TCC Podcast #417: Partners Who Send You Clients with Dana Owens

In the 417th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, I spoke with case study copywriter Dana Owens… and of course we talked in depth about writing case studies. But as we talked, Dana shared her connection secret for getting plenty of leads for the work she wants to do. It’s a great idea that any copywriter can borrow and use to grow their own business. But to get it, you’re going to have to listen. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

 

Stuff to check out:

Dana’s Tools for Case Study Writers
The Copywriter Club Facebook Group
The Copywriter Underground

 

Full Transcript:

Rob Marsh: One of the client finding ideas I like to talk about is making connections with other service providers. Instead of thinking of other copywriters as the competition, think of them as business associates who can support you in all kinds of ways including by sharing leads. I’ve mentioned more than once that copywriters have shared leads with me that have resulted in more than six figures worth of business over the years.

With results like that, of course you should connect with other copywriters and content writers. But there may be an even better group to connect with when it comes to getting clients. It’s just one of the things we cover on this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast.

Hi, I’m Rob Marsh, and my guest for this episode is case study copywriter Dana Owens. We covered a lot of ground in this interview including how Dana kind of stumbled on this perfect partner for leads in her busines. If you write case studies it’s a connection idea you can steal and use today. But if you write any other kind of copy, you can use this idea as well, you’ll just have to figure out who your perfect connection partner is. So stick around to hear more about it.

Before we jump in with Dana…

It’s been a little while since I’ve mentioned our special report called How to Find Clients that features more than 20 different things you can do, starting right now, to find your ideal clients. It also shares the 4 mistakes you absolutely can’t afford to make when looking for clients—if you do, you are dead in the water… and it also shows you five things you need to do before you reach out to the people you want to work with IF you want them to say yes. This isn’t some dainty one page PDF you’ll forget about in a day or two… it’s 36 pages jam packed with ideas that either we’ve used in our own businesses or we’ve seen other successful copywriters use to grow theirs.  You can get your free report by going to thecopywiterclub.com/findaclient   that’s all one word. Get your free report now.

And with that, let’s go to our interview with Dana…

Hey Dana, it is so great to see you. Welcome to The Copywriter Club Podcast. You know how this goes because you’ve been part of The Copywriter Club world for a long time, but let’s start with your story. How did you become a copywriter?

Dana Owens: Well, first of all, I’m so excited to be here. I actually learned that copywriting was a real thing from the Copywriter Club podcast. Seven years ago, I remember taking a road trip with my husband. And that was like back in the day where I had to connect his iPad to the car through a USB cord. And I had like 10 episodes of The Copywriter Club Podcast downloaded. And throughout the road trip, we listened to the episodes. And that’s when I realized copywriting could be like a real career and a real business. And that’s when he also learned it. So the fact that I’m talking to you today is just like, I don’t know, a funny, funny, full circle moment.

Rob Marsh: So that’s amazing.

Dana Owens: Yeah. But I started, um, I got involved in copywriting. Like I wish I would have started so much earlier than I did, but I graduated with a journalism degree and became a journalist for one year. Um, I went to work for a local, I’m from Michigan. So it was like a local small town paper and was the police reporter into the police beat. I was so naive. I mean, I had my trusty journalism degree, but had no idea what I was doing. And it was kind of a bust that first year there. I have a lot of funny stories, but I realized I did not like journalism because basically, especially as a police reporter, all I was doing was reporting on bad news. And so I’m an optimist. I wanted to report on only good news. And I was like, Dana, you are so naive. Like, how are you ever going to get a job just reporting on good news? But what I learned through that job is that I loved interviewing people. So I took that. And then I actually went, I moved to Chicago and I started to work as a creative writer for an advertising company, just a little teeny advertising company. And, um, that’s where I kind of started to figure out that copywriting was actually a thing. Although it took me another, I mean, so several years to actually start to, um, start doing copywriting formally. and start to really turn my attention directly onto writing for sales and marketing. So I got my start indirectly through an entrance through journalism and advertising. But it was really when I had had my kids and was like, I’m looking for just a little something to do on the side that I was contacted by an old boss of mine who really was the one that pulled me into copywriting. And that was, gosh, 10 years ago. It’s only grown and grown and grown since there.

Rob Marsh: So what kind of work were you doing in the agency, in the small ad company that you were working for as a writer? What were you writing?

Dana Owens: I was primarily, this sounds so boring now, but I was primarily writing like website copy, but really product descriptions for, they were a professional photography company. And so every single thing that I was writing about had to do with some type of professional photography equipment. And that was, again, just so not for me. I’m super creative, and I want to be exploring big ideas and positioning things in a picture-particular way. And it was definitely not a position that I was going to be able to stick with long term, but it really did set the foundation for the work that I do today. But that was it. There was no way I was going to be a pro at professional photography equipment, but I started learning about the sales and marketing world in that way. So it was beneficial.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. Especially when we talk about high-end equipment, you know, that you have in the, the, you know, the world of photography, like everything looks the same. Obviously it’s not the same. And so being able to sell one product over another does become a, I mean, that’s a skill and being able to identify how they’re different and who they’re for, I think could be incredibly useful.

Dana Owens: Well, it, it, that is a really good point. And also it was so highly technical because the people that the audience that I was writing for, they understood the differences between the brands of all of these different lenses and all of these different light boxes. And they understood the outputs and all of this technical stuff. And so I really had to learn it myself and it was so boring to me at the time, but what it has really translated for me. in, you know, when I started in the areas of copywriting that I was really interested in was how to take technical information or complex information or even jargon from that that was well known, you know, in one industry and how to make it more palatable and understandable to different audiences. So now that you’ve brought me back to those days, like it’s it the connection is very clear that, you know, Having to specialize in an industry like I did for that amount of time, I think it was like four years I worked in that job, it really did start to build that skill of being able to communicate things, communicate complicated ideas and technical ideas in a way that people liked to consume it. So that was helpful.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, I had a similar experience early on in my career. I worked for a day planner company, imagine writing about day planners for four years. It’s like, OK, well, this year’s edition of the day planner is blue as opposed to black, or this edition of the day planner has quotes. And yet it’s that repetition actually polishes your ability to connect with an audience and figure out what it is that they need to know about in order to buy. So, yeah, those It feels boring. It feels repetitive, but it also develops a really important skill set for copywriters.

Dana Owens: It totally does. And I think, you know, I was like new out of college. Rright out of college, I had gone and I worked at the newspaper and on the police beat for a year. And then I moved from Michigan to Chicago. And then I had for four years, this job writing about professional photography equipment. And like, I think those intro jobs, those getting started and like, figuring things out on your own. I mean, sometimes you’re like, Oh my gosh, I can’t wait to get out of this job. But I haven’t had, I look back on those experiences as absolutely critical, like building blocks for what I’ve been able to create today. And so, you know, earlier on in my career, I’d look back and be like, Oh gosh, I hated that job. But now I look back and I’m like, I’m really thankful for that job because it was tough to get through. And I didn’t want to go in there most days, but there was a purpose to it. So it was all good, you know?

Rob Marsh: Yeah, it’s a good place to learn the basics. So you started kind of your side gig when you had your kids and an old boss reached out to you. Like, talk a little bit about that process, because again, this is, I mean, you know this from experience. This is one of those things where copywriters have a difficult time figuring out where do I get clients for my side gig? How do I create these relationships that turn into work? So yeah, how did that work for you?

Dana Owens: Well, it’s kind of funny. We talked about my job writing about professional photography equipment, my boss at that job, he was like in charge of our entire marketing arm of the business. And so, you know, he had been my boss for four years. I had actually, after I left that job, I did a total career change and went into elementary education of all things. It was a seventh grade teacher and a second grade teacher. for many years. And that, again, like you would think, what does that have to do with copywriting? But it actually, again, taught me how to take complicated ideas and topics that they were complicated to a seventh grader or complicated to a second grader, and really figure out how to talk about it in a way that they could understand, cut through all the noise and go right for the main message. So I did that. And then I had by that point, I’d had two kids, I was a stay at home mom for a while and just kind of figuring out like, what do I do? I want to be home with my kids for as much as I can. And the boss that I had from that professional photography writing job, he reached out to me. He sent me a Facebook message and he’s like, Hey, I know, you know, we haven’t talked in like years and I am no longer with this company that we worked together at, but I have my own, he’s a designer. He had his own design and branding company. And so he was looking for a part-time copywriter to help him out. Just at that time, it was like. Little teeny projects. Like I’ve got like one or two little projects a month and you know, I, I hear that you’re, you know, you’re got two kids, maybe you’d have time to do this on the side. And at that time, I really was one looking for ways to just to start working again. But also I missed writing so much after spending some time in education. And so it was like, how can I say no to this? Like, this is super easy, no problem. And so That’s how it started. It was just this little invitation. And really, when I got the message in my Facebook inbox, I just remember reading it and being like, oh, this just feels kind of meant to be. This is perfect for me. I want a way to get back into writing. Here it is, an old connection of mine. I’m not starting from scratch with someone I barely know. I don’t have to go out there and get my own work. This guy is literally just dropping it in my lap, these small things. And so it started for the first six months, it really was like these one or two little teeny projects that I could do around my kids. And then he took on a much bigger client. It was a coaching company who at that time specifically did leadership and development for middle managers, which was at that time kind of a niche of theirs. And so he took on this client and all of a sudden there was like tons of writing work just for them. So he kept coming back to me like, hey, I got a little bit more for you. Hey, I got a little bit more. I got a little bit more. And all of a sudden, my two little projects a month went to very steadily like quarter time work. And I mean, it wasn’t like maybe a year after that. I was working like part time for him just on this one client. but doing all types of different work. I was starting to do all of their marketing collateral, starting to do, like they were doing curriculum design and I was writing some of that and all kinds of, all kinds of stuff. And then I remember at one point I started to, um, they already had case studies in place, but I was working to kind of beef up their case studies. And it was through that client in that. intro to copywriting thing. And with them, I worked maybe for three years. But that was the first time I realized I put the pieces together about what a case study was and like why companies needed them and why this coaching company in particular desperately needed them. And so that was like the seed that kind of turned into the passion that I have now, but also like just me launching off and going. I was still working for him. And with this coaching company, but I started to take on my own clients on the side and see like, Hey, this has been a great launch off point to work with him, but I’m a very independent person. I don’t want to just be his, like I was, I was a contracted person, but like I did it, I felt like an employee and it was like, I really want to go off into my own now and start to build. The business that I want to run the one that I want to create. And so, but that was the start of it all.

Rob Marsh: And did I hear you right? You said you’re still working with him today.

Dana Owens: No, I’m not. No, I actually… I feel so bad, but in the process of my growth, I had to… It was one of those situations where he had literally given me this opportunity when I was a stay-at-home mom, and we had so much fun together. Our personality, we were both goofballs, and we just laughed so much. We talked every single day for years around projects, and we had a blast. But his, we just ended up having different philosophies on the types of clients that we wanted to take on. And I had a real, I developed this real line in the sand around. I knew that as I developed in my business and as a business owner, that there was a real line in the sand of, I am a consultant first and foremost. That’s how I feel. It’s really developed as my specialty and like what I love. about my skill set. And he, because of that nature of mine, like if someone wasn’t going with my strategy enough, like it’s one thing, you know, I know, I’m going to present my strategy at the end of the day, it’s what the client wants to do. But if there’s too much of a misalignment, I am going to say that we’re not a fit, whereas he would have continued the relationship much longer than I would have. And so we never had any disagreements or anything. It was just like a different philosophy. And so I was like, you know what? I think we just, it’s time to move on. And he was fine with it. But I mean, we worked together for a good seven years. Yeah.

Rob Marsh: I seem to remember. I mean, it might’ve been a different client, but when you were in The Copywriter Accelerator, you were working through some of this stuff and trying to figure out like, what am I going to be building and what am I doing? And really trying to figure out how you were going to niche your business.

Dana Owens: Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And when I was in the accelerator, it was, I mean, I think the one thing that if I would go back, I mean, cause that was like seven years ago. If I would go back as me now and talk to me in The Accelerator, I would have just told myself to chill out. Like I was so interested in like, I’ve got to find a niche or what am I doing? Is my writing perfect? And how do I, you know, get away from this client that I feel like I’m spending way too much time with? And now at the vantage point that I have, it’s like all of what was going on in there and all of that angst and like, it was all for such a purpose. And I wish that I would have just looked at it as like everything that was coming into my work world and every day with my clients and all of these challenges and things that I was working through, like it was all leading me to the place that I’m at now, which is total freedom. But I was just like, Oh, I just want to get there. Like I just, I just want to skip over what has become seven years of experience so I can just get there like right now. And That would have been a huge disservice if I would have just gotten there immediately because I’ve learned so much along the way. But yeah, I was totally wrapped up when I was in the accelerator and feeling like I was devoting way too much time to this guy. I wasn’t spending enough time on building my own business. But the funny thing was, is I had no idea what I wanted to do within copywriting.

Rob Marsh: Yeah.

Dana Owens: And so I had a whole lot of generalist copywriting time to go before My niche found me. I didn’t go out looking for it. It literally found me and it was like, oh, this is totally it. But I wouldn’t have found that if I would have gone searching for it on my own.

Rob Marsh: So I want to come back to that. But you mentioned needing to go through these steps, the accelerator, and then really figuring it out. What are some of those steps that you went through over those years before you landed and said, yep, this is the thing?

Dana Owens: Like I just needed experience. Like I, so I was working for that guy with the old boss, you know, and, um, so I was doing a whole bunch of different types of copywriting for him, which was great, but it was really primarily focused around this one client. So I wasn’t getting a whole breadth of experience as far as client diversity goes, but I was getting a lot of experience as far as deliverables go.

Rob Marsh: Yeah.

Dana Owens: So while I was working for him as well, I found another web design and branding agency that I started. I came on as like a contractor as one of their copywriters. And in that one, I still actually got a very good breadth of deliverables. Like I was doing a website copy. I was doing sales emails. I was doing, oh gosh, sales pages, just. social media content, like anything you could think of really. But with that, um, with that opportunity, I was also getting the breadth of clients. So whenever a client would come in, it would be all of these different industries. And then I would get paired with that project and what I would receive. I wasn’t doing, I wasn’t doing anything. Well, I guess I was kind of doing client facing work. I think at one point in the process, I would be able to speak to the client But most of it was reviewing transcripts where the business owner had interviewed the client, talked about the business strategy, what they were going to do with the new website. So I was listening to a strategist strategize with the new client, which was so beneficial. And then I would get all of these notes about how to position the website copy and or how to position a sales page. And so then I would take that and I would write, you know, create the deliverable. And so that was just like, if my working with the, you know, my old boss was like level one, this other opportunity was like level two. So, but it was those steps where I was still during that time being like, Oh, I just want to build my own business. Like I want to get out from underneath these people, but it It was all foundation that I needed and experience that I needed to figure out what types of copy I liked and what types of copy I didn’t. Sometimes the types of copy I was good at, I didn’t really like writing. And some of the time, the stuff that I thought, like I wrote it and I was like, Oh, this is crap. I’d turn it in to get reviewed. And they’d be like, this is amazing. Zero edits. And so I needed to go through all of that, all of that trial and error and getting used to getting feedback and being reviewed. And at first I was terrified of that. And now I’m like, just tell me, you know, like, I don’t have time to worry about what the feedback is. I gotta, I gotta get on to other things. So here’s what I did. Here’s what I’ve done. Give me the feedback and let’s go, you know? So I had to learn how to accept feedback. I had to learn. what types of copy I really loved, which ones I was good at, when to use what, you know, what types of copy are effective in different situations. I had to learn how to write for different audiences in different industries. I mean, there was just an infinite amount that I had to learn in those years that has served me great now.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. I mean, the process really is, you’ve got to get through it. And when you do and you succeed and you have clients, it gives you the confidence to do the things that you love. And speaking of the things that you love, you landed on case studies. I mean, in my LinkedIn feed, in my world, you’re one of the two or three uh, copywriters that I know that are entirely focused on case studies and it’s your thing. Let’s talk about that. How did you figure out that this is the thing you loved and you wanted to do for, you know, the, maybe not the rest of your life, but for the foreseeable future?

Dana Owens: Yeah. Well, there were two things that happened and The Copywriter Club is so instrumental to this. So at the time that I realized what case studies were was when I was working with my old boss and we were, you know, doing all this work for this coaching company. And so for the longest time, this coaching company, who I sat at the time, really was focused on providing leadership development for middle managers. They were very niched in working with middle managers, and they weren’t, they didn’t have a lot of competition. So they were used to you know, pitching these larger companies or having people come to them and they would explain their offerings and they would close the deals. So that’s how it was for like the first two years that we worked with them. And then after about two years, there was this influx of companies that came in all doing L&D, all doing it for all types of different managers, middle managers included. And they had this real, oh man moment where they were like, We’re, the marketplace is becoming flooded and we’re going into, and some of these competitors are amazing. Like they, their board of directors is like they’re celebrities on the board of directors. Like they are so dialed in. They have so many features that we don’t have. We still stick by our process and our product, but we are drowning amongst these competitors right now. And so they were going into these sales meetings and they were like, We’re having such a hard time closing these deals. Like what is going on? So my old boss and I started to really think about what we could do to help them, what collateral they really needed in these sales meetings and how they could position themselves to get back to closing these deals easier. And I remember at around that time I had been, I mean, I was like in the copywriter club one night, I’m like scrolling through the Facebook group. And I remember somebody posted a question and they were, they were like, or they were kind of doing event session. And they were like, I mean, I was talking to this prospect today and like their website is terrible. Like the design is terrible. And the copy on it is terrible. And I was trying to like tell them why they needed really good copy. And they basically ignored me and rolled their eyes or whatever. And they’re like, why do some people refuse to update their websites? Okay. And there were all these different comments and the people were saying like, I know it’s so infuriating. Like people don’t understand the value of good copy. And they were just going off and sympathizing with this person. And then there was this one guy that just posted this very simple comment. And he said, results sell. And he said, If their copy is crap and their design looks super old and outdated, but they are producing results, they don’t need to change their copy. It’s not at the top of their priority list because the results are selling itself. And I was just like, results sell. That is exactly it. It was like this eureka moment for me. And it’s like, duh, of course I know that. But it was just the simplicity in the way that he said it. And I related it right back to this coaching company. And it was like, they are not doing enough, if anything, to really hone in on the results. They need to lead with their results. And if they can do that, they can cut through all of these other companies. Because they were seeing good results. So that all of a sudden it was like this little like switch turned in me and I became so passionate about helping. I wanted to help them package up their results. And I knew from looking at some of their previous case studies that their case studies were not compelling. They weren’t well done. They weren’t adequately showcasing the results that their clients had seen. And so I, I’m very passionate. Like when I find something that I’m passionate about, I am like, Watch out, people. I will be heard. I don’t care if I’m this peon copywriter. I’m going right to the CEO. You’re going to know that I’ve got a great idea for you. So I went charging in there. We’ve got to focus on your results. Please, I want to rewrite all your case studies. I want to interview your clients. And I even went so far as to start thinking, how can we set? They were just starting a new, nine month coaching engagement with a very high profile brand. And I was like, we have got to set up this coaching engagement. So you are actually getting the data and the feedback from the client. Periodically throughout this engagement to write, to create video and written the most killer case study, because it’s going to be your best sales enablement tool going forward. So I am flying in there with all these ideas. This is what I want to do. And I was so disappointed because it was totally met with not entirely deaf ears, but they, this is where I’m talking about where the philosophical differences, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was a huge missing piece for this company. And they loved everything I was saying, but they weren’t, they didn’t have I don’t know, courage, that sounds like the weird thing to say, but it’s like they weren’t willing to shift their processes to gather the information to really create compelling case studies. And so that was one huge thing where I was like, okay, that’s fine. If you guys aren’t on board. Totally cool. But because I’d been doing so much web copy work with this other, uh, web design and branding agency, I was seeing over and over again. that the coaching company wasn’t alone. I was talking to so many other companies and I was starting to say how I want to take a results driven approach with your website copy. I want to go in talking about your results. I don’t want to go in talking about what you do and the features and benefits of your products and services, even though that’s super important. I want to lead with your results. What insight do you have from your customers that can help you do that? And so many companies, basically everyone was like, we don’t really systematically gather anything right now. We have some good testimonials. We can give you testimonials, but we don’t, we’re not tracking and measuring the outcomes that we want to be known for. We, we don’t have any case studies to share with you that you can riff off of or incorporate into your website copy. And it was like. You know, I went through a five companies like this and it was like, this is a huge hole that I saw. And I was like, I love, I, I’m so passionate about this. I want to just do this and only this, because there’s not literally a business that’s in operation that cannot benefit from this. And I’m going to hang my hat in this niche and go for it. And then I have, that’s what I did.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, this is amazing. So I can, you know, believe that there are other copywriters out there thinking, okay, well, yeah, results driven approach leading with results. This sounds great. Maybe I should be doing case studies, or at least be encouraging more of my clients to be doing case studies, but they don’t know how to do it. So I know you’ve got a very detailed process. In fact, you’ve got some templates that you share with copywriters to walk us through all of that stuff. But will you give us the basics on what we need to do for writing case studies so that they actually do the thing they’re supposed to do?

Dana Owens: Well, do you mean from like the, if you’re a copywriter and you want your clients to be, you want to be, do more case study writing for your clients or for you to be, do you mean for copywriters who want to niche like I did exclusively into creating case studies.

Rob Marsh: Let’s talk about doing it for clients, you know, so that we’re helping them. And, you know, if we want to extrapolate from that, OK, this is how we would also do this kind of thing. We can do that. But yeah, how do we help our clients create great case studies?

Dana Owens: Yeah, well, so the first thing is, I mean, like I said, there’s not a business in operation that cannot benefit from case studies, from having them as sales enablement tools and marketing tools in their business. That goes for product-based businesses, service-based businesses. If there’s a company, even a business owner who’s just getting started and they have one happy client, they have someone to create a case study around. So it’s really applicable to anybody and any business. And so from the standpoint of a copywriter, let’s say you’ve been hired on to do anything. You can always suggest an additional product. or an additional, you know, deliverable to a company that you’re working with, like, Hey, have you ever thought about creating case studies? So it’s a great way to continue working with the company that you love and just add value for them. Because I’ve, you know, even though case studies is like a buzzword and you go to so many websites these days and you see there’s like a case study tab on their web, their website. It doesn’t mean at all that the case studies up there are well done and done in a strategic fashion. So for any copywriter, it’s the chances of you being able to add value to your client by creating case studies for them is like almost assured. But the way to do it is just, you know, when you’re in there in a copywriting project, you have access to a lot of typically client research. Sometimes you’re doing your own client interviews, all of that stuff. You’re literally sitting right there at the front door of being able to take what you’re learning about their clients and turn it into a case study. So the first thing is just whatever it is you brought in to do, whether it’s a sales sequence or it’s a sales page or it’s, you know, a website copy, or even just a one sheet on like a company’s product or whatever. If you have any access to client feedback for any of those projects, look for the wins, look for client quotes or client feedback about the experience they’ve had with the company itself, with the product or service, and then just look for, can you kind of piece together the story arc of Where the client was, you know, was there a picture of what life looks like before the product or service came into their life? Do you, through the active working with the company and learning about their services, can you kind of see what, what is unique about it and how clients have used it or experienced it? And then are you starting to see the outcomes that a client has had through you know, working with the company and their products and services. And if you can see that story arc, it’s such an easy pitch just to say, Hey, can I put this together in the form of case study for you? And, and you can use this as a sales announcement tool or however you want. Um, so that’s what I would get started. Really. It’s just looking at the story overall of the product or service within a company. And if you can figure out these are the common challenges, this is how the solution fits into solving them. and these are the common outcomes and results that a client typically has, boom, like walk through that door and create a case study about it.

Rob Marsh: So where are, I mean, you mentioned everybody can use case studies. There are case studies out there, but a bunch of them aren’t that great. Where are people making mistakes with case studies? Like what separates the good from the bad? What is it that makes it bad?

Dana Owens: Yeah, okay, I am super passionate about this. Number one, there’s like, just the word, like when you hear case studies, it does. And I hear Joel Klettke talk about this all the time. Like case studies just sounds so clinical and it’s true. It really does. Customer success stories. It’s like, there’s so much, it’s so much of a better, friendlier term. And I try to use that wherever I can, but I’ve recognized that like most people do know the term case studies. And so. So many times when I try to shift the language to use customer success stories, people still bring it right back to case studies. But when you think about case studies and just that term, it sounds so dusty and boring and often jargony and clinical. And so. The bad case studies are all that, all of that boring stuff. But one thing is to make case studies truly compelling. I’ve been so passionate in my process. hinges on having a direct interview with whoever my clients’ clients are. So the biggest mistake that I see companies making with their case studies is that they try to create them in-house. And, you know, of course, like you’ve got copywriters on staff sometimes or content writers on staff or anybody on staff. Sometimes people, you know, put VAs in charge of this or whoever is available. And they’re like, Oh, let’s create some case studies to give to the sales team or to use like, you know, for the business owner to use when they’re in sales calls. But the biggest mistake is creating your own case studies in house. When you have an out, and this is an opportunity for any independent copywriter. Who’s not on someone’s staff. When you have an outside person who knows what they’re doing, mind you write and create your case studies for you. You are. bringing a neutral third party in with a totally neutral ear, one, to help you gather insights from your customers. That’s one big benefit. But also, it just puts your client, whoever you’re interviewing, at ease because it’s so much less awkward for them to talk about the service or product that they’ve used. Typically, when you’re talking directly to the company about the service, You wanted to talk about all the good stuff.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, you can’t be honest. At least you feel like you have to put a good spin on it, right?

Dana Owens: Yeah, but when you’re talking to someone like me or another copywriter who’s not associated with the business, I’ve learned that there’s a lot more comfortability and there’s so much more candid in what they say. So rule number one is when you have someone outside of the house doing your case studies, you get so much better insights that make the case study more compelling. But you’re also able to tell the case study from the vantage point of the customer instead of the company. So the biggest thing is when companies do their own case studies in-house, it’s yet another way that the business is talking about itself. And that is what just gets my goat because it’s like companies talk about themselves all day long in everything they do. They talk about themselves on their sales calls. They talk about themselves on the website. They talk about themselves, you know, in all of their marketing collateral. And case studies are one avenue. If you do them through the vantage point of the customer, that you have a tool that can connect peer to peer with your prospect. So don’t give up that opportunity. And so compelling case studies are told through the customer’s perspective. So you do have that connection point with your prospect. That’s number one. The second thing that makes for a good case study is making sure that it is formatted in a way, if you’re doing a written written case study, where it’s even a video case study where it’s actually consumable. So much of the time I’ll see that someone will take the time to have a case study created and then they put it up directly on their website as just this giant wall of text, super small font. And it’s like, no one is going to read that.

Rob Marsh: Or it looks like a white paper, you know, maybe they create a PDF or something and it just looks like a white paper.

Dana Owens: It’s so boring. There’s no graphics. There’s no like, oh yeah, it’s. Boring things don’t get consumed. It goes back to even if you have a one page case study, if it’s super boring and not told through the perspective of the customer, like it’s not going to get read. And then same thing with video. If you do a video case study, but the case, the video is like three minutes long and it goes into every, there’s not a lot of flow or story arc to video. It’s someone’s going to watch 20 seconds of it and be done. So compelling case studies actually get consumed. But the last thing about a compelling case study—and I’m sure we can talk more about this—is compelling cases actually get used. They get used as sales enablement tools. And so what I see so much is people will take the time to create the case study, but then they slap them up on their website. And sometimes they beautifully build them into their website. So I don’t mean to say they always slap them up, but they put them up on their website alone and think, okay, case studies are meant to live on your website. But when they’re up there, you are literally hoping that someone finds it and clicks on it. And my whole thing with my case studies, these are sales enablement tools. First, I’m going to teach you how to put these things in your sales process and use them. How so that you can close sales, not use them the first and foremost as a marketing play and pray that somebody connects with it. And so another, the third biggest mistake is that people only associate case studies with marketing and not with sales.

Rob Marsh: So let me ask you about that. So as a copywriter, do you actually jump into Salesforce or any of these other sales tools and say, this is where it goes. It’s going to be sent out at this point in the sales process. Like you’re getting that deep into the sales conversation.

Dana Owens: That’s where my work has gone. I didn’t start out that way. Five years ago, when I put my flag on the case study planet, I wasn’t, and now I’m going to become a sales enablement consultant. In the beginning, it was like, oh, companies need a way to showcase the results that they’ve had and case studies can do it. Everything was just about talking to you know, running these client interviews and creating the case studies. And then I would say, there you go. Look at this amazing case study. Like, let me know if you need anything. And then I would disappear and people would be thrilled to have this case study. But I realized over time that I was like, wait a minute, like they’re only putting these things on their website. Like these can help you close sales. And so it was over the course of, you know, the first two years of me doing case study work that I thought, Oh, and this is another thing to talk about, like the evolution of any form of copywriting. When you, this all comes with experience too. Like you started out saying, I love to do sales pages and I want to do sales pages. Or for me, it was, I love case studies and I want to do case studies. When you really start to specialize in one area. You go in with the vantage point of, for me, it was all about the case studies, but, but as you go, you start to see all of the gaps that come up. either their front end or the back end. So the first thing for me was, oh, companies not only need these tools, I got to teach them how to use them. I can’t just hand them off and like think they’re going to use them effectively. And my results that I can use to market my own business and sell my own case studies rely on my customers using them correctly. So I can’t just deliver the case study and say adios, like I’ve got to help them use them effectively. Then it became, oh, these customers are coming to me and saying, I love what you’ve done. How can we make the case study even more compelling? How can we include data? And then it was like, well, what kind of data have you been collecting? And they would say, no.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, of course.

Dana Owens: So then it was like, oh, another opportunity for me to add even more value for my clients. I can help them recognize the outcomes that they want to be known for to differentiate themselves. And then I can help them think of simple systems that they can put in place that will gather data that we can use in our case studies. And that’s kind of great work stability for me, too, because the more data they’re collecting, the more results they clearly see, and the more case studies they need me to help them with. So it works both ways. Going back to your question about how to use the case studies, that was what resulted over the couple of years of me starting to do this. And I became really passionate about helping companies figure out what, and this was so interesting because you just, I just thought naively like, well, of course every company knows what their sales process is. You’re like, they’re in business. Right. And then, and then I put myself through this process and this is how I developed the process at all. And I was like, Well, what’s my sales process? And then I thought, well, I’m sure I’ve got one here somewhere cause I’m making sales, but like, what is it actually? So I really sat down and plotted out and it turned out there were like three different sales processes that I had given how people find me. And I took myself through the process. And then I asked myself, well, where, if someone is going to fall off of one of these processes, where do they fall off? And there was typically one or two big spots where they were going to fall off. And it was like, okay, that’s where my case studies go to help to move, continue to move the conversation along or provide that, you know, the proof that somebody needs that I’m legit or whatever it is, you know, whatever buyer hesitation there is, the case studies, you implement them there to remove that hesitation. And so I just use that same process with my clients. where it’s like, okay, here are your case studies. Please don’t just put them on your website and think that’s the only thing to do with them. Let’s, now I do a call at the end of my process and it’s like, let’s really map out your sales process. No, I’m not, I don’t call myself a sales consultant. So like a sales consultant is going to go way deeper into this than I would. But as far as the case studies go, I have them, let’s map out even just one of your sales processes. Let’s highlight if someone’s going to fall off, where do they fall off? And then let’s put a process in place for where you insert your case studies into that and what you say specifically. That gets these in front of people’s eyes, you know? And so, um, yeah, I teach them that too. I don’t want there to be any holes from somebody saying, Thank you so much for your product. And then when I follow up with them and I say, well, how’s it been working for you? And they go, I don’t know. I do not want them to say that.

Rob Marsh: I love this. I mean, you know, because you went through the process with us, but in The Copywriter Accelerator, we talk about the different ways that you can show up in your business as a partner for your client or as an order taker at the low end or at the high end, really, as a consultant, as a partner who helps figure out solutions to big problems. And it’s really easy to say, well, I write case studies and that’s a solution to a problem, but you’ve gone wider to identify what’s the real problem, which is they need sales. And yes, a case study will help them get there, but if they’re not using it, It doesn’t help them all that much. And so I think it’s genius to jump inside the tools that they’re using. Not only that, though, of course, you’re writing case studies and you love that. But if you’re in a Salesforce tool and you’re looking at the entire sales automation process, you can say, wait a second, why isn’t an email going out between week one and week five? Why would you let a whole month go by without reaching out to a hot prospect? And you can start to say, well, OK, maybe it’s not a case study that fits in here, but we need to start telling them about this demo that we have or talk about some of the benefits that they’re going to get. And so it’s an opportunity to create a ton of work for yourself if you want it. And you said you don’t call yourself a consultant here, but that’s exactly what you’re doing.

Dana Owens: Oh, no, I do. I do. Now I do.

Rob Marsh: OK, good.

Dana Owens: Now I am a hundred, like, that’s like my biggest joy is being the, as getting in there in the strategy. But I couldn’t have done that in the beginning because I had to work with all of those clients first. And I had to have, start with the, it was all about the deliverable, but that’s, that’s the, you’re in, you know? And it’s like that with the deliverable is what I loved, but in going through client after client and getting inside their business, That’s where you, over time, you start to see where the holes are. You know, you think your deliverable is filling the biggest hole and maybe it is, but when you’re in there, you recognize, oh, there’s this issue that needs to be fixed and this, and then all of a sudden you understand the full picture. And that’s when you become the, that’s when I became a strategist. I won’t speak for anyone else. But one thing that you said about, you know, you. When you’re in there and you start to take on more of the consultative role, You definitely, and you’re, you see the gaps that need to be filled and how they can be filled and you create more work for yourself. What I’ve learned you also can do, and this has been so huge for my business is you also. Find really great, like collaborative partners for yourself, strategic alliances. So I never went into this thinking that my best collaborative partners were going to be sales consultants or sales coaches. They absolutely are. And so now I’ve learned to, when I network or I’m talking to people or who I reach out to, to just start conversations with on LinkedIn or wherever is I am a perfect pairing with the sales coach because they’re, they’re the ones that do the deep nitty gritty with the sales process. And I don’t really want to get in there and dig through your CRM as much as I want to help you strategically select the right clients. to get insights from and leverage in your case studies. But like for sales coaches, they’re in there. They’re in this business working on the sales process. They’re the ones that say, oh my gosh, you’ve had X, Y, and Z amazing client result. We need to bring in Dana to help you package these up. And then she’s going to work side by side with me in the sales process to figure out how to use these tools and the right way to get these prospects from a maybe to a yes. And so these, like aligning with just a couple sales consultants has changed my business because I just, it’s them and growth strategists. I just get the steady stream of referrals from these people because it’s just such a natural way for them to add value to their clients by bringing me in. And I, um, I can seriously help their process by doing what I do.

Rob Marsh: Yeah, that makes total sense. The one other thing that occurs to me as you’re talking about this entire process is that clients may think that they can use an AI tool to write a case study, but very few clients are going to be able to figure out how to use AI to go through the entire sales process and identify, okay, here’s a need here and here’s a need here. I’m sure that there are tools out there that can do it, but stringing them together to produce the result would take way more work than hiring Dana to come and do this for me. And so it just makes so much sense as a service offering for a copywriter who does the work that you do, case studies.

Dana Owens: Yeah. Well, I still like when I think about AI taking over case studies and customer success stories, it makes me sad because I would never like there is so much benefit to a business by having an actual human being talk to their clients. And, you know, of course, like, that’s one thing I just AI or not, like, you should never outsource that to Yeah, to anyone because or I mean, outsource it to a human, like, you should never like circumvent that. and not have a human being to do it just because it builds trust. Like it makes your client feel so valued. The company itself gets these valuable insights and then you have an actual human strategist who’s putting all of these connections together for you. But yeah, you can feed this transcript into AI and have AI generate the case study for you. But I just, I like anything. I mean, it’s efficiency sake, heck yes. You know, like you could generate a whole bunch of case studies that way. And that’s if that benefits your business, then more power to you. But I’m all about really strategizing, not having you don’t need to have at least not the companies I work with have a million case studies. You really can can do so much with just a strategically created three to five that are very specific and targeted. And I still feel like it is so so helpful to have a human being putting together. If you do have that small collection, having human right position, connect with those stories, like AI cannot do that yet. Cannot connect in that way. So yeah, that’s all I have to say about that.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. Until then, until then we need more Dana’s out there doing this stuff. So, just a last point of discussion. When it comes to copywriters charging to do this work, I’ve seen a really wide range. In fact, I’ve experienced a really wide range. I’ve done case studies, I think, on the low end for like $750 for two to three pages. I’ve charged $5,000 with one company for a case study that I did for them. Big executive coaching company, right? It was totally appropriate. but there’s this massive range. What should most copywriters expect to be or where should they be when they’re talking to companies about, well, B, I’m wording this terribly, but what should they be charging and how much can they make?

Dana Owens: Well, I think if you’re just getting into it, like I think when I just started doing this, I remember I was working at Amy Posner. She was my writing coach at the time. And I remember her saying, well, what can the market bear? And she threw out there, 750 bucks. And I remember thinking, Oh, gosh, I hope that’s not like the going rate for case studies, because I’m not going to be able to do this for long. But I think I did start out charging $750 per case study. And it was probably like a 1200 word, you know, case study. That was a great place for me to start. Because I look back on my entry level case studies, and they’re so much more in depth now not and I don’t mean long, I just mean juicier and what I pull out of my client interviews is so much juicier and the design is improved and the positioning is improved.

But to get started, I felt like it was, I felt really good about 750 and it wasn’t so much that I felt like it had to be this Pulitzer prize winning case study. But I, once I, once I started to get really good feedback, like, dang, this is great. I started to increase, increase. And so. I would say like a really solid rate for a case study, again, in like your first year, 18 months would be like 1500. Now I’m easily charging 25 to 3,500 for a, I call them full story case studies or like the more in-depth case studies. Um, but I, now I, everything for me is about working with companies who are ready to jump in and do a collection of case studies. And so those projects for me are, you know, anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 for a collection of case studies. And now I, I feel like I’m being paid for my strategy. I’m being paid for my interviewing skills. I’m being paid for my writing and project management skills. And like I said, helping them insert that these, these tools into their sales process. So, so the sky’s the limit really, because everyone says you want it as close as you can get to the sale. That’s like the best place to be. And case studies, if you position them, which I do for a sales enablement tools, you are right there in there with the sale. So you, this, you can charge a lot as long as you have the experience, you know, you gotta, you gotta hone your, hone your skill first.

Rob Marsh: I mean, in a lot of ways, case study is just sort of a mini sales page, right? It’s not 15,000 words. Well, I guess a case study could be 15,000 words as long as it’s that compelling and there’s all that information that needs to be shared, but probably not. But yeah, it’s a mini sales page and if you can tie it directly to the sale, you should be able to charge more for it. So that’s awesome.

Dana Owens: Yeah.

Rob Marsh: So I know you’ve got a resource that might help out some copywriters who would be interested in doing more case studies and doing them professionally, not just handing over a Google Doc saying, here you go. Tell us about that and how people can get a hold of that if they’re interested.

Dana Owens: Yeah. So I just wanted to, this was like two years ago now, I wanted to create a resource that, because I was getting so many questions from copywriters about, hey, what interview questions do you ask? And can you tell me like how you How can I help companies strategically pick the right clients to feature in case studies? So I was getting the same questions over and over. And so I decided to put together a do it yourself. It’s a digital workbook. It’s actually interactive and it takes, it’s my whole process, but it’s, it goes through, um, an interactive worksheets and it teaches you all of the different portions of my product, my process. and basically teaches you how to write your own one page case study. It was a little bit too difficult to figure out how do you teach someone to write a 1500 word case study, but a one pager is a great place to start.

So it’s a, it’s a self paced, but it’s a digital interactive workbook. And it’s kind of cool. Like it teaches you how by section, how to write the case study. And then at the end of the workbook, it spits out your case study text. So not only can you create case studies for your own copywriting business, but if you’re a copywriter who wants to incorporate case study writing into your bag of tricks, it teaches you my process that you can use with some of your copywriting clients. And it’s at a really, you know, approachable price point. And the best thing about it is you can take yourself through the process. And then at the end, you can hit clear. All the copy is cleared and you can go back and use the workbook again and again. So, um, yeah, you can find that on my website. It’s nextlevelcopy.com. And I’m always, my inbox is always open to talk to anybody about the workbook. If you go through it and you have questions, like I, my inbox is free to anyone. And I love to respond because I love to talk about case studies.

Rob Marsh: That’s awesome, Dana. We’ll make sure that people go check that out. We’ll link to it in the show notes in case somebody’s not able to scribble this down while they’re out running or driving or doing something else. But make sure that people can check that out and your website, Next Level Copy. Is that the best place to find you? Should we also be looking on LinkedIn?

Dana Owens: Yeah, my website is a great place emailing me. I’m, you know, an avid emailer. So that’s Dana at nextlevelcopy.com. And then I’m also at LinkedIn. on LinkedIn and my handle is nextlevelcopy, all one word, all lowercase.

Rob Marsh: Everywhere you are. Thanks, Dana. This has been amazing and really enlightening, actually, especially on how copywriters can expand out of that doing the work, just showing up to be told what to do and actually start to advise and consult with clients in a bigger way. So thank you.

Dana Owens: Yep. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun.

Rob Marsh: That’s a wrap on the interview. Now, you obviously heard about how Dana is connected with sales enablement coaches to get the kind of work that she wants to do. You may not want to work with sales coaches yourself, but what about SEO strategists or launch managers or email list managers or any of a variety of other marketing jobs that help define what kind of content needs to be created for a client, but they may not have the time or even the skills to do that work.

If you can connect with three or four of these people, you’ll have more work as a copywriter than you can actually get to. And then you’ll be the person that’s sharing leads with other copywriters. Partnering with the right people is a game changer for copywriters. In fact, it’s one of the 20 plus ways that we share in the ways to find clients in that free download that I mentioned at the top of the show. If you’re looking for other ways to connect with your ideal clients, go to thecopyrighterclub.com forward slash findaclient to get your report now. Then try the different ideas and see what works for you. That’s thecopyrighterclub.com/findaclient.

Thanks again to Dana Owens for sharing so much about her business, how to write case studies, what exactly the niching has done for her and her business, and so much more. You can connect with Dana at her website, nextlevelcopy.com. She’s got a freebie on her site, but it’s not really for copywriters. It’s because she’s a true expert. She understands that her clients don’t want stuff about copy. They want to understand how to use the work that she does to help them grow. So the freebie is all about how to use case studies to promote your business. You can sign up for that if you want, or you can find her on LinkedIn where she posts from time to time.