Hi Reader, today, I’m talking case studies. The thing everyone knows they should have, but almost nobody wants to make.

I get it.

They are a lot of work. You need the story, the numbers, the client approval, the design, the write-up. And then after all that, most people skim the headline and move on anyway.

Over the last few months, we have put together a few simple case studies and also launched our wall of results, which I completely forgot was live and on our website.

The whole process has made me think a lot more about what case studies are actually supposed to do.

Because I do not think they are just there to say, "Look, we got this result."

They are also there to show people what kind of business you are.

A case study headline does most of the work

Take a look at Hubspot’s case studies. They have so many (over 400!) that they have a dedicated library on their website to filter and search for them.

What I like about the way they’ve done this is you don’t need to read a single case study.

You can just scroll the page, read a few headlines, and quickly get a sense of what HubSpot does and the type of businesses that use their software.

Seeing this made me realise we’re not doing a good enough job of showing case studies that do both - show the results we get, but help anyone skimming know what we do and who we help.

Then there is one more thing that us growth marketing agencies need to be honest about. And that is, are the results in our case studies replicable?

Case studies results - can you replicate them?

It is very easy to take a result that is technically true and frame it in a way that makes it sound that working with us will get you the exact same result.

When in reality, some was your work, some was the client’s work and some was luck, timing or the industry!

A great example for us is outbound/cold email. 5+ years ago, it felt like shooting fish in a barrel. We would send emails and almost always get results.

Today, it’s a completely different game. And yes, we do outbound email for a few clients, but I’m very hesitant to put out a case study on successful results, because I know how much of the other stuff (timing, industry, offer, targeting) which is out of our control, makes or breaks a campaign.

Whereas our other work where we control more of the variables, is easier to replicate.

And there is also the fact we don’t want clients who just want outbound email. So a case study on pure outbound email is going to attract clients that just want outbound email.

This is where case studies can accidentally work against you.

They signal what you want more of.

For us, not every good result needs to become a case study if it doesn’t do the work of attracting more of the RIGHT clients for us.

The best case study format

Most case studies are too long. Too much detail, context, framing the problem, the solution, etc etc.

We’re all just doom-scrolling through life - and case studies are no exception.

All we really want is the headline, the company, the industry and the result.

We want to see others like us, getting the results we want.

It’s like a newsletter subject line. If the case study headline doesn’t do almost all the heavy lifting, the rest won’t matter.

Go and skim your case studies - would any of their headlines make a potential client stop and think? Or would they need to read more before understanding it?

–

Want some feedback on your case studies? Send them over and I’ll send back a quick screen share of my feedback!

See you in two weeks,

Jason

​
​

We're more than a newsletter.

Way more. Find out how much more →

Case = 🧳. Studies = 🎓. Case Studies! 🧳🎓.
​(Okay, calm down Jason. It’s not that ground breaking 😅)

88305, 111 NE 1st St, 8th Floor, Miami, FL 33132
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​