Using Case Studies as Lead Magnets w/ Chelsea Wallace

Case studies as PDFs? Sales pages? Lead magnets? Emails? In multiple formats?! Hold on to your party hats because I’ve got a special guest here with me & we’re in full geek-out mode about all things case studies!

Chelsea Wallace may be known as Queen Bee when it comes to launch copywriting, but she’s secretly a data lover—and—way ahead of the curve when it comes to making smart use of case studies.

In this conversation, we dig into adding SEO to existing case studies, the first step to take to create your next case study, and the benefits of creating case studies for different learning styles. You’re 1000% gonna to need to bookmark this episode & return to it in the future. You’ve been warned 😉

Connect w/ Chelsea:
Case Studies Page

→ Get the full show notes here!

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Transcript

0:00

Foreign. Welcome back to the Basic Me podcast. I am thrilled to have you here as well as my friend Chelsea Wallace. We're going to be geeking out on case studies and actually how to use them as lead magnets. So I'm really excited. We're just going to jump into this, but before I bring Chelsea on, here's a quick little intro. Chelsea Wallace is a launch strategist and copywriter who has supported hundreds of online personal brands in executing their highest growth grossing marketing and launch campaigns. As the launch copy coach, she offers fully done for you launch support to six and seven figure coaches and course creators. Creating high dollar relaunches while ensuring they only have one task on their to do list. Taking care of themselves and their community. She helps them rediscover more time and energy for life beyond their launches while reestablishing their industry leading status and giving them the spaciousness to serve higher level clients along the way. Chelsea, welcome. Thank you so much, friend. By the way, have you ever been on an episode where you like, hear your own bio? You're like, wait, is that me? Yes. This keeps happening with my podcast guests and I'm like, do you want me to just follow you around all week? We can just like play this in the background. Seriously. Such an ego boost, isn't it? It is. And low key. I wrote that y'all. So this sounds really ego driven right now, but like, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. It's only we think that because we wrote it and we know ourselves. It doesn't at all. It's like, I want to work with her. Where's the button? Thank you for having me, friend. I appreciate it. Of course. Yes. And shout out to Jordan Gill for the connection. I'm so excited for this conversation. Yeah, this is just awesome. So I start out all podcasts by asking everyone the same one question. There's no wrong answers. Cool. The question is. I know, right? The question is, which do you believe is the most important for sales? SEO, storytelling or social proof? I love that reaction. What a question. Okay. SEO, social proof or storytelling? Are you sure I can't just say all three? You can. Like I said, there's no wrong answer. Let's go with all three because truly, like, I cannot see selling in today's day and age without storytelling and social proof has become such an integrated part of the way that we make decisions in our lives. Like, we look around at other people, we look at Yelp reviews, uber stars. Like, we look at other people for nearly everything now to make decisions on whether we say yes or no to an experience, to a product, et cetera. And then SEO is just common sense. That's going somewhere. That is going somewhere. I mean, listen, like, you cannot be SEO when it comes to playing the long game. It's just irrefutably imperative. Is that something that you and your clients just like already organically work into any kind of like launch stuff? A little bit, yeah. So a lot of the times when I'm thinking about this is where you'll probably be like, Chelsea, it's not as intentional as I think it could, I will say that. But when I think about hooks, especially with messaging, when I think about like podcast topics for my clients, when I think about webinar topics, I'm definitely thinking about what people are searching, what's most magnetic to folks. And sometimes they're not the same thing. Sometimes what's most magnetic is not the same as what people are looking for online. And so you kind of have to figure out and play with the balance between both, which is where, you know, like copy and messaging skills come into play, especially with when we start to think about and the work that I do, like helping clients launch, like fully done for you support and then turning that funnel evergreen like that is where the content that we create really, really shines. Because now it has to live on for the rest of the year, for the next two years, three years. Right. So if it's not findable by anybody, now you're depending on things like ads to drive traffic, or now you're depending on social, which. Hello, Ms. Finicky Algorithm, like, thank you for entering the room. Could you please leave low key. Thank you, Goodbye. There's the door. And you're also starting to depend on just like you don't have a base that really makes sense to really like create results. Things like collaborations and stuff like that are always recommended. I co sign, double tap, send all my clients to do it. But SEO is just so unbeatable and such a core foundational piece of being online and marketing that if you are creating anything, if you are playing the long game as an online coach, course creator, entrepreneur, in this space, you just can't beat it. You totally can't. And I'm going to put you on the spot. We're talking about case studies. Is that something that you have put an SEO strategy behind for yourself? No. And actually, if you don't mind, I would love to hear what that could look like. If you don't mind me turning the question back on to you and be like, okay, tell me what I could do. Because my case studies already are like my core lead magnet. Everybody gets like, once you come to me, that's usually how you find me. It's like either somebody recommended me to you, then you download my case studies. That's usually how it works. So they're already such a core asset in my business that's doing like some really heavy work. I'd love to find out more about how I could apply SEO to that to really be more findable because I also low key. I don't think I am. So like, tell me apart, Brittany. Tell me apart. I'm not going to tear you apart. That is not how I roll around here. And everybody listening knows that. But I did. If you're watching the video, I did like look at my screen. So I went over to your website and I'm looking at your case study page. So I love that you have. It's just your website, which is the launchcopycoach.com case-studies. Brava, my friend, for putting the dash in between the two. Oh really? Is it? Yeah. Most people don't do that. Most people. And I didn't know this until I started studying SEO. But you don't just want to have a string of words that don't make any sense. When you put the dashes in there, it helps the robots make sense of what the page is about. So when you have your keywords in there, like, I mean case studies for you is definitely a keyword. When you have that, it just helps Google understand. Like, oh, this is Chelsea's page about her case studies. Okay, cool. So and so is looking about case studies for launches. Boom, there you go. And they come over here. So I love that it looks like the page, the H1 is five and six figure launch funnel. Case studies. Love that. And then the way that I typically write case studies is they're like blog posts on a website or they're a standalone page, like an about page, but it's a case study. So Yours are downloadable PDFs, so you could consider. I mean, I love that this is your lead magnet and we're totally going to dive into this. But if you were to have like an additional case study that you want to live on your website that's not included in the download, that's where the SEO would really help. But for this page itself, I mean, you're doing great. I could look into it a little bit more. The one thing I would say is your SEO title and your meta Description. Am I speaking gibberish or do you know what those are? I got you. Okay, we have to look at that for the landing pages for our clients too. So. Yeah, yeah. And just for anyone listening, the SEO title and the meta description, those are the two pieces of information that if you're on a search page, that's what you're seeing. So those two things are definitely key places to optimize with your keywords for the case studies page. But I love this. Okay, so now that we have that context of your case studies being a download, I love that. So how do you find that? Case studies help people along in the. Customer journey in a really big way. Like I was saying, we look at other people to help make decisions, right? So when folks come to me, a big part of why they end up downloading my case studies is to see. See what's possible and what's possible when they work with me. So they tell me, like when we get on a follow up call or we talk in the DMs, they will often say things like, oh, yeah, and I love how you talked about this thing in the case studies, or I love that you created this result for this person. And when they end up booking with me, they tell me that seeing those little things in my delivery process help them to recognize like either values alignment or help them to recognize that, you know, like results alignment, revenue wise in a launch, help them to even start to imagine for themselves what's possible with their launch strategy. Like, because I also do funnel drawings in there so they kind of can kind of see and like break down what the launch funnels look like. And they start to think, oh, I've never thought of doing that before. I wonder what would happen if I did. And so they also really start to embrace possibilities and it becomes really powerful social proof storytelling type of content and support along making that decision. And so it's really, really reflecting as a mirror back to them what they might see as possible for themselves, how they might integrate those kinds of strategies or tactics or launch events, whatever it is, into their own business. Then it almost like creates that desire, right? Because then they're like, I wonder what happens if I want to do this, Chelsea, can you work with me? It's kind of like the sequence of thoughts. So yeah, it really stirs desire and creates possibility, which increases trust as well because like the numbers are right there. This is like real numbers for my clients. So it then becomes a much simpler yes for the folks that are in alignment with SIPs and have similarities to the case studies that I share. Yeah. And that's also why I like showcasing with my case studies, at least for clients. Mine still need to make it onto the website. That's a topic for another day, but it allows you to showcase different types of clients. And this is brilliant with you having the download because then you've got all of your case studies right there. Someone can like scroll through, check out the different stories, and there's going to be someone or some situation that they relate to more than another. And one thing I like talking about is like, the reader needs to be able to put themselves in that desk chair of whoever the person is that you're supporting and then therefore be able to see you as their guide through this process. You talked about reflecting. I think of it as like, all right, you're going in the car. This is your journey, this is success that you could be having. And here's the person who could help get you there. Yeah, I love that way of looking at it. And I mean, we're talking about this now. It doesn't have to be like an extensive thing, y'all, but you do want to start to think about, okay, variety of clients from different niches. What did you do for them? Similarities in results, similarities in values. Like from the perspective of who you want to attract. How do these case studies help them along that journey in making the decision? Yeah, definitely. Are case studies something that you advise your clients to do as well? Yes, but not like this. Right, Right, no, totally. Yeah. We'll normally do a few case study emails actually in our launches as a part of the sale, open part period. Will definitely integrate like two or three case study emails just breaking down. What are the testimonials? What have we done? How were they feeling when they got to us? What changed? Da, da, da, da. Like just really breaking it down. And then of course, you know, screenshot of like, results and what the client said and like all the raves that they sent us in the DMs. We will usually do that because you just can't beat it. Even if we don't notice like an uptick in sales, because I usually track daily sales in my clients launches. So even if we don't notice, like after our case studies email, we may not see a boost in sales from that email per se, but it is a part of making the decision. So the person who reads all three case studies emails might not purchase until the last day like nearly everybody else, but it was a crucial part of making that decision because they saw, oh, she can help this kind of person and that kind of person and that kind of person and oh, that's me. Yes, she helped me too. Well, let me think about it some more. That's usually what they'll do and then on the last day they'll buy it. So we definitely integrate that level of storytelling results and really breaking it down to like what we did to get those results, where they started, where they ended. Type deal in launches and in the Evergreen funnel. Of course, that was going to be my next question. So you do use them in Evergreen. Does it look any different for using it in an Evergreen situation? No. I am a big believer in repurposing what works in your launches. Naturally with an Evergreen funnel, we will typically. Now this is not always the case, but don't think you're the outlier. You will typically see a drop in conversion of like 50%. That's just what we see. And that being said, we know that the messaging, the launch event, the tactics we use, the order in which all of this was structured, we know that it works because we just launched it. Right. We know that the conversion has been created. We know people said yes. So let's just put that on Evergreen and see what happens. We might do a few edits in like the actual launch event, whatever that is. We might change around subject lines. But the bodies of the emails, especially for a case studies email, we don't usually change because it's just the formula is so simple and we just know it works. So we use it throughout the Evergreen funnel and that I will say we don't drop all of them all at once. You know, like in a launch you have a specific open cart period and usually you might want to do case studies closer to the end. I've seen a lot of people do that. So in the last week they'll send like three case study emails of like a two week Hoban cart. I like to spread my case study emails out a lot more. So I might do like one at the top, one in the middle, one closest to the end. And I would do the same thing in an Evergreen funnel. I love that. So just like side note, something for you and everyone listening to think about is like, I love the case study emails wholeheartedly, full stop, love them. And if you wanted to kick it up a notch, you could definitely create a little bit more robust of a case study and weave in SEO and put that on the website. Yeah. And then be able to both use that copy and send people there and have that page working for you. 24/7. Yeah. Forever and ever. I'm just gonna let you drop that nugget for anyone listening. So I love that tip for a couple of reasons. One, I can see where that could be so useful in the pre launch period. When you are kind of getting people to think differently about what's possible, about what's holding them back, where there's resistance around certain things that you teach, you're kind of rewiring those beliefs early on in the launch. Before you even talk about your launch event. Sending people to that website, like, go read this story, go read that story type deal. I can definitely see that working. And I also love that because it's an opportunity for. Even on the sales page. Like, you know how we have testimonials on sales page? It's just like, want to read more in detail? Click here and it sends them to the thing and then you could like for the launch period set up a kind of redirect where you know, like it takes them to the case study and then at the bottom of that page it'll redirect them back to the sales page if you wanted to do that for the launch period. Case studies just lend themselves to evergreen content. I've also had a client recently who I thought this was brilliant. And I didn't even tell her this, but this was actually like my intention. So I don't know, maybe she picked it up in like the energetics of. The whole case study. I had this thought, like you can take a case study and just let that be your sales page. And she took the copy and she had that be her sales page. I was like, this is so brilliant. And again, I didn't even tell her that, but I was like, yeah, I. Would be so curious to see how that works. Yeah, I'll share the link. Yes, please. Because it was really cool the way that I wrote it. We wrote the case study about the program and then we had four different features of clients and it was like, you know, story number one, some more copy story number two. But what she did was she took out the stories and then used it as the sales page. And I thought that was so smart. So yeah, I'll definitely share that link with you because I was like, this. Is really quite cool. And again, like I said, I had the idea and then she just like picked up on it in the airwaves and I was like, this is just really awesome to see that happening. That is really cool. I am so intrigued. I also want to drop this little nugget. I think that in the online space, there's like these prescriptive formats that we often use for sales pages. And I love how innovative that is. Like to use the case study as a sales page, that seems just really cool. Yeah. And even you talking about linking out to the case study, I mean, that's something I've done before and I got so much pushback because it's not the way you do the sales pages. And I've even said this myself before, like you want to have one call to action on the sales page, you're in or you're out. However, and things get to evolve, opinions get to evolve, practices get to evolve. And like our buyers are different now, their needs are different. So you have to keep up with them and keep addressing their needs. Because if you don't, they're not going to buy. I mean, listen, if you have a really strong case study of your client and all you have on the sales page is the testimonial from the client, that testimonial might not highlight all of the skills you used, all of the expertise, the framework that you implemented for them. There's so much juice that might be missing from that little screenshot testimonial that you do that if you were able to break that down for prospects, especially if you are a service provider listening to this, or a one on one coach, or even a group coach, like as a coach or service provider, not even a course creator so much because courses are like, it's hard to do this with. But if you are some kind of service provider or coach breaking that kind of transformation down with a case study, fam you cannot beat that at all. So like your IP that you have applied to this client's business, life, health, whatever it is, you get to elucidate and tease apart all of that and showcase how you applied it in a case study. Why would you deny a prospect the opportunity to see your goodness, Fam? But back to your point. Actually, you know, when I read your intro, it can feel weird that having someone else shine a light on that and go, why are you not doing this? Like, it makes it a duh. It makes it an easy answer. But we have to have someone sometimes. But we have to have someone else be like this thing, you should check it out, use it. It can help you, it can make things easier. Very true. I love this so much. You said that you've heard from actual clients who have ended up booking with you, that they've referenced things in the case studies. Have you swapped any of those case studies out along the way or like. So I have not. I am about to though, so I'm super curious as to what's going to happen. I haven't updated my case studies in a while and they're still working like you're talking about. There is longevity behind them. I think that's the powerful thing here, is if you can set aside, y'all, this can just be a special project for a month. Just set aside a month to really go back through your best performing clients and think back to, what did we do? What were their blocks? How did they come to me? How did they leave me? What were their results? And just like write it all out. Listen at this point, voice, record it and tell ChatGPT to write it all out for you, then edit. Like, don't even make it hard for yourself. Right? Yeah. If you can just do that for three to five people while on your way. Yeah, I have like an invitation for you. Yeah. In order to get the case studies and actually for me too. So, like, if we do this, we're going to be accountability buddies. Okay. But you were saying that it's like shorter case studies that you end up putting in your document in your download. So, I mean, you've got those people on your email list. In order to update the stories, you could just be like, hey, I'm adding some more case studies and I want you to be the first to know and then start dripping them out over a few weeks and then you just copy and paste that over to your PDF and bing, bang, boom, you got it. There you go. I like this. I like this invitation for myself because I have a tendency to write the longer ones, but the shorter ones, as you're proving, can be just as powerful. Yeah, I don't know if we should say mine are short. Short. Do you know the word count? Totally putting you on the spot. Oh, God, no. I do not have a word count, but they would probably be three pages, double spaced. Okay, we're probably about the same then. So my word count on average for most of my case Studies are like 1700 words. Yeah, no, that sounds about right. I love you. Like, yeah, that number. I want to really paint the picture of what's going on. Yes, that's what it's for. So I don't want to leave important stuff out that I feel will contribute to helping someone make a decision. That's all I'm saying. I'm still with you, so. Okay, here's a question for you. Since you and I have both written case studies, do you find As I have that there are different stories where different parts of the story. There's just, like, more meat to it. Oh, yeah, most definitely. Absolutely. Because I think that shows up with wherever I talk about how I applied my framework or my expertise to their problem. Because the problem is usually pretty straightforward. So, I mean, like, boom, boom, done. The result is also usually pretty straightforward. But when I talk about how I use my skills, how I made decisions, where they got stuck, what we did to overcome that, and the order in which we did things, it's different for each of my clients. And I can understand that being different when you are breaking down, like an individual experience. So, yeah, I definitely find it can be longer or shorter and look very different, depending on who we're talking about. Yeah. And then one thing I've noticed for me, since I copywrite for other service providers, is that depending on how that business owner. So my client. This gets very meta and very circular. Just hang with me. So I am hired as a copywriter. I have a client, and then they have a client. If my client is more, you know, succinct in their wording, it's going to often be shorter. If their clients are also succinct with their testimonials, it's going to also lend itself to being a bit shorter. Yes. And like, you have heard me say 1700, where it doesn't have to be that. It doesn't have to be more, it doesn't have to be less. And I've said this in my training too. Like, it's gonna be as long as it needs to be. Yes, I agree. So I love hearing you say that in that you just wanna take the space and the time and the words necessary to get that story across. Because I couldn't agree more. Absolutely. And you know what, y'all, if you feel like it's too long, like, I've actually finished updating my case studies, there's just, like, the call to action end of the document that I need to update. So we'll be accountability buddies on that. I'm here for you. But it's a longer document now than last time. So I'm like, oh, I don't know if y'all are going to read this. It occurred to me that I could literally record a podcast episode on each case study and embed that, like, right at the top to say, hey, if you want to listen to these instead of read, here's a link. Here you go. And that'll just be really convenient for folks who may not want to read 1700 words, but are fine with listening on the way to meeting their client or launch or whatever it is. And so I think that there are tons of opportunities here to really allow the case study to be what it needs to be without you trying to like, pare it down. Because, like, you can start to notice patterns about what people tell you, help them to make the decision, but truthfully, you never really know all the time. So it's really helpful to just elucidate everything that you can and create a complete picture. Yeah, I love the idea of the podcast episodes in your document as well as I just had the idea that you could turn that into a private podcast. So absolutely. If someone wanted to just like listen to the podcast and binge that, that would be great too. Because the other like, additionally cool thing about the podcast ideas, you're telling the story, you're talking them through that and they get to hear you and there's something really cool, really intimate, really connecting about being able to hear someone explain things and talk about things and actually like meeting you in that way. Absolutely. I 100% agree. It's wild to me because I am not a podcaster, or more accurately, I don't listen to podcasts. I will watch a podcast, but so many of my clients are through and through, will listen to a podcast, like addicted. And I'm just like, okay, obviously I need to do something to meet y'all in this medium because this isn't like written words are powerful and are, are evergreen and they will not disappear. And audio, video, that sort of stuff helps people to make the decision and enter into your work from different kind of access points as well. And also if we're just thinking about accessibility, like, yeah, someone might, you know, get cross eyed reading 1700 words, but really easily listen to a podcast as well. So like, there's multiple reasons for you to think about creating case studies from multiple angles as well. And I also just really quickly want to say this too. Yeah, you could totally start with the podcast and then repurpose it to like your website, like downloadable PDF, email, whatever. You want to do, you can. And if you're not watching the video, if this didn't happen to make it out into the interwebs, I just did like a giant, like cheer over here because yes, you totally can. And I will make sure that I link this episode that I did with Jamar Diggs where we actually like got into case studies on YouTube as well. Jamar is good people, man. Oh my gosh, go enjoy that episode. Especially if case Studies are on your mind. Because he and I did an incredible exchange. And, like, he was able to help me with YouTube. I was able to help him with case studies on his website with SEO. It's just. It's amazing. So go check that out. But. And if you end up doing the podcast first, you can take that and use that. This is how I write case studies for a lot of my clients, that they'll have a podcast episode with their client as the guest. Yes. And I get to listen to it. That's so good. Right? I have done quite a few too, like Ashleigh Chanel and Justin Blackman. So I have these people, and you can go binge those too. I recommend that. But you get to hear, like, the format of a case study, and then you get to see, okay, these are the quotes that you could pull. This is the story arc that actually transpired. Like, it's really neat. So do the podcast or the YouTube video first, if that's easier for you. If it's easier to write it, do that and then go record it. And then you can put everything in one cute little package, whether that's a blog post or a downloadable PDF. Like, to your point, the learning styles, the accessibility, like, it's helpful all the way around. Absolutely. So now that I have a thousand different tasks that I need to go add to my to do list, I'm excited about it. I didn't mean that to come out as, like, not happy. No, but, like, the to do list only lengthens around here. Apparently, whoever seems to, like, get shirts so they get replaced. It's like you cross something out, and then it's like something sneaks and you're left. Yes, that is fun. But where can people connect with you? And what is this link that they can grab? The downloadable case studies. Yes. So I am on Instagram at the Launch Copy Coach. Y'all can tune in, message me, whatever it is. I'm always happy to start conversations. If you tell me you came from the basic BE podcast, I'd be like, oh, hey, Brittany's people are cool people. Great to connect with you. How do you enjoy the episode? Like, we'll have a whole conversation. So you're good. I love it. And in terms of my case studies, if you want to download those, we'll have the link available. They're really great. If you are thinking about a launch, planning a launch has come off of a launch, and you're like, I want to see what's available. I want to see the possibilities. I want to conceptualize what can be different, what can be more fun. What can create more revenue? There's tons of ideas that you can get from just reading through what other people have done and how I've been able to support them in, like, making those decisions about what to do. And then if you want to work with me, we can have that conversation, too. Lots of conversations can be had with Chelsea. I am so, so, so, so grateful that you came on and we were able to geek out about this stuff for a while. Thank you. Same. This conversation was so thrilling. It's not every day that I get to talk to somebody who understands the power of case studies, because also, side note, case studies are based in data. And I am a data nerd. Through and thorough fam. I'm super creative. I write great copy, but I love the data. So it's been thrilling for me to be here and have this conversation with you. Thank you all for listening to us geek out about this stuff. Thank you for giving us an excuse to do it. Oh, my gosh. Thank you again and I will catch you next time.