might go well, you get your back backlink right. And they understand that terminology, they understand what that’s all about. We profile you, you know, not only on our page, but you know, social media is an opportunity for us to interview you on our podcast is an opportunity for us to do other things. There’s other benefits that come from that. So always think about what are the ways that we create it to meet the partnership? How do we create this partnership? So it’s a win for both parties, and also for the reader or prospect? That’s reading your case? Yeah. So that’s that one. So we want to mention case studies. So a quick thing you can do on your LinkedIn summary profile. Like these results, you’ve had, you know, client one, cost per lead for 1500 to $17, client two, whatever mentioned one or two in your summary of the buyer. If you want to, like if you want to read that case, study, send me a PM, and I’ll send you the link or click down to my featured section. And in the feature section, you can actually add links to those case studies. And then number three, I’ll say, if you have lead magnets, and most of us do that live in the digital marketing world, make sure you incorporate at least one case study in each of your lead magnets. You know, we might do a summary version, here are three different kinds of work. We have three different types of businesses, and here are the results. If you want to learn more, click through and read to our case studies page. Yeah. And that’s remember people who are downloading your lead magnets or doing your free course and things like that. So for the right people, they want to see the case. Yes. Yeah. So that’s a I’m losing count Ilana? Is that three or four? Ilana: I believe that’s three. Anfernee Chansamooth: Three? okay, beautiful. Let’s give you two more. email signature, really simple. We do this at Bean Ninjas. Right? Ilana: Love it. So simple. Anfernee Chansamooth: So I recommend three if you’ve got three case studies, because there’s a power three, and I don’t want to get into the psychology of that. But you know, people want to know you’ve worked with multiple businesses, and they’ve been able to achieve results, right? So make sure you have a slide you maybe have a client’s face, if you don’t want to do that maybe the clients logo. That’s fine, right. But again, break it down without the whole full thing. But you could break down the result process. And then you know, problem, process result, right? Or you can just seem to have the end of testimonial if it’s not to love it. And then that way, when you update, like I see this a lot I look I learned because I screwed up and did it myself I would do these presentations, and give a ton of content I’m teaching, I’m teaching I’m teaching, and then I get to the end of my talk. And I’m like, why does anyone want to buy anything from me? Right? When I switched that, I thought it included case studies, then all of a sudden, someone would talk to me, you know, always every time they would come up to me and go, that case study. I want to know more about that case study. Because I’m that type of business. I want to learn more about how you did that for them. Right, and then opens the door now for that sales conversation. Ilana: Yeah, I think at the end of the day, and I think we sort of have touched on this, ultimately, the story and people really enjoy stories and they can relate to stories. And at the end of the day, they also want to avoid making the mistakes that other people have made. And so they’re like, okay, here’s a situation which I’ve avoided. And I How can I just, you know, fast forward to the end result of what these people have ultimately done and save myself all that heartache, etc. Anfernee Chansamooth: Ilana: Yeah, exactly. Wow, that is really awesome. You have given me lots of ideas actually of what I can do, and should be doing because I have so many case studies that I could and should use, which I don’t. But I guess it’s not the classic thing that we all could do more in, in our own marketing? out? Before we wrap up? Where can people find out more information about you and what you offer? And maybe somebody who’s listening to this go, “Wow, I need this. Maybe Anfernee can help me” Anfernee Chansamooth: So just go to SimpleCreativeMarketing.com/CaseStudyGuide. And that’s the best way to connect with me and learn more about this stuff. Ilana: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on this episode of Teach Traffic. I really, really appreciate your time. And I know we’ve all hit a record, this is a time off period for you. So I even more appreciate the time that you’ve taken out of your day. Anfernee Chansamooth: Ilana: Thanks. No worries. Cool. So I’m going to make show notes available for you guys. So you can visit TeachTraffic.com to get the show notes. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, I would love to hear about it. And if you’re kind enough, you can leave me a review and I would be eternally grateful. Thanks so much for listening and we’ll talk to you guys soon.
00:33 – Guest and Episode Overview
Episode Overview
Glad to be here. Thanks for teaching traffic and getting this far with the podcast. It’s quite a milestone you’ve achieved, Ilana.
And you’ve got a podcast as well, don’t you?
I do. So I got a Facebook Live series called Authentic Influence.
So you’re not making this really weird, magical thing where it’s like, you know, that’s the problem I have with testimonials. Right?
And I’m looking at that and going, but how does that help me? I’m glad you had a wonderful time. And the course is great, right?
What did you get from the service? Importance of In-Depth Case Studies
Let’s talk about, yeah, the main reason I want to talk about when does it makes sense to use a case study, okay?
Because it’s not a one solution fits all.
Or should I work with another company or this other third company I’m looking at, you know, and what they’re doing is they’re doing their research and then phase, they’re like, okay, I know what my problem is, I know what needs to be solved.
And then we’ve essentially shared a snippet of that case study out on social media on Twitter, we tagged Jesse, alright, and bento the company and he retweeted it. And literally within five minutes of him doing that we had another person who was following him respond to that, and say,
That’s exactly what I need. And they booked a call with Bean Ninjas straightaway. And that ended up becoming a new client.
Absolutely. Specific Metric-Driven Headline
And if you’re okay, Ilana, I’d like to just give an example from the site, from the Green Arrow site. You’ve done a couple which is really strong. And we can use this in examples as well.
Yeah, and that’s fine. Right? So this is good, you know, a good reason for you to go and refresh at some point.
So I’m looking at the case studies page, and then you’ve got three case studies side by side, on the menu on a page, okay. The first one says, reduce the cost per lead from $1500 to $70.
Specific exactly right.
Specific metric-driven, okay, think about what is the metric that matters to your ideal clients, to your buyers to your prospects, right?
So when instead of him going into the books, spending hours at a time, now literally all he gets is an email once a month from his bookkeeper from Bean Ninjas.
Yes. Because when in your case study, you want this to remember someone who’s in consideration mode, that they’re looking at the context of the situation as well, they’re looking at, okay. Knowing the Pain Points
Absolutely. So it is a process of reverse engineering, always start with the end in mind.
Are they doing the training? Are they attending conferences? Are they hiring mentors and coaches and things like this? Right?
Because I can’t work out and it never, it’s never two hours anyway, ends up being five hours it was I have to go and research How the hell do I look for a thing? Or Yeah, and that’s a waste of my time.
And the consequences of that problem, you know, with so then what? insertion example? The Process to Produce the Outcome
Correct. So before we go to the result, we go to the process. Okay. Right. So we actually go Okay, now, this is where typically, I would interview the business owner. How Much Information You Have to Give Away
I love this question. Because it’s really a psychological question.
And the simple answer is, give as much as necessary to demonstrate that you actually know what you’re doing. And that, you know, more than the person who’s reading the piece, right?
With schematics and everything, like, literally just here’s a process map 1234, you can visualize it and get a graphic designer to create a visual if you want, and then just give some insight into each of those steps.
Okay, so what was what did you actually do inside that step?
But if you show, okay, you know, here’s a screenshot of three variations of an ad that we tested.
You know, you So freely available, my supposed changes so rapidly. And some people say to me, Well, you know, I can give it away like, aren’t you worried about giving away too much information? You know?
And I guess I found in my experience that the opposite actually happens, you know?
Yeah, we found that as well. And it’s like, you know, from one to use beninese as, as an example, from one bookkeeping firm to now the process is the same, right? Results, Testimonials, & Call-To-Action
Results. Okay, so what was the actual and we cut touch this touch upon is on the headline.
And then finally, just to wrap it all up, is a testimonial.
Yes, beautiful things in the market, I do have a call to action. Classic Mistakes in Writing Case Studies
Hundred percent. And you know, like, you’ve done all this work, to produce this amazing case study, and they don’t click to read the damn thing.
And when I say the client, not my client, but my client’s client, right, so they’re getting a review and an approval, and then our final, my client, the business owner, then gives the final approval before it goes up. Right? So that’s a two step process.
And I encourage people to explore a bit more thoroughly into what is the impact of that result to the business, right?
Can you send me the response through tape?
You want the ability to be able to probe further. Yeah. And usually when I started off with email interviews, I found that there wasn’t enough depth, right, so we’ll get these responses.
So what is your, I guess, promotional process of this amazing illustration of your expertise of a case study?Anfernee’s Process to Promote his Case Studies
Love it, I’m glad you brought that up, because that’s number four, five mistakes that I promoted enough.
So I did this article that kind of started this conversation, which is the 15 ways to share your business case studies for people most likely to buy, why don’t we go through like five of those, and then the rest people can go and check.
Ilana: That’s perfect.
Anfernee Chansamooth:
So let me just take my pet some notes here, just on using, again, what I saw on the Green Arrow website, a few things that we can do. One is you want to put your case studies on your own website.
During accounting software, they have a customer that I call a customer success, they’ve got another name for it.
But the way they’ve done it is beautiful.
So then, now you’re seeing the case studies that you want to see. Right. And so that’s, that’s a quick sort of tip there.
Let’s talk about LinkedIn.
So we talked for most of us, we were talking about b2b would be on your LinkedIn summary mention your case study, right?
So straightaway, when someone’s like, finding out about you, the senior speaking event, form like they can see your case studies.
So when you have a PDF guide on how to do X, right, include a case study on the last page, right? And, you know, before or after your call to action, doesn’t matter where you put it, but I’d say definitely include and show people here.
They’re interested to learn more, that you know, they are potential leads, right.
“ps, you know, we just helped x y Zed client to achieve X or Y, right click here, three more”
So sneaky, and so easy, and it works. And then the last one is for those of us who are doing presentations, and going out and speaking on the web at summits, conferences, webinars, inside your presentation deck, include a slide for each case like one for your case study, right?
100% we want the fast track if we can get it.
Where can they find you?Learn More About Anfernee Chansamooth
Yep, the best way to go is probably to just go download my case study guide, which breaks down the entire process.
And I’ve got, like, actual email scripts that I use to send to my clients in there as well.
Thank you for bringing me on. And thank you for just providing a ton of value with this podcast and all that you do.
