Show notes
In this episode of Marketing Spark, Mark Evans talks to Joel Klettke about the significance and strategic use of case studies in B2B marketing.
Key topics include the inception of Joel's company, Case Study Buddy, and its unique approach to crafting case studies.
We delve into the challenges and potential of case studies, emphasizing storytelling, strategy, and the integration of various marketing elements.
We also talk about tactics for leveraging case studies in marketing campaigns and sales, the importance of customer stories, and methods for extracting value from case studies.
Joel shares insights on customer intelligence gathering, the identification of ideal case study candidates, and measuring the ROI of case studies.
From the conversation
How Case Study Buddy started and how it works
Joel Klettke began his career in SEO at an agency, then moved into freelance content writing and later conversion copywriting. After he finished a project for WP Engine, someone on their board asked if he could write a case study for a small company they advised. He said yes, and the project showed him how many skills go into one case study: interviewing, coordinating, project management, storytelling and strategy.
Joel also saw how much that company's sales team wanted something tangible to point to. When he searched Google for a company that only did case studies, he found a few agencies and freelancers offering them as a side service, and one person, Casey Hibbert, who had made them her focus. One person cannot serve a whole market, so Joel built a team of specialists.
Case Study Buddy goes beyond productized storytelling. It helps clients line up their internal teams first, starting with relationships and an SOP. Because the team knows where a story will live, it can plan several pieces of collateral at once instead of going back to the customer later for a video.
"Case studies are a team sport. You need the support of sales and CSMs who usually have the context and the relationship."
Why companies give case studies so little attention
Joel gives several reasons. No one owns the function because it crosses sales, marketing and customer success, so nobody plans how the stories will be used. Many marketers were taught the problem, solution, results template and stop there. Case studies are also hard, so people avoid asking the customer, worry about hearing no, and write the story internally.
Joel says that approach leaves out the customer's perspective and experience. What remains is a cold set of bullet points, even if the metrics are impressive. Other formats, such as ultimate guides and infographics, were easier to work on and got more attention.
Joel says the way out is to see how many kinds of customer story exist. He describes disambiguator stories, using an industrial air filtration company that began telling stories aimed at gyms when COVID hit. He also describes implementation stories, playbook-style stories and aspirational stories. Mark agrees that HubSpot's startup stories, which center on inspirational founders, are a good model.
Getting more value from each customer story
Joel's team uses a simple framework called nibble, bite, snack, meal. It breaks one core asset into collateral for people at different stages of the buyer's journey. The team decides the audience and channels up front, then plans pieces such as a one-sheet for cold outreach, pull quotes for social campaigns, slide decks for sales and a deep-dive video that works like a webinar.
Planning ahead matters because a question missed during the interview is hard to fix later. As a company collects more stories, Joel suggests building a highlight reel of sound bites on one pain, outcome or feature. He also describes a nuclear deck, a shock-and-awe set of one-sheets and pull quotes organized by industry or opportunity.
Joel's conversion copywriting background shaped how he gathers customer intelligence. He cautions against firing 40 questions at someone in 40 minutes. He prefers a few well-chosen ones, such as why they chose the company and what their buying criteria were. He then advises storing the answers in a central, searchable repository, and he sees AI making it faster to find themes in sales call transcripts.
Choosing candidates, making the ask and sharing results
Joel starts with goals and the types of stories a company wants to tell. Sales and marketing then need to agree on what a win looks like, such as a minimum KPI threshold or a milestone like an upgrade. From there, the shortlist should favor customers who are happy and recent, since in B2B the contact may have left the company. Reviewers on G2, Capterra or TrustRadius are easy targets, and so is a customer feedback survey with a yes/no question about being featured. One client now runs that survey every quarter.
For the ask itself, Joel recommends being personal, specific and short, and answering why them, why now, what is involved and what comes next.
When customers will not share numbers, Joel suggests sending the data ahead of the interview as homework. Proxies such as a range, a percentage or an equivalent can also work. Qualitative factors like communication, ethics and problem solving matter to buyers too. Joel also pushes past the metric into the impact. His example is a front-office employee, Caroline, who no longer spends eight hours a week chasing executives for paychecks.
"If you can answer those questions in six sentences, you're already miles ahead of the average person making a mile-long ask and tripping over the shoelaces in the process."
Getting sales to use case studies
Joel says marketing should involve sales from the start, including in the choice of formats. Sales may need a one-sheet, a pocket story or a 15 or 30 second sound bite more than a deep-dive piece.
He also wants stories easy to find. Even in an Excel document, each one should be categorized by solution, pain points, hero quote or metric, and vertical. Sellers heading into a call do not have half an hour to track down an example.
Finally, marketing should ask sales how the stories are performing and whether sales cycles are faster. When a story helps win a deal, Joel says to celebrate it and make sales look good in front of leadership and peers.
"It might feel a little bit squishier, but squishy can be compelling because it's relatable."
Measuring the ROI of case studies
Joel warns that judging a case study only by one-to-one conversions can lead to disappointment. He suggests measuring by channel. In cold outreach, that means response and open rates before and after. In awareness campaigns, it means click-throughs and assisted conversions. Remarketing is where a one-to-one conversion rate makes sense. One client, Karthook, sent people to a relevant story instead of a landing page and saw a better conversion rate.
With sales, Joel suggests benchmarking time to close and positive response rates. He also suggests tracking sellers' confidence in closing, which can matter to leadership. Other signals include how many conversion paths include a story and how many upsells nurture campaigns drive.
Mark adds that marketers have leaned so hard on data that many expect a direct line between one action and one result. Joel agrees that case studies are one touch point among 20 or more.
"There really is no one hero metric. It's really gonna depend where and how you're deploying these, whether in ads or somewhere."
Joel's favorite case studies
Joel's first pick is a HubSpot switcher story about moving from Salesforce to HubSpot, featuring the University of San Diego. It covered the pain before, the evaluation, the reasons to switch, the switch itself and the satisfaction afterward. He says it contributed to or influenced over $2,000,000 in new ARR.
His second pick is a series of videos for a healthcare supply chain client. The team planned and ran a live testimonial booth at the client's annual customer event. It produced over 23 interviews, which were repurposed into a year of content.
People can learn more at casestudybuddy.com, which has a newsletter and a blog with DIY advice. Joel is also active on LinkedIn and on X.