“Speaking with clients and asking if they would like to be interviewed for a case study has been a worthwhile and eye-opening exercise.”
That’s what a client told me last week.
Why?
Because my copywriters are all current or former journalists who are skilled at asking the right questions to derive the right answers.
When one of my team does case study interviews for your business, it:
1. Acts as useful independent customer research
Your customers won’t tell you the whole story because they think you already know it. Also, they will find it harder to tell you if something has gone wrong. They are more likely to tell us, and then you’ll have valuable insight so you can remedy the situation and avoid similar problems in future.
2. Reveals what your customers really value about you
It might not be what you think. For example, you might imagine your customers choose you because you’re so friendly. When we speak to them, we might find that what they really care about is speedy delivery. We then use that information to guide the tagline and core messages we create for your marketing.
3. Informs the copy we write
By reflecting the language used by existing satisfied customers, we can attract more of the same.
4. Can be edited into testimonial snippets
What other people say about you, your product and your services is more convincing than anything you say yourself. You can use the testimonials on your website and print marketing, create them as social media graphics, include them in proposals and much more.
How it works
We usually write case studies in the storytelling format of Problem:Solution:Results and then add something in the customer’s own words about how lovely you are to deal with.
It’s such a useful exercise that case studies have become a standard part of the web copywriting service we provide.
You’d need at least three, to show the range of people you want to work with (because site visitors need to recognise themselves in the stories).
You’ll need to set up the interviews by letting your clients know your copywriter will contact them. We’ll try three times. If we can’t reach them after that, we’ll let you know (we don’t want to nag them and negatively impact your relationship with them).
When you have their agreement, we’ll need their contact details (mobile and email, ideally). It’s also helpful to have a bullet point idea of your side of the story – what was the problem before you became involved, what did you do, what results did they achieve thanks to your intervention?
Please reassure them that we’ll let them see the copy before it’s published online.
What this means to you
What people buy is results. So, when you are selling, you need to promote the results you deliver.
On one of my websites, a third of people who visited the homepage went to the results page. They want to see who else I’ve worked for, whether my past customers are similar to them, what I’ve achieved for them, and what they say about me.
Here are some examples:
If you’d like help with this, please get in touch.
