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The Copywriter Club Podcast
TCC Podcast #417: Partners Who Send You Clients with Dana Owens
01:04:43
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 w...
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- [00:00]
Rob Marsh
Imagine a digital space that's hyper customized to meet your unique vision. Where a chat with AI results in a breathtaking storefront that's got your brand all over it. A business ready site stacked with all the E. Com tools you need to manage and scale your store. Sounds like a stretch, right? Wrong. Get multichannel selling, dropshipping, customized analytics and a full marketing suite. All of it wrapped up in a user friendly workspace. Head over to Wix.com and turn your vision into revenue 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 business over the years. In my own business. With results like that, of course you should be connecting with other copywriters and content writers, but there may be an even better group to connect with when it comes to getting clients. And it's just one of the things that we cover on today's 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 business. If you write case studies, it's a connection idea that you can steal and use today. But if you write any other kind of copy, you can also use this idea. 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 that you can do starting right now to find your ideal clients. It also shares the four mistakes you absolutely cannot afford to make when looking for clients. If you do, you're dead in the water. And it shows you the five things that you should do before you reach out to the people that you want to work with. If you want them to say yes now, this isn't some dainty one page PDF that you're going to download and forget about in your Downloads folder. After just 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 the copywriterclub.com findaclient. That's all one word. Find a client. Thecopywriterclub.com Find a client. 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 world, Copywriter Club world for a long time. But let's start with your story. How did you become a copywriter?
- [03:03]
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. And 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, like 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, like, full circle moment.
- [03:51]
Rob Marsh
So that's amazing.
- [03:53]
Dana Owens
Yeah, but I started, 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. I went to work for, like, 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 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 start doing copywriting formally and start to really like 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 and it's only grown and grown and grown since there.
- [05:57]
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?
- [06:04]
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 was had to do with some type of professional photography equipment. And oh my, that was again, like, I'm just so not for me I'm super creative and I want to be like exploring big ideas and like positioning things in a picture particular way. And it was, 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 kind of the work that I do today. But that was it. I was, there was no way I was going to be a pro at professional photography equipment. But I certainly did learn to, you know, I started learning about the sales and marketing world in that way. So it was beneficial.
- [06:56]
Rob Marsh
Yeah, especially when we talk about high end equipment, you know, that you have in 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, 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.
- [07:19]
Dana Owens
Well, 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. 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.
- [08:38]
Rob Marsh
Yeah. I had a similar experience in. Early on in my career, I worked for a day planner company. And imagine writing about day planners for four years. Literally, you know, it's. It's like, okay, well, this year's edition of the Day Planner is blue, as opposed to lat. You know, like, or. Or this edition of the Day planner has quotes. And yet it's the kind of like 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.
- [09:13]
Dana Owens
It totally does. And I think, you know, I was like, new out of college. Like, I. Right out of college, I had gone and I was 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. It was all good, you know?
- [10:10]
Rob Marsh
Yeah, it's. It's a good place to. To learn the basics. So you. 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. You know, this from experience. This is one of those things where copywriters have a difficulty 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?
- [10:37]
Dana Owens
Well, it's kind of funny. We talked about the, you know, 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, and 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 had done 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 hear that you're, you know, you've 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 like start to start working again. But also I missed writing so much after spending some time in education. And so it was like, how could 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 is. This just feels kind of meant to be. Like, 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 like someone I barely know. I don't have to go out there and get my own work. Like, 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 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. 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, 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 a contracted person, but like, I didn't. I felt like an employee. And it was like, I really want to go off into my own now and start to build a business that I want to run, the one that I want to create. But that was the start of it all.
- [15:34]
Rob Marsh
Did I hear you right? You said you're still working with him today?
- [15:37]
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. Like our personality, we were both goofballs and like, we just Laughed so much. We talked like 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. That'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 and at the end of the day, it's what the, what the client wants to do. But if there's too much of a misalign, I am going to say that we're not a fit. Whereas he would have continued on the relationship much longer than I, 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.
- [17:11]
Rob Marsh
Yeah, I seem to remember, I mean, it might have 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, like, how you were going to niche your business.
- [17:28]
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, because 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 and is my writing perfect? And like, how do I. 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.
- [19:06]
Rob Marsh
Yeah.
- [19:06]
Dana Owens
And so I had a whole lot of generalist copywriting time to go before my niche found me. Like, I didn't go out looking for it. It literally found me. And it was like, oh, this is totally it. But I. I wouldn't have found that if I would have gone searching for it on my own.
- [19:26]
Rob Marsh
So I want to come back to that. But you mentioned, you know, like, needing to go through these steps, you know, the accelerator and then, like, 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.
- [19:42]
Dana Owens
Well, like, I just needed experience. Like, I. So I was working for that guy with the old boss, you know, and 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 like a whole breadth of experience as far as client diversity goes, but I was getting a lot of experience as far as deliverables go.
- [20:12]
Rob Marsh
Yeah.
- [20:13]
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 got. I still actually got a very good breadth of deliverables. Like, I was doing 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, 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 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, the, you know, 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, like, you know, how to position the website copy and. Or how to position the 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 times the stuff that I thought, like, I wrote it and I was like, oh, this is crap. I'd like, turn it in to get reviewed. And they'd be like, this is amazing. Zero edits. And so you can't. For me, I needed to go through 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 get on to other things. So here's what I've been, 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.
- [23:17]
Rob Marsh
Yeah, I mean, the process really is, you know, you've got to get through it. And when you do and you succeed and, you know, 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. You've. I mean, in my LinkedIn feed, in my world, you're one of the, you know, two or three 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, that maybe not the rest of your life, but for the foreseeable future? Yeah.
- [23:56]
Dana Owens
Well, there were two things that happened. And the copywriter club is so pinnacle to this. So at the time that I really realized what case studies were was when I was working with my old boss and we were 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 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 and 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 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 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 having, 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. Like, I will be heard. I don't care if I'm this peon copywriter. I'm going right to the CEO. Like, you're going to know that I've got a great idea for you. So I went in there like, we've got to focus on your results, please. I want to rewrite all your case studies. I want to interview your clients like, and I even went so far as to start thinking like, how can we set. They were just starting a new like 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 had been doing so much web copy work with this other web design and branding agency, I was seeing over and over again that they, 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 into 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 what? I went through five companies like this and it was like, this is a huge hole that I saw. And I was like, I love, 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.
- [31:29]
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 walks 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.
- [32:05]
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 meet? You mean for copywriters who want to niche like I did, exclusively into creating cases.
- [32:21]
Rob Marsh
Let's talk about doing it for clients so that we're helping them. And if we want to extrapolate from that, okay, 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?
- [32:35]
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 like 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, say you've been hired on to do anything, you can always suggest an additional product or an additional 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 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, you, 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, 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 website copy or even just a one sheet on 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, is there a picture of what life looks like before the product or service came into their life? Do you, through the act of working with the company and learning about their services, can you kind of see 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 you can use this as a salesman tool or however you want. 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. Walk through that door and create a case study about it.
- [36:00]
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?
- [36:16]
Dana Owens
Yeah, okay. I am super passionate about this. So, number one, there's like just the word. Like when you hear case studies, it does. And I hear Joel Klepp, he talk about this all the time. Like, case studies just sound 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 recognized that most people do know the term case studies. And 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, and 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 earth one to help you gather insights from your customers. That's one big benefit. But also it just puts the 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, like you wanted to talk about all the good stuff.
- [38:39]
Rob Marsh
Or you can't be honest, you can't, at least you feel like you, you have to put a good spin on it, right?
- [38:44]
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 can, 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 in the website copy, 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 case study where it's. Or even a video case study where it's actually consumable so much of the time, Elsie, 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. No.
- [40:32]
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.
- [40:36]
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, it's not going to get read. And then, same thing with video. If you do a video case study, but the, the case, the video is like three minutes long and it goes into every. There's no, not a lot of flow or story arc to video. It's. Someone's gonna 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 are these are sales enablement tools. First I'm going to teach you how to put these things in your sales process and use them so that you can close sales, not use them 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.
- [42:11]
Rob Marsh
So let me ask you about that. So as a copywriter, do you actually like 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.
- [42:29]
Dana Owens
That's where my work has gone. I Didn't start out that way. When I, five years ago, and I was like, put my flag on the case study planet, I wasn't like, and now I'm going to become a sales enablement consultant. Like, I was just 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. So everything was just about talking to running these client interviews and creating the case studies. And then I would say, there you go. Look at this amazing case study. 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, evolution of any form of copywriting. When you. This all comes with experience too. Like, you start out saying, I love to do sales pages and I want to do sales pages. Or for me, 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 as you go, you start to see all of the gaps that come out, 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 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, none, of course.
- [44:46]
Rob Marsh
Yeah, of course.
- [44:47]
Dana Owens
So then it was like, oh, I've another opportunity for me to add even more value for my clients is 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, you know, it works both ways. But going back to your question about how to use the case studies, that was what resulted over the couple years of me starting to do this. And I became really passionate about helping companies figure out what. And this was so, 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 because 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, 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. Now, 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, 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.
- [47:54]
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, you know, like, 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, 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, you know, 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? Like, why would you let a whole month go by without reaching out to a hot prospect? Or, you know, and you can start to say, well, okay, 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, or, you know, talk about some of the benefits that they're going to get. And so it just, 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.
- [49:20]
Dana Owens
Oh, no, I do, I do now. I do. Before, Now I am 100%. Like, that's my biggest joy is being 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 that you're in, you know, and it's like, yeah, 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, 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. 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, but 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 a sales coach because 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 in 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, it's just such a natural way for them to add value to their clients by bringing me in. And I, I can seriously help their process by doing what I do.
- [52:22]
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. 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 copywriter who does the work that you do. Case studies.
- [53:02]
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. 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.
- [53:30]
Rob Marsh
Yeah.
- [53:31]
Dana Owens
To anyone because. Or I mean, outsource it to a human. Like, you should never like circumvent that and not have a human being 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 it may. 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.
- [54:50]
Rob Marsh
Yeah. Until then. Until then, we need more Danas 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, you know, two to three pages to. I've charged $5,000 with one company for a case study that I did for them. Big executive coaching company. Right. Like it was. It was totally appropriate. And you know, I'm. 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 B? I'm wording this terribly, but what should they be charging and how much can they make?
- [55:37]
Dana Owens
Well, I think if you're just getting into it, 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 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 has improved and the positioning has 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 3500 for a. I call them full story case studies or like the more in depth case studies. 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 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 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 in there with the sale. So you can charge a lot as long as you have the experience. You got to hone your, hone your skill first.
- [58:05]
Rob Marsh
I mean, in a lot of ways, case study is just sort of a mini sales page. Right. You know, 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, 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, that's awesome.
- [58:25]
Dana Owens
Yeah.
- [58:26]
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.
- [58:41]
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 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's my whole process, but it goes through in interactive worksheets and it teaches you all of the different portions of 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, if you're a copywriter who wants to and 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 yeah, you can find that on my website, that'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.
- [60:39]
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, 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?
- [60:58]
Dana Owens
My website is a great place emailing me. I'm, you know, an avid emailer. So that's danaextlevelcopy.com and then I'm also at LinkedIn on LinkedIn and my handle is next level copy, all one word.
- [61:13]
Rob Marsh
All lowercase, 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.
- [61:32]
Dana Owens
Yep. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun.
- [61:38]
Rob Marsh
That's a wrap on the interview. You now, you obviously heard about how Dana has 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 the copywriterclub.com findaclient to get your report now. Then try the different ideas and see what works for you. That's the copywriterclub.com forward/ Find a Client 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 that's the end of this episode of the Copywriter Club Podcast. The intro music was composed by copywriter and songwriter Addison Rice. The outro is composed by copywriter and songwriter David if you like what you've heard, do me a favor and leave a review wherever it is that you listen to the podcast. Then do a friend a favor by copying the link to this episode or any other episode that you've enjoyed and send it to them with a short note letting them know that you think that they'll enjoy it too. I appreciate that and I promise your friend will appreciate it too. I'll see you next week.
- [63:53]
Dana Owens
Copywriters coming together to help help the world write better copy and make more money Kira and Robs Copywriters Club that can make you lots of money. Listen to it. Kira and Rhaps Copywriters Club can make.
- [64:17]
Rob Marsh
You lots of money as long as.
- [64:20]
Dana Owens
You listen through the whole damn episode. So you've got a business, but what about a brand? The difference? More of you WIX gives you the freedom to create your website, own your brand, and do it on your own, exactly how you envisioned it. Experience limitless customization. Boost your creativity and efficiency with AI tools for every part of your business journey. Scale up with built in SEO, ecom and scheduling features. Put more of you in your business. Go to wix.com and do it all yourself.