Copywriting: 8 ways to kill your job and 8 good life hacks to make your client happy.

Copywriting: We make cool projects, but the cases turn out dull. What is the problem? 

I'm telling you about 8 reasons why it's challenging to showcase how truly cool and professional you are in stories about work.

Hello! My name is Pasha Molyanov, and I lead the content agency “Sdelaem” (“Let’s Do It”)

If I had to choose just one format from all of content marketing, I would choose case studies. Because in them, you have everything: showcasing results, telling the story of the work process, demonstrating your expertise, and illustrating how a product can be based on the client’s task.

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But I know that many struggle to streamline case study production because they turn out differently than expected. At first, it seems like each case will be a significant event and lead to a bunch of clients, but in reality, they end up as a small splash with zero comments.

Here are the most common problems with case studies that prevent them from succeeding ↓

Issue #1. Inflated Expectations from Case Studies

Perhaps, cases may only seem unsuccessful because too much is expected from them: likes, comments, tens of thousands of views, and a flow of service inquiries on top. While such cases do exist, they are genuine gems, like this case.

Most cases, however, are workhorses that don’t break the internet. For instance, with “Bathyscaphe,” we wrote a case about tax optimisation. The article got 3200 views, which isn’t a lot. Yet, it brought in four clients.

Another essential function of cases is to be in the right place at the right time:

• A client chooses between two companies and prefers the one that published a case on dealing with their specific task and industry.
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• During negotiations, a client doubts whether their task can be solved, and the seller immediately shows them a relevant case.
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• A client visits the website, sees 150 successful cases, and the mere presence and quantity add a plus to the trust in the company.

In these cases, it’s not even about popularity at the level of 3200 views, but cases fulfil their purpose.

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All else being equal, cases always lose in popularity to guides, explanations, analytics, reviews, sketches, and storytelling. If one case out of ten takes off, that's already impressive. The purpose of cases is different: to demonstrate how you work with a specific user scenario.

Issue #2. Lack of Interesting Texture

A qualitatively executed project can be downright uninteresting. For example, our agency writes articles for clients on VC. The vast majority of such projects follow the same script: the editor communicates with the client, selects a few topics for articles, chooses one with the client, conducts an interview based on it, writes and approves the text, and then publishes it: done.

Often, advice on writing cases includes suggestions like: “Tell about unexpected situations! How you dealt with things not going as planned! How you made mistakes! How you made a difficult choice!”

I completely agree with this, but what if there isn’t any of that? Make things up? We approached the client call with trepidation: we had to choose three out of five approaches for the article. Those very three approaches that would determine the fate of the entire advertising campaign in PromoPages!

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Even for “ordinary” projects, cases are necessary. I am generally an advocate of having a case for every project. However, they can be released in a light version: simply showcasing the results of the work.

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“An article in the media about how to save money on preparing advertising content.”

And we don’t have to struggle, and the client will see: here’s the article, it’s interesting to read, the views are good. So, these guys are great, we can turn to them.

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Issue #3. Project authors don’t want to deal with case studies.

In publishing cases, two people are most interested: the owner who needs cases to attract clients and the copywriter who is paid for their production.

For everyone else, it’s task number 100500.

The problem is that neither the owner nor even the copywriter can write the case on their own. It’s crucial to have the person (or persons, compounding the problem) who worked on the project.

This person is usually busy working on another project. To write a case, they need to recall the course of the previous project, gather materials, give an interview to the copywriter, and approve the text before publication. It’s a big task, and that’s why cases get stuck. The copywriter hangs around, is treated to breakfasts, and when those stop, they get a “quick” interview.

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Employee to copywriter: “Let’s write a case.”

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I haven’t come up with an elegant way to solve this problem yet. There’s only one that works with a script, but at least it works.

To address this issue:

1. Incorporate case creation into the employee job responsibilities. Make it so that saying “It’s not my job” is not an option.
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2. Devise clear motivation for the team. In our “Let’s Do It” agency, editors receive a fee for cases. “Non-Boring Finances” shared that producing a certain number of cases is a condition for moving to the next grade.
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3. Assign someone responsible for cases. Have a person who will push everyone. It’s crucial that this person can’t be told, “Let’s do it sometime later,” “I don’t want my case published,” “I’ll send the screenshots in 4 weeks,” or just be ignored. In our case, it’s the marketing director handling this. Hopefully, he can delegate it =)

Issue #4. The copywriter is not familiar with the subject matter.

When the project is excellent, the expert has provided interesting insights, and the case should turn out fantastic—yet the outcome is something crumpled and amateurish, with oversights and even factual errors—it’s often because the copywriter is not familiar with the subject.

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This can happen when a copywriter is just starting to work with a new topic they are not acquainted with. The key is not to write off the copywriter as soon as you get the first “amateurish” case. Accept that the first five to ten cases may need extra effort: finding articulate experts, attending meetings with the copywriter, editing the cases several times, and providing materials for learning.

In the early stages, evaluate purely copywriting skills: structure, logic, formulations, visualization skills, and the ability to conduct interviews. Expertise will come later for such a copywriter if you help them immerse themselves in the subject, as it’s entirely new to them.

If you’re not ready for this, seek out copywriters with experience in your field. It’s challenging, but then the cases will be excellent right away.

Issue #5. Not a story but a collection of facts.

Even the most interesting project can turn into a dull, unreadable case if you simply bombard the reader with facts: conducted an audit, implemented one thing, fixed another thing, conducted a plan-fact analysis after a month, here are the results, thank you and goodbye.

In such cases, what’s lacking are the connections that bind the facts into a coherent story:

We began our work with diagnostics and noticed that one of the salespeople was experiencing a drop in conversion → Our task was to increase the conversion rate, but the company lacked detailed analytics. Without it, it was unclear what exactly to focus on. So, we started with diagnostics: for two weeks, we measured the results of the sales department as they were, without any changes. When we tallied the results, we saw that one of the salespeople was experiencing a drop in conversion.

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To boost conversion, we developed an individual training program for the salesperson → Usually, conversion drops when the salesperson lacks knowledge about the product or doesn’t follow the sales process. To check this, we listened to dozens of calls by Ilya – but there was nothing significant there. However, we noticed his speaking style: calm, quiet, sometimes even monotonous.

To the project author, all these connections might seem obvious because they’re accustomed to making such decisions. However, for an outsider, these connections help in better understanding the situation, making it more enjoyable to read.

Moreover, notice how many interesting details have been added: you can see how the specialist reasons, relies on their experience, and finds solutions based on the situations. This is where expertise lies.

Issue #6. Lack of visualisation.

The text effectively conveys facts but struggles to create a mental image for the reader. As a result, cases with weak visuals become overly abstract.

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Header: “How did “PlanFact” solve the problem.”

Pointers: “How it looks in the service?”, “You can also show it.”, “How is this displayed?”

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Did you set up an advertising campaign? Show the advertising creatives and placements where they were used.

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Did you implement financial accounting? Take screenshots of the reports and show what familiar metrics look like in them.

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Have you completed a long-term project and gradually achieved the desired results? Create a chart so that the dynamics can be seen at a glance.

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Have you built friendly relations with the client, surrounded them with love and care? Instead of directly talking about it, it’s better to insert screenshots of conversations into the narrative.

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Issue #7. The case is about everything and nothing.

This happens when a comprehensive project is completed for a client or when there’s an extensive and long-lasting collaboration resulting in a multitude of accomplishments. It might seem logical to cover all these aspects in one case, but it often leads to a case that is either too lengthy or overly superficial.

It’s better to release multiple cases for one client: one focusing on cost optimization, another on the employee motivation system, and yet another on the financial planning system.

If it’s crucial to showcase the complexity of the services, these cases can be assembled into a mega-case. This is what we do with our most significant and prolonged projects: compile cases on one page and showcase them to potential clients when necessary.

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Issue #8. Cases are just sitting on the website.

If a company has many cases on its website, that’s already great. They will fulfill their basic purpose: a potential client visits the site and sees that the team is experienced and has already solved tasks similar to theirs. However, more can be done:

Announce the cases on your social media. Let the audience see that the company is not just talking about smart theories but is engaged in real and rigorous practice.

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Create resized versions for social media. A detailed, lengthy case can be simplified to a 30-second read, increasing the likelihood of wider reach.

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Include cases in your warm-up email sequences. After all, what better way to warm up than with cases? Nothing beats it.

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Use cases everywhere in content marketing. Writing a helpful article? Support your points with practical stories. Need to provide an example in a webinar? Refer to one of your cases. Creating a collection of articles on a topic? Include cases in it as well.

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Integrate cases into the sales department. Encourage sales representatives to incorporate cases into their presentations, choose relevant cases before calling clients, refer to cases when making arguments, study user scenarios and the company’s methodology through cases. It’s frustrating when cases are produced, but the sales department isn’t actively leveraging them.

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Several slides from our agency’s presentation.

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I hope this article helps someone write cases more frequently and effectively. There’s also my personal interest in this because I always enjoy seeing a cool case somewhere on the internet =)

If you’re interested in the topic of content marketing, subscribe to my blog on Telegram → @molyanov

Every day, I share my experience in attracting clients through blogs, social media, and the press. I also talk about how I’m developing the “Sdelaem” (“Let’s Do It”) agency.

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