Case studies are an incredible way to show your potential customers, that you can help them win in whatever it is that you help them do, but they’re very easy to mess up. They are very hard to get right so how do you do it? My name is Ryan Toth. I’m the CEO of clear brand. And in this video, I’m going to show you how to create a case study that gets results. Let’s jump in
The first thing that most companies get wrong. When they are creating a case study for their website, they think the case study is about them. So they go through here’s how hard we worked. Here’s all of the things that we did for this particular client. Here’s what we thought would happen. Nobody cares, right?
Your customers are not on your website to make you feel good. They are not on your website to grow your business. That’s not why they’re there.
Your customer is on your website because they have a problem and they are looking for someone who can help them solve it. And if you are using your case studies to blab on and on about your company, you’re missing out on this huge opportunity to increase your revenue and I think more importantly, to help more people win.
See, how do you do a case study right? I’m going to walk you how to do it step-by-step. And I’m going to show you an example from one of our past clients and how we created their case studies in a way that are getting them results.
The first thing you’ve got to keep in mind is what action are you hoping that your potential customers will take after they read this case study? Maybe it’s a video and they’re going to watch the case study, but we have to know what action you want them to take. If you’re just showing people this story and then that’s it, you’re missing out on revenue.
So step one is to consider: what is the action that you want people to take? Orient your case study so that it moves your prospects toward that action.
Let’s move on to step two: show your customers how they will win. Your customers have a problem that they want to solve in the world of storytelling. That means they are the hero in the story.
Now, when you talk about how hard you worked to solve somebody’s problem, you’re actually presenting yourself as the hero. Remember, a hero has a problem they are on a journey to solve. So if we’re talking about all the work you did, that’s setting you up to be the hero. Even if you’re solving somebody else’s problem, you’re still making yourself the hero in their story.
Make your customer the hero so that your prospects can better relate and see themselves in stories about your clients. This let’s you build rapport with prospects by helping them relate to the hero in your stories.
So how do we do that? I’m going to start with the end in mind. In this case, it’s the results. What are the results that your client was after? Everything in the story needs to lead them toward that result.
So how does a story function, right? Well, a hero has a problem. They have something that they want and they have an obstacle that’s preventing them from getting it.
What do they want? Well, that’s actually the same thing as the results, which are at the end of the story. But we need to put the results at the beginning of the story instead. By asking what results clients and prospects seek, we can come back to the beginning and work those ideas into the story.
They wanted to grow their business, right? Maybe they’re a health coach. Maybe they want to be stronger. Maybe they want to lose weight. Now, we take that desired result and use it to identify the hero’s problem. The story is about them.
Now let’s go through the ClearBrand formula. If you’re familiar with StoryBrand, it’s very similar to the StoryBrand framework. If you’ve read another copywriting book, chances are, it’s pretty similar to that too. But we’re making your client, the hero here.
We’re going to state what the client wants, then we’re going to state the problem that’s preventing them from getting it. Let’s see what this looks like on one of our past client’s websites.
This is an investor and a private physical therapy practice owner who now helps people succeed with their businesses. If we go to this website here, the first thing you see is how Dr. Joe helps private physical therapy practices succeed. That is what his customers want. They want to succeed. And then he’s got a button to schedule your consultation. We’re encouraging the action we want people to take right from the beginning.
Then we have services, and a case study called “Not Knowing What You Don’t Know.” Let’s read a bit of this: Diana and Tim had been practicing therapist for eight years. They had owned a practice for two years after they took over their former employer’s business. You could say they were sailing without a compass. Diana found me through my podcast and Tim, my one day workshop, Tim being very reluctant to hire a consultant. He didn’t think they needed any help.
With the passage above, we’re setting up a story: they are like you. That’s what this first couple of paragraphs say, right? You are a private physical therapy practice owner. Great. What we’re saying here is that they’re like you. They wanted what you want. Now, we introduce a problem:
“I got in and immediately saw some red flags. Some of their insurance contracts were not renegotiated. Their clientele were nice enough, but started going to other providers. I asked about physical therapy, retention, attrition rates, and their best payer. All my questions were met with best guesses, not facts.”
These are very clear problems. In fact, if you own a private physical therapy practice and you are reading this, you might see yourself in the same shoes. And that’s the whole point.As the customer, you’re reading this story that you are currently living. That’s what we want to do here.
Now I’m going to breeze through some of this. And then we’re going to get to the results that I mentioned. The next thing you need to do is solve the problem. How did you help this person solve their problem? It’s not about them solving their problem on their own. If that’s the story that you’re telling your customers don’t need you.
So how did you help them solve the problem? If we scroll down and continue reading the story, it reads:
“When I started working with them, they were at negative 40,000 a month net and gross of 75 and in three months, they were positive $17,000.”
With this, he’s saying that he helped them solve their problems and make more money. Which is exactly what they want to do.
This case study details some of the things that he helped them do to get there, but let’s skip to the end. Let’s get to the results:
“I’m happy to see their practice has now become a huge competition to others. We attract a lot of other therapists from neighboring clinics. The word has gotten out and best of all, Diana and Tim are owners and not employers.”
When writing a case study, the basic principle is that you’ve got to set up your customers to be the hero, not you. This is not about you. This is not about how much you know.
When you talk about yourself frame it in terms of how you help your clients or customers win. You’re coming alongside them in their journey, but it’s their journey. The readers of your case studies will understand this when they see the authority that you brought provided with solution. And more importantly, they see the results that your clients achieved. This is how you use a case study to show your prospects how you help people like them win.
But there’s one more step. You must call your prospects to action.
Your case studies need to have a call to action. In this example, if we scroll down, we have “schedule your consultation.” This is absolutely key to a successful case study page. We cannot forget that your case study page is a sales page. You’re telling your customers story and how you helped them win so that you can get more clients and customers. That’s the goal here.
Make sure to include a clear call to action. That’s why in step one, we started by figuring out what that action is. We’re going to make sure that at the end of the case study, you are calling people to take action, to work with you.
If you want to learn more about how to create a website that sells, we offer a free webinar. There is a link below this video. You can join that webinar for free and learn how to create a website that makes you money. We’re not in the nineties.
Your website should not just be sitting there in space, taking up room on the internet. That’s not the point. Your website should be a salesperson that ever sleeps and this free webinar shows you how to turn it into one. So click that link below this video to join the webinar for free and grow your company. I’ll see you in the next video.
