Where to get case studies for proof?

9 replies
Hi all. I feel like I keep having to say this but: Please forgive my noob ignorance. I hope this question doesn't have a big obvious answer.

But since I'm just starting out, I wanted to include some case studies in my email campaign. I wanted to have my short sweet email pitch, and below that they would see:

"And here's proof:"

And the case studies would go right here, below. But where do I find case studies showing how well digital marketing works, for my particular industry? I am interested in acquiring case studies for digital marketing for Roofing businesses, as well as used car dealerships. Is there somewhere you guys would recommend that I could find some good material to use as proof in my emails?

Once I've got a few customers under my belt, of course I won't need these case studies anymore. I'll use the referrals and recommendations given to me by my customers. I'm going to ask them to type me up a letter of recommendation, recommending my services to my future customers. And I'll put that at the bottom of the email, instead. But right now, I have not gotten my first customer yet. So I could really use some case studies to help me out with proving my case. Which is of course, that they can trust me and buy my services. Any ideas?
#case #proof #studies
  • Profile picture of the author Nurit Sig
    I'm new here as well, but I think you should offer your service/product for a free trial (or discounted) in order to get your first reviews and recommendations.
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  • Profile picture of the author NickTrophian
    It's hard to obtain case studies without previous experience of selling your products. For this reason, companies use such techincs:
    - provide free trial or full version of a product and ask for feedback that will be used as case studies.
    - ask friends for leaving a review
    - paid for review - you can buy even video review for your products (fiverr and Google search helps)
    - "fake reviews" - many site owners create these reviews because that don't want to create a real ones.
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  • Profile picture of the author Justin Lackey
    Hmm... how about looking to other people who are doing the exact same things that I am? Perhaps I could use their reviews, and case studies? Now the obvious question is, why wouldn't they just go with them instead of me? Perhaps my service is half the price since I'm just getting started. Or maybe I don't really mention the name of the company that actually completed the successful digital marketing campaign.

    That wouldn't be a lie, or even a deception. Because I could use their material that they have on their site, but never say that it was me who did this. I could say that digital marketing worked so well for "Steve", that you can read his testimonial here. I never said that it was a testimonial for work that I did, but that its simply a testimonial. We can all go read all manner of testimonials right now. Doesn't mean the one who put that up there, is specifically who its talking about. The definition of "case study" as per google:


    1. a process or record of research in which detailed consideration is given to the development of a particular person, group, or situation over a period of time.



    2. a particular instance of something used or analyzed in order to illustrate a thesis or principle.


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  • Profile picture of the author Rod Delapaz
    Hey Justin! I read your subject line
    and was about to pass it up, but decided to take a peek, hehe.

    I was about to click away, until I saw "Roofing business".

    I just so happen to own a lead generation roofing and siding website!
    So I understand the hustle of trying to find roofing businesses
    that would want your digital marketing services.

    Since you don't have any proof yet,
    you might have to consider doing some "charity work"
    where you will get someone's phone to ring for a month,
    then ask them for a flat fee.

    Tell them you are looking for someone reputable to provide these leads,
    which puts you in the driver's seat.

    Make the message clear that if they don't want these leads
    at a flat fee per month, that you'll have to find one of their
    competitors that will want them, lol.

    Easy pitch. Don't try to "sell" them. They are also "sales guys".

    Ask them:

    "Hey, are you looking for more business?
    Ok, good. Since you don't know me, I don't expect
    you to agree to a flat fee. But if I can get your phone to ring
    more than it does now, would you consider it? If not,
    I'll have to look for someone else who services this area
    to give them the leads, so it's a win-win."

    Hope that gets some mental juices flowing.

    Great luck to you!
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    • Profile picture of the author Justin Lackey
      Originally Posted by Rod Delapaz View Post

      "Hey, are you looking for more business?
      Ok, good. Since you don't know me, I don't expect
      you to agree to a flat fee. But if I can get your phone to ring
      more than it does now, would you consider it? If not,
      I'll have to look for someone else who services this area
      to give them the leads, so it's a win-win."
      Thanks a lot for the reply Rod! As you can see I shortened it to address the parts I don't quite understand.

      Would you recommend putting something like that in an email, as the main "sales pitch" of an email campaign? Along with some testimonials and a couple of other items, but have that be the main message. Or are you saying that its what you would say, once you got them on the phone. I just wanted to be clear on that, because I'm looking to launch my email campaign soon.
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      • Profile picture of the author Rod Delapaz
        Cool, Justin! Excited that you're going to start your campaign soon! Good stuff.

        Yes, to clarify the first part: You are looking for a reputable roofing company to provide the leads THAT YOU ARE GETTING on a daily/weekly basis from your website.

        I read my writing above and totally could have written it more clearly, sorry about that :-)

        As far as the email campaign, you might have some success, but you have to consider the type of people roofing contractors are. Do they like reading solicitation emails from marketing/web design companies that also bother them every single day?

        Typically, these roofing business owners like to "talk" face to face. Remember, they are also sales people. They most likely don't send emails to acquire business.

        However, if it's not your comfort zone to pitch face to face, (which is totally fine), you'll then have to approach your email campaign very strategically. But, it's actually very easy. Here's what I did for my Roofing Leads business and it is working:

        1) I chose a city that had at least 60k population
        2) Created a roofing website and optimized it for that city
        3) Got a list of 10 Roofing Contractors ready
        4) Started receiving leads from my optimized website
        5) Called up one roofing company and asked them if they'd take my local lead. If you couldn't get them on the phone, then ask them for their email.
        6) If they take the lead, I would follow up with them, asking them how it went. But now they are a warm lead since they kind of know you.
        7) During the call, I'd tell them: "Hey, just to let you know, I get calls from my website quite often. There's a lot of roofing guys in this city that are really not dependable. I'd love to give these leads to you exclusively, but only if you can close this business at a high rate and really deliver good work to my leads. If you can, then this is a good partnership. It's a win-win for both of us."
        8) Wait to see how he reacts. If he says, "no thanks", then he's not someone who you would want to spend your time with. If he says "yes", then ask him how to arrange payment. Monthly Flat Fee, or commission-based? In the long run, flat fee would be cheaper for him, but commission-based would be less risk for him on a monthly basis. You'll have to work with him on that.

        Hope I provided something fresh to your arsenal. If you're already doing this approach, then rock on, bro!

        Hope that helps!

        Rod
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        • Profile picture of the author Justin Lackey
          Originally Posted by Rod Delapaz View Post

          Cool, Justin! Excited that you're going to start your campaign soon! Good stuff.

          Yes, to clarify the first part: You are looking for a reputable roofing company to provide the leads THAT YOU ARE GETTING on a daily/weekly basis from your website.

          I read my writing above and totally could have written it more clearly, sorry about that :-)

          As far as the email campaign, you might have some success, but you have to consider the type of people roofing contractors are. Do they like reading solicitation emails from marketing/web design companies that also bother them every single day?

          Typically, these roofing business owners like to "talk" face to face. Remember, they are also sales people. They most likely don't send emails to acquire business.

          However, if it's not your comfort zone to pitch face to face, (which is totally fine), you'll then have to approach your email campaign very strategically. But, it's actually very easy. Here's what I did for my Roofing Leads business and it is working:

          1) I chose a city that had at least 60k population
          2) Created a roofing website and optimized it for that city
          3) Got a list of 10 Roofing Contractors ready
          4) Started receiving leads from my optimized website
          5) Called up one roofing company and asked them if they'd take my local lead. If you couldn't get them on the phone, then ask them for their email.
          6) If they take the lead, I would follow up with them, asking them how it went. But now they are a warm lead since they kind of know you.
          7) During the call, I'd tell them: "Hey, just to let you know, I get calls from my website quite often. There's a lot of roofing guys in this city that are really not dependable. I'd love to give these leads to you exclusively, but only if you can close this business at a high rate and really deliver good work to my leads. If you can, then this is a good partnership. It's a win-win for both of us."
          8) Wait to see how he reacts. If he says, "no thanks", then he's not someone who you would want to spend your time with. If he says "yes", then ask him how to arrange payment. Monthly Flat Fee, or commission-based? In the long run, flat fee would be cheaper for him, but commission-based would be less risk for him on a monthly basis. You'll have to work with him on that.

          Hope I provided something fresh to your arsenal. If you're already doing this approach, then rock on, bro!

          Hope that helps!

          Rod

          Man what a strange thing... I was just considering this approach! A friend and I are about to start running a digital marketing campaign for 1 roofing company that is in our "warm circle". We are going to use this roofing company to learn the ropes, and then expand to having more clients. It took us a couple of months to come up with what you just said though, lol!

          Lastly, these roofing guys are kind of a different animal, in their own way. Like you said, they're salesmen too. And when you talk to them, many of them have been in the business for a good while and they'll say something like "Boy I'll tell you what I know, and its that there ain't no substitute for knocking doors!"

          Which is of course not really true anymore. So what you've got to do, is sell them what they want. They want you to be a commission salesman for them? Fine. Be one. So here are the leads/sales, boss. Now go get em! Through digital marketing, you deliver the leads and sales.

          Does all of this sound accurate to you? I'm still hammering all of this out in my mind lol. I've got a few more questions to ask you, if you don't mind. I will post them up below. Man I would really love to just sit here and pick your brain.


          1. How exactly, do you do your pricing for a sale that you help them make? How exactly do you make sure that you get paid for every sale that you hand to them?

          2. In terms of what you do, what is the difference between a sale, and a lead? By which I mean, do you get paid differently for a sale that happened, than for generating a lead? Or perhaps you only get paid when a sale gets completed? (or a completed insurance claim, if you prefer) If you get a lead, and for whatever reason, the salesperson just can't close the deal, do you still get paid? And how much?

          3. How do you make sure that you maintain a tight control over this sales funnel? Do they ever ask you to just turn it over to them? Personally, I wouldn't ever do this. Because then, they never have to pay you again. And they aren't the one who developed this entire process, you are. So they don't own it, you do. How do you address this question, when they raise it? I ask because I just can't see any eventuality where they don't eventually ask for you to hand them the keys to the kingdom. Which would of course be, your web hosting platform username and password, as well as your all the other usernames and passwords that would allow them to control the entire process that you have built.
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          • Profile picture of the author Rod Delapaz
            Awesome, Justin. I hear every word you're saying!

            Here are my thoughts on each point you brought up. These are all very important questions to iron out.

            1) Bring them in on this discussion and see what they say. Ultimately, you want a flat fee that is based on the average revenue per customer. So let's say you referred them 4 clients for the month. The revenues were $800 (simple repair), $1200 (advanced repair), $8000 (replacement), and $2500 (advanced replacement). That's $5300 revenue for the month. That's $1325 average revenue. That's a fairly slow month, but I would price them a flat fee of at least $1500 per month. So one customer can potentially bring them to break even for their marketing with you. You follow that? And go by "revenue" not profit. They'll try to counter using "profit" per job, but tell them, "no, I go by the revenue I bring in for your business, that's my concern. Profit is your concern." Be firm with this as it is more than fair and reasonable.

            2) Yes, a sale and a lead are two different things. It's your job to bring them the lead. It's their job to convert the lead. You cannot control their ability to convert. This is something you have to set the right expectation. This is why it's very important to bring them in the conversation. They have to know that you are a serious business and also are in it to be profitable. Your specialty is to fill their sales funnel with leads so that they don't have to knock on doors. Yes, you provide a service to them, but you absolutely don't work for them and they are far from being your boss. If anything, YOU are the boss, sending them to potential jobs. They need you more, because without your leads, they'd have to find the business themselves. As far as getting paid, this is why you should really recommend flat fee. It protects you from having to wait. Also, it protects you from them "sandbagging" their sales, especially when there is an insurance claim involved. Don't get sucked in on their drama. Strongly recommend flat fee after you brought them business for a month.

            3) As far as maintaining control over the sales funnel: if they want you to hand them over the keys, then they will have to buy the car, lol. Tell them you're more than welcomed to sell them the sales funnel for $3500. After all, that sales funnel is optimized for that particular city, and would never build another funnel for the same city which would directly compete with the first funnel, right? Why would anyone do that? So again, bring them in on this discussion to make it clear that your work is exclusive to that city and they will/should appreciate your "smart" business. The more they'll want you on their team because if they pass your services up, you'll gladly find someone else in that same market that they are trying to serve, lol. If anything, YOU are their potential competition, if they don't bring you on.

            If they insist to have control, and perhaps even ask you to build a website for them, charge them the $3500 to buy you out and the $1500 monthly SEO fee to keep them ranked. If they want to do a mix of SEO and Paid Ads, bring that up to $2200 per month ($250 will go towards their paid ads budget). I highly doubt they would want to take over handling the website, only because that is not their core competency. Roofing is. So again, ask them, "so you're telling me, you're going to handle all of this yourself? You know how to do all this?" If they knew how to do what you do, then why weren't they already?

            As for tracking, be sure to use a tracking/recorded phone number. There are a couple of services to use that does this. Research whichever provider you're most comfortable with. You can furnish reports (daily, weekly, monthly) to let them know that you are tracking and recording every call they receive from your funnel. This is how you quantify your services. They'll understand, trust me. They are smart and saavy business people, and they should know that you are the same. They'll respect you more and you will be a great asset to their business.

            I just have to conclude by saying that YOU are the boss, not them. You bring in the business and you have the capability to have their phone ring without them having to get out of bed. That's power and expertise that they do not have. So, don't ever call them "boss". They'll know.

            Go get em, man! Hope I answered all your questions. If not, let me know how I can help.
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  • Profile picture of the author agmccall
    you create your own case studies. You should never post someone else s case studies as you can not verify they are actually true. If you are new and do not have any proof that something works then do it yourself and post your results, that is your case study. And if some strategy you try does not work it can be just as valuable to your visitors as a strategy that does work

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    "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." Thomas Edison

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