Did you know that one of the most effective but underutilized marketing tools is the case study?

That’s my opinion – as well as that of my guest in Episode 498 of the Marketing Mentor Podcast, Casey Hibbard of Compelling Cases. 

If you’ve been thinking of doing case studies to promote your own creative services, this episode is for you.

Be sure to download Casey's "5 Steps to Creating Case Studies (A Guide for Small Businesses and Solopreneurs)."

And check out the Marketing Mentor case studies here (to see how we practice what we preach) :)

So listen here and below. (Read the complete transcript below.)

And if you like what you hear, we’d love it if you write a review, subscribe here and sign up for Quick Tips from Marketing Mentor.

Complete transcript of Episode 498: Case Studies for Creative Professionals with Casey Hibbard

ilise benun:
Hi there. This is Ilise Benun, your marketing mentor, and this is the podcast for you if, and only if you are ready to leave the feast or famine syndrome behind. And I mean, for good.

Did you know that one of the most effective but underutilized marketing tools is the case study? That's my opinion, but it's also the opinion of my guest in this episode of the podcast.

I spoke with Casey Hibbard of Compelling Cases about case studies for creative professionals. Don't you love all that alliteration? And do you think it's a coincidence that her name is Casey? Anyway, if you've been thinking of doing some case studies to promote your own creative services, and I think you should, this episode is for you. So listen and learn.

Hello Casey, welcome to the podcast.

Casey Hibbard:
Hi, Ilise. Thanks for having me, I'm excited to be here chatting with you today.

ilise benun:
Me too. And as I always do, I'll ask you to begin by introducing yourself.

Casey Hibbard:
Sure. I am Casey Hibbard of Compelling Cases. I am a customer case study copywriter, and also a consultant and trainer on all things customer case studies. I wrote a book about creating and using case studies, and really have spent the last 20 or more years crafting more than 1200 of them for clients and teaching businesses and writers how to create them.

ilise benun:
Awesome. And I just heard a lot of alliteration in your elevator pitch and I always appreciate alliteration.

Casey Hibbard:
There's so many C's in all of that, right?

ilise benun:
Exactly. So my first question then is, what the heck is a case study?

Casey Hibbard:
So, very simply, we're talking about customer case studies specifically. They are success stories showcasing a happy customer's experience with a product or service or vendor. And they go beyond a testimonial to truly show a customer's experience with a business and the results that they have experienced.

ilise benun:
I have several content writer clients who specialize in or and/or love doing case studies for their clients. But I want to talk with you today about case studies for creatives because I think everyone can and should use some version of a case study as part of their promotional toolbox.

And I have a feeling many people don't or they know they should and kind of start, but don't usually get very far because it is a bit of work. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how long a case study should be and what exactly is in a case study. I like the way you framed it as it's more than a testimonial. So let's start with someone who gave you a testimonial and say, how can we turn this into a case study?

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, I love that. And because you are a LinkedIn expert, it could be something where someone gives you a LinkedIn recommendation that's really powerful, and that's the jumping off point to say, "hey, can we expand on this? Take this a little bit further and create a case study on it."

Because as you said, it is a big differentiator, especially for creative professionals in a competitive space. If others are not doing them, it really stands out. And there are so many different ways you can use that content, even though, like you said, it is a little bit of a challenge or effort to get them. But once you've got that, you can really use the content in a lot of different ways.

ilise benun:
So in terms of length then, is there an ideal length? Or do they have to be long? What are the pros and cons of the various lengths? Let's just start there.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah. In the industry on average, they're typically a couple of pages when it's a design format, like a PDF format, a couple of pages, or maybe 500 to 1,000 words if you're just looking at it on a website. But really, I think what's more important than saying it should be two pages or one page or whatever, is hitting the important points of a case study. Because if you're going beyond the testimonial, you need to cover certain areas of the story. So you want to do the story justice still in a concise way. And if that goes onto two pages or you can accomplish it in a one, it's fine. I think either is fine, but really you want to hit the key points. I'll walk through if that's okay?

ilise benun:
Yes, please.

Casey Hibbard:
What was the client's challenge or goal when they set out to find a creative professional? What were they looking for? What problems or challenges were they really struggling with? Why did they choose to outsource versus do it in-house? Something to touch on because I think that's interesting to others, why they chose you over other options specifically, because that is super insightful for someone who's reading the case study. And then what it looks like to work together.

For creative professionals I love the concept or the approach of zeroing in on a project or two and what that looked like, a really successful project, the outcome and the collaboration that happened. And the results, whether you saved the client time, you got them more leads, you increased their web traffic or sales, whatever the outcome is. So those are the key points to really hit on.

ilise benun:
Let's focus on that last one first because one of the situations that I know comes up is that sometimes there are no concrete results to report, whether that's because it hasn't been long enough to get any, or the client themselves are not tracking those results. How do you make sure that that piece is in place so that you can gather that information at the end of a project? You have to be thinking in advance when you're doing a project, "Hey, I might want to write a case study about this," because otherwise it's too late to start looking for results when you're writing the case study well after the project is done.

Casey Hibbard:
Right, right. Exactly. So what I usually say here is you do your best to set it up to try to get those results. Like you said, that means thinking about it ahead of time. What are the potential results or the possible results that my client might experience? Maybe make a list of those time savings, cost savings, increasing revenue, sales, web traffic, whatever. Can we be tracking this along the way? Or can I plant the seed with my client to track this along the way? To say, "hey, what was your web traffic before and what is it after?" Because sometimes you have to push clients a little bit and say, "can we get this information?" I think sometimes we're hesitant to do that, but it doesn't hurt to ask and to plant that seed.

So you do the best you can up front, and then if you ultimately can't get anything, then you can still have a powerful case study with anecdotes. It's almost like stories within the story. You can have a little anecdote about how whatever you provide was a lifesaver. You save the day by coming in and doing this project because there was a big launch or whatever. And it can be this really powerful impact, even if it's not measurable. So asking clients for specific anecdotes, "tell me about a time when it was clear that things had changed for the better, or when our relationship, our collaboration really made a difference for you." Get some of those specifics.

ilise benun:
And it also makes me wonder about -- this is a cluster of questions -- maybe the focus doesn't have to be on the results. I think often people assume a case study is all about what happened. As opposed to, as you've said in outlining the elements, what was their challenge? What was the problem that they came to you with? What was the process like? And you have a lot more access to that information as the creative professional than you do to the results of it.

That also makes me wonder, whose story is it anyway? Because I think one of the assumptions, again, is this is about how I helped my client. But to my mind, the purpose of a case study is to get the client or the prospect to identify with your client so that they can say, "Well, if they can help them this way, then they can definitely help us this way." So I almost feel like the focus needs to be on the client, and a little bit less on you as the creative professional. So I'm curious how you think about all of that.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you are right. So the focus does need to be on the client. And I always say that really the customer is the hero of your story. If you're looking at the framework of the hero's journey, the customer is the hero. It's like the customer's Bilbo Baggins, and then you're Gandalf being the guide along the way to offer some wisdom. And so yeah, you do focus on the customer's goals and challenges, and then how you fit into that. The customer's going to be more excited to be part of it, and more willing to share it, if really the customer is the hero of the story, and you're just in there as the collaboration partner.

ilise benun:
And so, that makes me think also about how you gather the information from the client, and maybe even how that manifests in terms of format of a case study. Because I think often the assumption is, "It's written, someone has to write it." But I've seen case studies that are more image than text, for example, or even video versions of case studies. So I'm curious, what are the various formats that you recommend or have seen?

Casey Hibbard:
Right, right. Yeah. And these days, there's so many, you can kind of do all the formats or choose what format works best for you. I will say just kind of at the outset, no matter what format is, I think it's important to interview your customers. Because I think one of the things that we might want to do as creative professionals is to say, "I know all about the project. I'm just going to write something up and have the client approve it."

You know your side of the story and what happened with the project, but you want to get the client's story. You don't know their side and why it was important to engage with you and what's been important to them about that relationship. So you do want to have an interview. If you are comfortable on video, then that is certainly an option. You could do a short Zoom call and collect the information, and then leverage it as a video testimonial.

Or there are some platforms out there now, and I don't know the costs of them specifically, but where you can send the customer a link and say, "open this app, record yourself recording a testimonial." I think those are a little bit more geared toward testimonials though. But you could just schedule a little bit of time, gather some information on video from your customer, and then you can use the video, and then also create a written version, ideally, because audiences today, some like video, some prefer written. So then you've kind of got both if you want to use both. Both are great across the different platforms where you might be sharing it. But yeah, you do want to grab that time with your customer to get their first person perspective and some quotes from them. That's an important part.

ilise benun:
I like to channel my listeners, and I can hear what they're thinking right now, which is, "I don't want to talk to my client about how the project went. I don't want to hear what they have to say. God forbid they say something negative or that it wasn't ideal." And so I'm curious, how do you think about that? But also, I know that when I had some case studies done for my website, it's been a couple of years now, I just didn't have time to do the interviews myself, and it made more sense to hire someone to do it. What do you think of that?

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, yeah. Good question, Ilise, I agree. For one, okay, you can interview your own customers. But for one, it can be a little weird to say, "okay, tell me how great I've been. Tell me how great this went."

ilise benun:
Right. "What did you love about our project?"

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, so that can be a little bit weird. What I often tell copywriters who are trying to do this is trade with each other. Copywriter A, interview the other copywriter's customers, and you interview each other's customers, and then you just share the transcripts. But what you could do as a creative professional, you could just hire somebody to do the interview, someone who goes into it, knowing what to look for and a little bit more about the project. And then if you want to create it yourself or use that video yourself or create a written version from that, you can. But yeah, I agree. Look at some creative options. Just grab somebody to take care of that interview portion.

ilise benun:
Get help. Exactly.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah.

ilise benun:
And then I've seen designers use case studies instead of portfolio pieces, on their website especially. And I wonder if you've seen anything like that. And just in text, for example, like text only versus having it designed, if it's a PDF, as you said before, what's the best opportunity there?

Casey Hibbard:
So I like some sort of graphical presentation, and fortunately these days it is easier to do this. You could partner with a designer to get a template if you're going to be creating several of them. Or there are case study templates on sites like Canva or Venngage that you can personalize with your logo or colors, and makes it pretty easy. And if you find a template ahead of time, then you can be like, "okay, now I just need to get the info to fill in that template."

The infographic idea is really nice as well. Just kind of a one-page infographic that hits the highlights. I think sometimes it might leave people wondering with some questions, but maybe that's an additional piece. You could do the infographic, and then have some background copy to go with it. But infographics are pretty powerful, and I love seeing those these days when people bring them in.

ilise benun:
How many case studies should a creative professional have either on the website or available to share? How do you think about that?

Casey Hibbard:
More than one, I'll say, because one can look a little strange. And not that you don't have other happy customers, but it feels a little lonely, that one case study on there. So I would say shoot for three at least. And what you want is to represent the types of clients you want more of, essentially.

ilise benun:
So that's the strategy, in terms of choosing who to invite. And I want to frame it that way, to invite someone to be a case study partner or collaborate on a case study that they will also perhaps want to share, should be a strategic decision based on what you're saying, what do you want more of? What kind of work, what kind of clients, that's what you should be holding up as an example.

Casey Hibbard:
Exactly.

ilise benun:
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, for sure.

ilise benun:
Now, I don't want to say "in the age of AI," because I have a feeling that's going to be going on for a hundred years now, but how are you thinking about AI as it relates to case studies, whether you're a writer or not? What have you seen people doing, or would you recommend not using AI?

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, really important question. AI can be what I call a really good editorial assistant for a case study. And I am relying on AI tools for every case study that I write, I will say, but I'm not using it to write a case study. Transcribing interviews, this interview with us today may be transcribed by machine learning, which is super handy. So you interview your customers, you've got the transcript, and that's been AI-generated.

And then to organize the information from a transcript, I can ask AI to summarize the customer's challenges for me, summarize the project that we discussed, summarize the outcomes that the customer experienced, and then I have maybe a bulleted outline that then I can use to save time on writing the case study. Or pull out the most powerful quotes from this interview for me.

But sometimes you have to tell them not to edit the quotes, because I want to see the quotes in raw format first to just, then I can decide, "okay, would you clean it up for me?" But sometimes AI edits it or changes it when I don't want them to. They're overstepping a little bit, so you have to be really clear with them. But I do encourage you to use it and play around with it. You can try. You can really prompt it and try to get it to write it for you, but it's going to take a lot of editing to make it an engaging case study where you're telling a story and it doesn't have a lot of cliches in it, because AI is really good with including a lot of cliches throughout the writing.

ilise benun:
So I'm going to ask you for then, favorite AI tools and favorite AI prompt for case studies, if something comes to mind?

Casey Hibbard:
Oh, I really mostly use ChatGPT -- the paid version, and I've played around with a couple of others, but I just keep coming back to that one. Someone else today mentioned Claude, but I really haven't experimented with it.

My favorite prompt is usually kind of the ones I was just describing where I'm saying, "here's a case study interview where the goal is this. Would you pull out of our conversation where the customer talked about what her key challenges were around graphic design or branding or whatever the thing is." And it kind of helps me get organized, and you have to tell it, "please give me in bulleted form what the key challenges were." Just be really specific.

ilise benun:
And just playing devil's advocate a little bit, wouldn't it be easier for me to do that myself if it were my case study?

Casey Hibbard:
To pull out those bullets?

ilise benun:
Yeah, like you just look at the transcript and say, oh, here's one, here's one, here's one. Yeah.

Casey Hibbard:
Yes. Possibly the longer the interview is, sometimes the harder it is. Sometimes I'm doing hour-long case study interviews and it's like, wow, it's a lot of information, summarize it for me. But I am, as a writer, a very... I love to get what I call a "crappy first draft." So if I can just get it to give me the highlights of each part of the story, then I can create a crappy first draft. Because I've got a sense of progress if I've done that, and then go back and look at the transcript and get the details and refine it. But that's kind of my writing process.

ilise benun:
So I have one more question for you, and then I'll ask you to share how people can find you. But I always like to offer a baby step, and maybe this is a prompt that could be given to AI too. All right, you are a creative professional who has never done a case study before, but you have some really good recent projects that you would like to turn into a case study so you can get more clients or projects like that. What is the first step you should take based on the conversation that we've just had?

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, I would first step look at, out of those recent projects, what are the ones that are your ideal projects you'd love to have more of? So aligning those projects that you've done with your ideal customer avatar, ideal project avatar, and going after those. And then simply reaching out to your client just saying, "Hey, we have achieved so much with our collaboration. I would love to capture that in a case study. It won't take much of your time, and it'd be quick and easy." Just make it easy, and don't let it feel overwhelming. Just book 20 minutes with a client and grab some information. Because I think a little bit is if you don't feel like you have to do a two page, just get something done and get something out there.

ilise benun:
And what do you think about, instead of an actual interview, sending interview questions that they can answer, which might be more comfortable for you and them?

Casey Hibbard:
Good question, Ilise. You know what? I am a fan of the live interview because I love, the quotes are so much better than if someone is typing them. They feel more authentic and less thought out and structured. Sometimes the quotes you're going to get in a conversation have more emotion in them, which brings a lot to a case study. And then you can also ask follow-up questions if you're having a conversation. Oh, tell me more about that, or dig deeper. If it's all you can get from a client, then that's sometimes all you can get. They say, "just shoot me over some questions over email" because they're super busy, sometimes that's what you have to do. But ideally you're grabbing at least a little bit of time from them to get that conversation.

ilise benun:
All right. I love this new idea I have about asking my guest on the podcast a question, and then asking the same question to the AI. I'm going to put that question to the AI, and then I'm going to add it to our outro and say, here's what Casey said, and here's what the AI said, and we'll see what happens. What do you think of that?

Casey Hibbard:
I love it. I can't wait to hear. What's your favorite AI tool? What are you using?

ilise benun:
Well, I really like Perplexity these days.

Casey Hibbard:
Oh, yes. It's a good one. Especially for the backend source. I love being able to click on the source.

ilise benun:
Yeah, I'm doing a lot of research and focusing on helping people bring AI to their marketing research, so especially why I like Perplexity.ai, for those who are not familiar with it.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, for sure.

ilise benun:
All right, so how do people reach you? And I understand you have a little something to offer, so tell us about that.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, definitely. I have a case study checklist for small businesses and solopreneurs, and it's really a beefy checklist. I have some sample interview questions in there that you could use for interviews, and really just kind of a step-by-step on what you need to think about and how to approach customers and get something, put together some ideas. And I am at compelling-cases.com, and that's like a little dash in between.

ilise benun:
The hyphen, I love that you have a hyphen. I have a hyphen in my URL too. It's never been a problem. Has it been a problem for you?

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah, occasionally people forget it. Forget the hyphen. Yeah. But-

ilise benun:
Yeah, people definitely forget it.

Casey Hibbard:
... no big deal.

ilise benun:
No big deal.

Casey Hibbard:
But I'll send you a link for the show notes to reach that, to download that.

ilise benun:
Awesome. And we'll make that available. Excellent. All right. Well, this has been excellent, Casey, I really appreciate it. I'm sure there will be more conversations in the future and that we'll get to collaborate more. I'm excited about that.

Casey Hibbard:
Yeah. Thank you so much, Ilise. It's been a pleasure.

ilise benun:
So at the end there, I had the idea to bring back AI for a cameo to answer the baby-step question that I always ask, and then to compare it to Casey's answer, which you just heard.

So the question was, and it's always a good idea to tell the AI who they are before answering. I said, "You are a creative professional who has never done a case study before, but you have some really good recent projects that you would like to turn into a case study so you can get more clients or projects like that one. What is the first step you should take based on the conversation that we've just had?"

You just heard Casey's answer, and when I asked ChatGPT, here's what he/she/it said.
"The first step a creative professional should take to get started doing a case study about their work is to identify a satisfied client who represents the type of work and clients they want to attract more of. This client should ideally have experienced significant benefits or results from the creative professional services."

So that's very similar to what Casey said, whatever that means. And actually, the AI went on to give me a few more steps, but I don't want to overwhelm anyone. That's why I only ask for one baby step. And I do find that AI often gives me way too much information. It could be my fault. Maybe I need to remember to ask it to be more concise. We're all just figuring this out anyway, right?

Anyway, if you want to build a thriving business on your own terms, the first step baby-step is actually to sign up for my quick tips at marketing-mentortips.com. And once you're on the site, you'll find lots more resources, including my Simplest Marketing Plan. So enjoy and I'll see you next time.