As we wrap up our Simple SEO Series, in today’s episode, we’re highlighting the value of case studies. Brittany Herzberg joins us to share how she shifted from a massage therapist to an SEO and case study copywriter. Listen in as she shares how your case studies can share your process, connect with your audience, and allow them to see themselves as your client, while also optimizing your SEO.
The Business-First Creatives Podcast is brought to you by CRM and Dubsado expert Colie James. Join Colie each week as she discusses how to build a business that brings you joy and a paycheck! From business advice with fellow entrepreneurs to sharing automation tips and tricks, Colie and her guests are sharing industry trends and resources, along with a little bit of sarcasm.
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Guest Bio:
Brittany Herzberg is the copywriter service providers call when they want to show up as the answer to a Googled question. After test driving her skills with a variety of projects, it dawned on her—her superpower lies in social proof.
That ^^ combined with her 15+ years in the healthcare field, has shown her that clients search for—and book with—people they connect with & TRUST. She believes your #1 business building task should be to create a powerful human connection with strangers—using SEO & story.
As an SEO + Case Study Copywriter, she knows how important it is to:
- craft messaging with intention
- highlight the client experience &
- strategically use your clients’ words
You can usually find her sitting on the floor—parked next to her almost-16-year-old-dog, Jac—with an iced oat milk latte in-hand.
Today’s episode is brought to you by my Love Your Leads private audio training! Are you providing an experience for your leads that sets an expectation on when they’ll hear from you, provides them with tools that will help them easily say yes and book you, while also making them feel seen and heard? In my private audio training, you’ll learn how to love your leads and get more booked clients through an automated booking process.
Here are the highlights…
[:38] Get to Know Brittany
[2:56] What is Social Proof?
[8:14] Naming Your Images
[9:15] Why Case Studies are Important for Businesses
[21:29] Building Your Case Studies: Interviews, SEO Research, and Storytelling
[35:20] Biggest Fuck Up
[39:22] Outsourcing
Mentioned in this Episode:
Stories that Stick by Kendra Hall
Connect with Brittany:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-herzberg/
https://www.instagram.com/brittany_herzberg/
https://brittanyherzberg.com/seo-podcast
https://brittanyherzberg.com/case-study-roadmap
https://brittanyherzberg.com/seo-basics-checklist
Review the Transcript:
Colie: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Business First Creatives podcast. This morning I am interviewing Brittany Herzberg. She is the co-host of the Simple and Smart SEO show podcast, guys. It’s a podcast that you should put in your playlist, and she is also the owner of Copy by B. Okay. Y’all know I don’t normally say like the intros of my guests.
That felt kind of weird. I was testing it out. I don’t know if I’m gonna keep
that. You guys let me know if that sounded good. Brittany, good morning and welcome to my podcast.
How are you doing this morning?
Brittany: I’m doing so great. I’m so excited to talk about all the things.
Colie: All the things guys. She is yet another SEO expert. So if you’ve been listening to the last couple episodes, I have been trying to get you all of this SEO goodness, because this is how you get found on Google. And so I feel like so many of us. Ignore the power of seo. And so this is the third of my experts, and we’re actually gonna be talking about a different angle today.
Brittany is an expert at writing case studies.
All right, Brittany, before we get into that, why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself besides the intro that I just gave everyone.
Brittany: So I am Brittany Herzberg. I mean, you gave the highlights. I am a copywriter by way of massage therapy and the pandemic. And yes, there’s a story there. The three things that I really love helping people with. SEO storytelling and social proof, and I know we’re gonna dive into that because the one thing we’re gonna talk about case studies nicely ties all three of those things together.
It was something that I realized I was naturally doing in my massage practice, and then I literally woke up from a dream one morning and I was like, I need to write case studies. So I figured this thing out and now I have like a whole system, a strategy, a framework I love. Sharing with people how they can do it themselves.
You mentioned you have like the freebie, like I try to make this easy for people because I think it’s so impactful when you’re running your business, when you’re trying to make money and you know, make some sales. So I’m really just jazzed to dive in.
Colie: I mean, I like hearing about people’s wins. So Brittany, kick us off with a definition of social proof, because I feel like that’s a word that we talk about a lot, but I feel like the way that you define social proof is really important to understanding why case studies should matter to every business owner.
Brittany: Yeah, definitely. So the way that I define social proof, and I actually pulled this from one of my presentation slides, is it’s what someone shares about their experience of interacting with you. So if you think of that, it could be even just like an onboarding, a sales call, a um, their interaction with you on social media.
My gosh, that has been huge for me. Whenever I’ve interacted with people on social media, like in the dms, first you get a good sense of, you know, who they are, what they’re like, what it’s gonna be like to work with them. So social proof could be a screenshot, it could be a direct quote, it could be a video or an audio testimonial from someone.
It’s any kind of like feedback, the good feedback that you’re getting about someone. Cuz we only really wanna highlight the, the positive feedback in case you didn’t already know that. So yeah, that’s, that’s how I think of social proofs.
Colie: So it’s funny, and I don’t know why I did it, but I, when Instagram started letting us pin those posts to the top of our feed, I put one up about my course and then I sent an email to everyone who’s ever enrolled in my course, and I was like, Hey guys, I would really appreciate it if you popped over to Instagram on this post and answered one of these three questions.
I wasn’t asking ’em for a testimonial. I wasn’t asking them to say why. It was great. It was basically, you know, what’s the value of having a C R M in your business? Like I, it was very, I don’t wanna say generic questions, but they weren’t about
me. Right. And my people got on that post and wrote the nicest things.
I mean, I think it was like 19 people
got on there and wrote, I mean, one person had just bought the course a week before and he was like, you know, I haven’t even fully dived in. But I clicked on module one and I was blown away by all of the
information that Colie gives and I was like, oh, this is amazing.
I should do this
Brittany: Right. I was just gonna say that I need to do this more often. And that’s the thing too. And with, um, my massage practice, I was asking questions every single day. In and out of every massage I would take, you know, screenshots of people when I did like text reminders. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to see you tomorrow.
Da da da has been bothering me. Like, you work your magic, whatever it is, just like think of every single day, once you start thinking of social proof, you’re just gonna see it sprinkled everywhere in your life. But that was brilliant. Good on you.
Colie: Well, and I think one of the things that all of us miss is that. Sometime, I mean, cuz I am certainly guilty of this and then I’m going through like my folder of like hundreds of random ass screenshots
about everything is that you need a system.
Brittany: Yes, you do.
Colie: place to put these things. I mean, I would like take a screenshot.
And I finally started to remember, Hey, in the very least, I should put the name of the person in the file name. They gave this to me so that if I’m ever searching on my computer later, I’m like, oh, I know that Amber said this really nice thing about me. I don’t remember where it was. I don’t remember when she said it.
But I know I took a screenshot, and
so then I’m going through all of these things called screenshot, April 1st, 2023, and I’m like, I can’t find it.
So I finally started putting everything in a folder when I remember, so that if I need these for an on the fly email or
I’m updating my core sales page, I have all those things at my fingertip.
Brittany: That is beautiful and that is so smart. And that is one of the things that, so I have a course where I teach people how to create their own case studies and one of the things that, one of the pieces of feedback I got from two people, I had six people in the course. They were like, oh my gosh, I love seeing how you organize things.
I love seeing the backend of people’s stuff. And I was like, I, you know, thinking. Yes, I’m pretty organized. Yes, this is a comment that I get a lot from my clients, but I was like, I’m not even doing the most over here, but they like what I have. So I will tell you my favorite tip, because I’m constantly grabbing screenshots, especially on here on my laptop, is I have a folder.
It says, testimonials inside. I have, like I said, I talk about social proof, I talk about storytelling, I talk about seo. So they go in each of their corresponding folders. Like that is my level. Mm-hmm. Because you’re gonna be talking about, I might be talking about my testimonial training, I might be talking about my sales page training.
I might be, you know, writing my services page finally for my case studies. So, yeah, it just, it helps, it makes things so much easier when it actually comes to, you know, utilizing that beautiful social proof that you have.
Colie: Well, I mean, Like in the future, and when I say that you and I were chatting about this, guys, this is the last day of Chloe’s co-op, and so I just have to survive three more weeks and then she will be in summer camp. But when my child is in summer camp and I have five days a week, eight hours a day to work, one of the things that I’m really looking forward to is trying to organize all of this in like Airtable so that I can tag.
With like the product that it’s about what the testimonial or the piece of social proof is about. Like, I’m gonna get real deep because I can’t tell you guys how much time I waste looking for a particular thing, even though I have it all in a folder. Like I still have to open them because there’s only so much you can do when you are naming file.
So, Brittany, that’s in my to-do list for the summer.
I’ll check back in with you in September and
see
Brittany: gonna keep you to it. I’m totally keeping you to it. And then, you know, if you wanna be really extra, if you’re listening and you wanna be extra about it, to weave in some of that SEO stuff. Naming, titling your images is one of the easiest things that you can do. But it’s also hard, right?
It’s much harder, however, to go back and to update your image titles, as we all know, I’m sure. So one thing you can do is just have like a running list. Of keywords that you really wanna show up for. Keep that in your testimonial file. And then as you’re uploading things, let’s say you actually wanna keep the screenshot anonymous.
I do this all the time, so I might say, SEO case study testimonial, or something, that was such a terrible name. But, you know, you get the point, like you can go ahead and like, shove it in there. But if you keep the keyword list in there in that same folder, it makes it a little bit easier. And then you’re also doing yourself, your, your future self a favor.
You’re not, you’re not screwing them over.
Colie: I agree. So we’ve talked about what social proof is, and I think that case studies are super interesting, but I also think a lot of people don’t know what a case study is. So Brittany, how do you explain to someone what a case study is and why it’s so powerful for their business?
Brittany: I love this question. Okay, so the first thing I’m gonna do is actually give you like a really good analogy that I use all the time. Okay. Testimonials. We love them. They are like a movie trailer. They’re the teaser. They’re like something good happened or something bad happened. But in this case, something good happened. Case studies are the feature length film. You get all of the nuance. You get all of the context, you get the entire story. You get the whole story arc. You get to see the person and like whatever craziness or magicalness happened. So case studies allow for connection, which is huge. Between the reader and the business owner, and the reader and the client or student or whoever that you’re talking about, the case study subject, also known as a human.
I just love them because especially now, like these days, really in the last three years I’ve seen this, and I’ve heard this from people, they’re not sure if they can trust testimonials because they feel so far out of reach. When you actually give context and nuance to that story, someone is much. It’s much easier for them to see themselves in that a joke like in that desk chair.
They get to see themselves going through that process. It makes it feel more attainable, even if all they’re connecting to is some emotional win and not like a monetary win.
Colie: Yeah. Well, and I mean, I do think that’s on us though, because I’ve had some really juicy testimonials and as someone. Who has, for the most part, written my own websites, written my own sales pages. I mean, the one advice that you get from every single copywriter is, Hey, if you get like a juicy tidbit with a number, make sure that you share it because it catches the reader’s attention.
So in that respect, like saying that someone went through a course in three days, that’s what someone gave me a testimonial for, for my CRM blueprint. But I mean, putting that everywhere. While Posey certainly went through the course in three days, by day four, she was accepting new clients through Dubsado.
That doesn’t mean that everybody is going to be able to attain that. She also further in her quote, talked about how it was three really long days, like three days where she didn’t do shit.
She didn’t cook dinner, she didn’t do anything in her house, but work on her DOS account. And so I feel like the context is important.
But like that little juicy tidbit is what catches someone’s eye on a sales page and on a sales page, I don’t really have the space to put an entire case study,
so I’ve gotta put like, you know, a highlight and then maybe a little note if you wanna learn more, click here. But so that’s how I think about case studies versus the testimonials that often become headlines on your different pages, on your website, and more specifically your sales pages.
Brittany: Yeah. Bingo. So there’s a couple things to, to tackle there. I do wanna talk about case studies on the sales page, so if I lose my train of thought, pull me back there. But definitely those. They, they hook you. They grab your attention. They are, um, you know, the phrase that’s popping in my head right now is they can be a little clickbait, but in a good way.
So yes, you want to have some kind of like this major thing happen, but then we wanna use the case study to explain. To give the context, to give the nuance, because that is exactly the example that the people that I was talking to who ended up joining the course, they were like, I just am hearing from people that they don’t trust the testimonials.
It feels too big and grand. Like I, you know, I wrote a case study about someone who hit six figures for the first time. We, we, we spent time in the case study talking about here’s the years that built up to it. Here’s the effort that built up to it. But if you just see she hit six figures with her second launch or something like that.
That feels pretty far away. That feels not so attainable to some people. So you definitely want to encourage them. You want to bring them in. You want to be like, Hey, this really cool thing happened, but also be like, let me explain how how we got here. So for sure you and testimonials are good. Like I definitely don’t want people to be listening to this and be like, testimonials are table.
Like I can never use them. I can never use like a really. Incredible eye-catching testimony. No. Use it and go on to give it, you know, explain it a little bit. Okay. Sales pages. I actually have a client who’s testing this out right now. Testing out, having the case studies, like you said, having like a little snippet.
With an encouragement to go read it. She’s testing it out on her sales page. So the general rule of thumb, for any sales pages, as a copywriter, you want people to land on the sales page cuz I love writing these as well and make one of two decisions I’m in. Where’s the buy button? I’m out. Let me click x.
You don’t want the header, you don’t want the footer, you don’t want anything distracting them, right? We don’t want any, kinda like anything coming in and being like squirrel. So you really need to have, keep that in mind. That is a general rule of thumb and rules are meant to be broken and I think people are ready for some new and fun and exciting things.
So I’m very jazzed to get back in touch with my client to see how this went with her last launch. Stay tuned, but you know, so the way that she did it, just to give, you know, if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I’m gonna try that, I’m kind of, I’m kind of interested in that. What she did was she had some kind of quote, again, like the headline, this was my big major win a little bit about like what the problem was before, a little bit about what it was like going through the course or working one-on-one with you, and then.
Again, kind of touching on like, what was that, what was that win? But also having like the button to like, go read the full thing over here. So you’re touching on those three, three of the elements and you’re getting their interest, peaking their interest. And then if they do wanna go read, they can’t. But then what you should make sure with that case study to do is circle them back to the sales page.
Have that be your really big call to action on the case study. So there’s, there’s a lot of things to think through, but if you wanna give that a try, definitely do let me know how it goes.
Colie: So Brittany, I’ve already done that. I, I haven’t been tracking data though. Like, I don’t know how
to tell you if it’s working. I mean, so what I did during the summer, last summer, I had some case studies written. I did four.
It was part of a bigger like customer insight research project, but I ended up creating four different case studies. they’re on one page. But then what I did was I took the one that was the juiciest and how I chose which case study was the juiciest was she was not a photographer, which actually, thinking back now, maybe I should put a photographer on that page, but, uh, Caitlin gave me like some, her big testimonial or I guess the click clickbait headline was Colie did for me in 24 hours.
What I hadn’t been able to do in five years.
Brittany: Ooh,
Colie: Isn’t that juicy?
Brittany: I see. I wouldn’t know what happened.
Colie: Exactly, but so the way that I laid it out on my ShowIt Page cuz I have show
it, is. The case studies are done in canvases. And so there’s the first, like what the problem was and then you can click a button and see, you know, how we did the project.
And then there’s a last one that says, you know, what did she gain from it? And then the last one is like a video testimonial. So I’ve got that on the middle of my Dubsado VIP day sales page. And then there’s a button under it that says, do you wanna hear more? And if they click on that, it takes into the page with four.
With that one plus three more,
Case studies. But I didn’t know that I was like ahead of the, ahead of the curve.
I just, I mean I put it on there because I feel like the people that I help are so different. And that’s actually why I realized I needed to like highlight these case studies because in the case of like my doa, I work with people who have already had DOA for a number of years.
I work with people who are brand new to ddo. I work with people who have never had a CR R M I work with people who are switching from a different CRM to ddo. And so I just wanted the opportunity. To like highlight those four different clients because the process
is actually different. But so me aside, cuz I feel like I’m talking a lot about
Brittany: No, this is good.
Colie: business owner, how is it that they should decide that they need to invest the time and potentially the money into creating case studies for their business?
Brittany: Yeah, so that’s a question that I get a lot is like, how do I choose. Who to feature, what to feature, and then how do I actually like, explain things. So when it comes to who you choose, I, I like to think of it a few different ways. For one, maybe like you said, you, your process is a little bit different for each person.
Maybe, you know, one of your people is like living, breathing, proof of your process. Like, hey, this worked and this is how it went down for her. And then you’re able to explain all of that. Maybe they had like a really touching, emotional, I call them wins transformation. Maybe they were depending on what it is that you have, but let’s just say, let’s just say it’s like a boudoir photographer since we’ve got photographers here.
Maybe someone was feeling like, so body, not confident, like really almost like to the level of like just being. So mean toward themselves internally. They had this shoot and now they have this like brand new appreciation and they look back on these photos and they feel really fierce and confident, right?
Like, I want to read that story. I want to hear how that went down and what the process was like. And then again, maybe they did have a really big number when, whether that was like a number of people going through a course, a monetary goal that was hit, whatever that thing is, you’re like, you’re excited to talk about it.
They want to talk about it. That’s a big thing too. Finding the right people who actually are like, like if I like something, you can’t get me to shut up about it. I volunteer myself for case studies. I’m like, I, I volunteer like the Ness Everdeen in Hunger Games. I’m like, I volunteer. So find. Yeah, I volunteer.
So like having those people who, you know are gonna go and stand at the top of a mountain and like, just shout your praises. You want that because that energy is gonna come through in the case study. It’s gonna come through even in a testimonial snippet. Another client that I worked with, she works with disk personality, types and there’s four types.
So the thought there was like, we realized this actually after having written some of the case studies and we’re like, Ooh, we’re missing a type. Like going through and having each of like one case study about each type, like that’s something that you could do. Let’s say you have three different types of photography that you do.
Maybe you do boudoir lifestyle and baby photography. Have a case study about each one, and then you’re at least hitting like one story for each offer that you have. So those are just like some ways that you can break it down.
Colie: So one of the things that I tell photographers when they’re making their website, which has nothing to do with seo, but I swear I’m gonna tie it in. I’m like, you know, you want your best photos on the website, but you also wanna make sure that your potential clients can see themselves in the photo.
And that’s what I hear you
saying is that you wanna make sure that you have a case study that everyone can see themselves in because it does make them feel like they could get the same kind of transformation that the person inside of that case study got.
Is that what I hear you saying?
Brittany: Yeah, totally. And I mean, even think about it, you know, the thing that, the scenario that’s coming to mind as you’re explaining that is like, let’s say I, this happens to me a lot. Let’s say I land on a website. What question am I asking myself first? Do I belong here? Can they help me
Colie: Mm-hmm.
Brittany: what a case study’s gonna do?
Yes. Or no. Right. And then you’ll be the, the thing is like with storytelling, and I’m such on like a storytelling like rampage these days I’m reading. My, one of my business coaches, Maggie Elaney, was talking about stories that stick by Kendra Hall. Oh my gosh, it is so good. I’m, I’m listening to it and I’m like, scribbling notes.
I, I started listening to it in the car and I was like, this can’t happen because I need to take notes. So, you know, stories sell. If we feel connected, if we feel like we could picture ourselves in that story, we, we want in. We wanna know if you can, you know, help us. We wanna not, and not only are you connecting to that the case study subject that’s being featured, I’m getting to know what Coley is like.
I’m getting to know what Britney is like. I’m getting to know what insert your name is like, and that’s huge. Like they are doing the talking for you. You don’t have to feel gross and icky and salesy like so many of us talk about with sales. The client is zooming the talking for you.
Colie: So, Brittany, you’ve talked a little bit about how you would. Choose the people to highlight inside of your case studies. But let’s say that I’ve like gone through my client roster. I’m like, okay, these three people would probably be amazing at a case study. If I’m trying to DIY this, what do I do next?
Brittany: Yeah, so you want to make sure that you have some kind of information that you can use to pull quotes. To help you structure the case study. So I, there’s kinda like a three part process. I’m really boiling this down, but you wanna have some kind of interview where you can pull quotes. Then you wanna do some SEO research so that you can make sure that this page is findable and then you want to get into creating a story arc.
Again, you might have to help. Pull me back to these. So the first one, you wanna have an interview. I have written case studies with as little as like a short little testimonial and a survey that was like five questions long. I, I wrote a full case study on that. I also went and looked at this chick’s Instagram.
I got a feel for her voice. I got a feel for like what her life is like. What it was like before, like I, I scrolled back. I didn’t go stalker level, but like I wanted to paint that picture, right? And I’ve been invested in this, so you wanna have some kind of testimonial that could be a survey, that could be just a bunch of testimonial quotes that could be a video or an audio interview.
And I’ve had them as short as like 15 minutes. It doesn’t have to be this big, overwhelming burden of a project. So get your, get your interview in whatever way, shape, or form that takes, pull some quotes. That will help you figure out how to structure this story. Then you wanna do some SEO research, and I know you said we’ve had a couple other SEO peoples on here, so take note there.
If you need help, I have a resource. But really you just wanna figure out like what is the person going to be typing into Google where this case study would make sense to show up?
Colie: Yes.
Brittany: Think through that, and it can be a phrase, and actually if it’s a phrase that’s wonderful. but really just think through like if someone is typing something into that search bar, and I want this case study to show up, like what is that phrase?
And then base the whole thing on that. So we’ve got that. And then you wanna consider the SEO o key phrase. And the quotes, and you wanna create a story arc. So this is something that, because I am not the most wonderful list historically at telling stories, I was like, your girl needs a framework. So she created a framework.
So the story arc in my world is called the PET framework, and it stands for problem experience, transformation. So it’s kind like before, during, after, where were they stuck? Like what? What brick wall was staring them in the face, what help did they need? Why did they choose you Once they chose to work with you?
What was the experience like? And then what was the after? And I like thinking through emotional wins like I’ve hinted at earlier, um, as well as like the number wins. So internal wins, emotional, how did we feel before? How do we feel after? And then, you know, external wins, transformations, was there a number thing?
Was there like some tangible thing that you can point to? So that is how I, I structure that. And you can totally do this on your own. You don’t have to be a good writer in order to create a case study because it’s your baby. Like this is your work.
Colie: Well, and I mean, I, I can say. See that objection? Like I don’t like to write cuz Hey guys, I don’t like to write. I mean, I know that it seems like I love words, I love copywriters. You guys know I talk about them all day long, but I don’t actually like to write and I can only write when I’m feeling super motivated.
And so everything that you just said, I think that as you said it, I have absolutely no problem seeing how that would apply to like the DTO setup side of my business. So I think I’m just gonna tie this in before I ask you the next question. As a photographer, you said the problem before the experience and the transformation after guys, you might not have numbers, but the emotions is probably what you want to lean into.
So I’ve had people whose partners absolutely hate photo sessions. I’ve had people I. Who tried to do portrait sessions and everyone was miserable. That was the problem before. They didn’t love photo sessions. They were miserable. It was a problem every time they tried to schedule a photo session. Now, the experience with me is stress free.
All partners, including the men, guys, love my documentary sessions because I don’t ask them to do shit. I ask them to give me maybe five, 10 minutes. Of like what we would all consider, like the smile at the camera images and the rest of the time you just do whatever you would do naturally that makes the experience great.
And then of course, what’s the transformation? Okay. If she said she cried when she watched her film, that’s the transformation. If her family loved everything that she sent, that’s the transformation. But even more. I like to highlight the fact that those families come back year after year because that is part of their transformation, like the fact that no one hates photo sessions anymore.
So guys, what I just said for my own photography business might apply towards you, but again, it is okay if the problem before and the transformation after are completely emotional
because we don’t really have numbers to rely on like you would in other business genres.
Brittany: Yeah, definitely. And I would even argue that that’s more important, that’s more, uh, you know, helpful to someone connecting with you and then going on and wanting to, to work with you time and time and time again. Yeah.
Colie: So how many case studies do we need? And this is probably one of those. It depends. But in your opinion, I mean, if you’re gonna go big or go home, like. How many people should you start the process with the interviews, and then how many case studies do you think that you should end up with? And guys, the answer here is, you know, just do one and see where it goes.
But Brittany, like, you know, after you do the one and you don’t completely fuck it
up, and you’re like, oh, this is kind of cool, like, How many case studies should you aim for on your website so that you do have those juicy tidbits to share in your, in your emails, in your social media? Like all that good jazz.
Brittany: exactly. You took both of my answers. So I was gonna say, start with one and just, you know, just try it. Don’t like make it, make it an achievable, attainable thing for yourself. So start with one. I would say if you’re like, I just wanna go all out and I just wanna like really try this interview five people, really put some thought into those five people that you wanna interview.
Whittle it down to like your top three. And you, and you will know, you will know as you’re interviewing them or as you’re looking back at your test, you will know, it will be in your gut, it will be in your heart, and you’ll be like, oh, okay. These, these are the ones. Start with that and like we were talking about earlier, pick different angles, pick different things that you can feature.
Maybe someone has like a really, really moving, touching, emotional story. Maybe someone is like, like I said, dead ringer for like, this was the process. They went through it. Bing banging, boom. This is what I tell you, and look, I deliver. This is how it happens. And then maybe you do have one that’s, you know, more of like a number thing if that is something that happens in your world.
But I would say at least start with one. Give it a try. Because one of the things I hear so often from almost all of my clients, I’m sitting on a pile of social proof. We talked about this earlier. We have all this testimonials, we have all the clients that we’ve worked with. Guess what? This is a ne, like a next level way.
To display, to put out your social proof, to share these stories with people, and it’s going to be more moving and more impactful if you do it via case study than via testimonial.
Colie: I mean, what I realized, Brittany, literally this morning before I entered this studio to record with you was I realized my case study page is all about my v I P day work.
I haven’t actually written any case studies for my course. And so that’s next on my to-do
list. So also guys, if you offer more than one thing, you do need to have case studies for, you know, all of the good stuff.
Cuz I have tons of social proof about my course, but I literally realized this morning, hey, I haven’t written a single case study. And I think that it’s because in the, in the sense of the course, like I don’t actually do the experience for them. I think that’s why I got a little like. Because when it comes to like the v i p day, like I’m part of the process the
whole way through. But for the course, I mean, I don’t really know what they’re doing on the other side of their computer unless they tell me. So that’s just something that I’m gonna have to think through in order to create course stu uh, case studies for my course.
Brittany: Is something to think through about. Can I offer a suggestion? Okay, so ask ’em. Build it in. You’re, you’re like the queen of CRMs over here. Build it into your process. Someone signs up. Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to have you here. Why are you here? What are you looking forward to the most? What was it about me?
What was it about this course? Pick and, and I’m not saying hit them with all of those questions, but like pick one or two.
Colie: Oh, but I do. So I’m gonna give a shout out to Ashley Pendergraft. She was on the podcast in episode 12, I believe, guys. She was the person who runs Airtable for group programs. I am going to link her podcast episode in the show notes, but it wasn’t until I joined Systems Overstress with Ashley that I actually put those kinds of surveys inside my
course.
So I mean, they’ve been in there for a year and I have been going to them to like look for clues, testimonials, social proof, like all that good stuff, but. It was also the one thing that helped me figure out how fast people were going through the experience. I had no idea how fast people were going through my course materials until I put a survey at the end of Each’s module,
and one day I had someone who bought my course and she’s actually one of my testimonials, so maybe I should do a case study on
Brittany: Hey.
Colie: Lena started and I think it was like first thing in the morning, and I was seeing her module feedback for all four modules that day.
And I was like, oh my God, is she done? So I reached out to her and I was like, um, Lena. Are you done with the course? And she’s like, yeah, everything is set up.
She’s like, I do wanna go back and customize, but she’s like, I have the whole framework set up in dto. If I wanted to use it tomorrow, I could. She’s like, I still need to like pick some images for my proposal and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh my God, can I, can I hop on a Zoom with you in the next week to ask you about that?
So, I mean I did that,
but I really wish that I had been thinking about it in terms of a case study, cuz I’m sure I would’ve asked different questions. But I mean, I didn’t realize like how fast people were going through
and it also really helped me with like, Their experience because if they said that something was confusing, well that got dropped into like this bucket of things.
Hey Coley, when you do revisions on this
module, you should consider all these things that people said were slightly confusing and go fix them. And so I do it for like making my product better, but I can totally see this as a great way to get case studies. So thank you for reminding me that I have all of that goodness inside of my Airtable account.
Brittany: Yeah, totally. And I, you might have more information there than you even realize. Also, Never be afraid to go and follow up with people. This has been a lesson for me in the last year. I have a, I just posted about this last week. I have a potential client who’s going to become a client, and I know this because she’s like, I’m going to be a client.
I’m not talking to anybody else about these case studies. Seven times I have followed up with this beautiful human. And every time she’s like, I’m so glad that you’re just like checking in and saying hi. And I’m not always like, that’s the thing, I’m not always like, Hey, are you gonna like come around and sign up already?
That’s not it. I’m checking in with her because she’s got a lot going on in our life. And so I’m like, Hey, how are you doing? I was thinking of you. Like that is literally it. And you could even do that to get feedback to see how someone is doing, you know, post taking a course with you, post getting like their photo library delivered.
Just check in. Just say, hi. I did this all the time with my massage clients, and people are just so grateful. It, like, it’s flattering, right? Like if I sent you a text message tomorrow and I was like, Hey, Collie, how you doing? I was just thinking of you, you were on my mind, right? Like, it’s so flattering. And you’re like, oh my gosh, hi.
What are, what are you up to? Like, DA is going on. And then it, it opens the door for at least some kind of like conversation.
Colie: And I mean, what Brittany is saying, I, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna make everybody start doing this and expecting to like it. Sales,
I mean, guys, what Britney is talking about is just being a good human in general. And honestly, if you do it enough, it will lead to sales.
Brittany: It will.
Colie: like, don’t go into each one with that mindset, just checking in on people to find out how they’re doing, to figure out if they solve their problem.
I do that all the time when people submit course. Support
tickets, um, and, you know, I send them a Loom video or a really clear explan explanation and like 90 to 95% of the time, I have no doubt that if they just watch the video and they do it, it will be
solved. But every once in a while, like if it’s still on my mind, like a week later, I will check back in and be like, Hey, did you do that thing?
Like, do you have any additional questions?
I mean, people love it when you check on them. People love to know that you were on their mind and that you are more than just, you know, a number or an amount of money that they paid you and so forth.
Brittany: and it’s, it’s something that, you know, this is just naturally who I am. This is what I do, this is what I’m about. Like one of my biggest missions is like, I don’t want people to feel alone. Well, hello fucking case studies. Like you’re not alone, but this is just how I operate. Maybe you’re listening and maybe you wanna give this a try, and it doesn’t feel like it comes second nature to you.
It might feel a little bit weird at the beginning, but the more you do it, just like what Coley said, like it will become second nature. And my intention always is literally just to check in with the person and let them know that they’re on my mind. If the sale happens, cool, but that is not my intention going into it at all, and people won’t think that.
So if you’re concerned that people are gonna think that, keep again, keep it short. You don’t have to explain yourself. All you need to do is say, Hey, you were on my mind. I was thinking about you. How you doing? That’s it.
Colie: I love to get messages like
Brittany: Mm-hmm.
Colie: Uh, Brittany, I feel like you have dropped so many gems. So,
dun, here’s my question that I ask every guest on the podcast, and that is, what was your biggest fuck up in business? What did you learn from it, and how did you grow?
Brittany: Okay. So I thought long and hard about this. As in like two minutes. Honestly, I did not have a, I didn’t have any testimonials. I didn’t have any SEO strategy on my website when I was a massage therapist only, and that was for, I’m doing math. Hold on. How long was that? Let’s just call it like five or six years.
I didn’t have that for, for a hot minute. So when I went, when I started teaching myself about SEO and I started learning this thing, I was like, I’m showing up for what? What is happening? Because you are gifted, whether or not you know it, you are gifted an SEO strategy. If you just put the slightest little effort behind it, like your world is gonna change.
So that is, that was like the biggest aha for me. And then also, so I said that I became a copywriter by way of massage therapy in the pandemic. So I was home in 2020 as as many people were. Not everyone, but many of us were. And I was staring at my website and I was like, this needs a refresh. What could I do?
At the same time, I was missing my clients. I was missing going to work, I was missing helping people. I’m literally getting my hands on them and helping them. So I’m like, I can just check in with them. So I did what I just talked about, checked in with them, Hey, what are you looking forward to when we get back in the studio?
Hey, what are you like missing right now? How are you feeling? Oh my gosh, da da da da. And I got, I got these testimonials, right? And then all I did, oh my gosh, I would love to use this on my, on my website as a testimonial is, would you be okay with that? And in the world of massage therapy, like there’s HIPAA and stuff like that.
So I often would just put initials for testimonials, but even that was huge. Your clients, this was another one of my aha moments from that. Your clients say things better than you can ever dream of. I could spend, I could spend the rest of my life in a copy cave. I will never come up with this stuff that these people come up with.
They are brilliant. They are the ones that have been through whatever it is that you do with them and. They get it. They get it on a different level, they get it. Like we know all of the jargony, like insider terms. They know what people are actually talking about. They know what people are actually typing into Google.
So when they talk to
Colie: they did it.
Brittany: pay attention. Yeah. And they did it. And they might not remember what exactly they typed, but they’re gonna have somewhere in that ballpark, much closer than what we’re gonna like throw out and guess. So you’re gonna be gifted in SEO strategy whether or not you realize it. So put a just a tiny little bit of intention behind it.
And then remember that what your clients say is gold.
Colie: And that’s why I love, like you didn’t call it this, but it’s like a two minute marketing survey when someone buys your course, your digital product, whatever it shows on the screen. And the one thing that I say is, How did you find me? And then there’s a thing, if you found me on Google, do you remember what you typed?
Brittany: I love you.
Colie: people are much more likely to remember what they typed on Google right after they did it, right after they purchased. Then if you try to ask them in a customer survey two months
later, let’s just be real. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, so there’s no way that I’m gonna remember what I Googled in order to find you.
I mean, I could probably get close,
but I won’t remember it exactly.
And the second thing about what everything that you said that’s so great is. Doing this customer research, talking to your clients, asking the questions is about more than case studies. Guys, when you don’t know what to put on your social media, you should just listen to what your clients
Brittany: Mm-hmm.
Colie: why your services are awesome, what they gained from it, blah, blah, blah, and put it out on your social media like it is not brain science.
If you don’t know what to write in an email, go snatch something that your client said and put it in there. I mean, even if you’re not using their direct word. What they say about you and your services will help you write better copy that gets people attention
and specifically for seo, since that’s why Britney’s here,
Brittany: Exactly, and that, I mean, yet another reason to start a testimonial folder on your laptop, because if you’re having just a blood day, but you wanna post something, go scroll through your testimonial folder. You’ll either figure out, just like what you said, you can either have like a testimonial that you feature.
Maybe you write like a tiny little mini case study for a caption. Maybe you just talk about, you know, here’s a myth I’m gonna bust for you. Or here’s like a belief that’s not actually true, or here’s whatever. Whatever it is, like you will find it in that testimonial folder.
Colie: Yes. All right, Brittany, so I’ve been talking to you and I’m sure that there is someone in the listening audience that is like, uh, yeah, I love this girl and everything that she’s saying about case studies, where can they find out more about you, your services, and your PET framework?
Brittany: Um, so come find me. I hate, I spend way too much time over on Instagram. I love it. It’s my happy place. I’m sure we’ll have a link because my name is complicated, but I’m Brittany underscore Herzberg, the T t A N Y Y. Um, but good luck figuring out the last name. So I’m over on Instagram. My website is Brittany Herzberg.
I’ve got a couple different freebies. I’ve got one, like I mentioned that it’s the SEO basics checklist. It walks you through how to tackle each webpage. So if you’re creating different blogs, if you’re creating a case study, if you are updating your website, copy, whatever may be happening, like I walk you through.
I help you keep it organized and I, there’s even a Loom video that trickles out to you a couple days after you download it. Then I have my profitable case study roadmap, which I’m in love with. It is a relatively long document, but like, yo, like I drop a lot of information in there. I talk you through how to create the case study and then what to do with it once you have it.
Um, where else? I think there’s, oh, the podcast, the Simple and smart seo osha with my friend Crystal, we have. So many fun guests and Coley’s coming over to hang out with us soon. I’m so excited.
Colie: me too.
Brittany: Yeah. So th those are all the places.
Colie: All right guys, so again, if you are interested in learning more about how you can improve your s e o and write some amazing case studies, please go check Brittany out. Brittany, it was a pleasure having you on the podcast and it’s not gonna be too long until I chat with
you to be on your podcast, so I’m super excited about that.
Guys, that’s it for this episode. See you next time.
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