Episode 53

Quick Hit: The Ultimate Case Study Distribution Playbook with Joel Klettke

Struggling to get the most from your customer case studies? A lot of companies create great stories only to leave them alone on their website.

Join Justin as he talks with Joel Klettke about getting more from your case studies. Learn easy steps to use your stories better and reach more people. This quick episode is perfect for anyone who wants to share their customer stories in a smarter way. Follow this proven step-bt-step framework to maximize your case studies across every channel.

If you like distribution and repurposing playbooks, you'll love my weekly newsletter (it's free). Join 2,500+ subscribers here: https://news.justinsimon.co/

In this episode, you'll learn:

  • The "distribution first" mindset for planning case study content
  • How to capture reusable assets during the interview
  • Tactics for repurposing case studies across channels
  • Ways to combine studies into powerful new formats
  • Key frameworks for long-term case study success

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Transcript
Justin Simon:

Take Joel's sort of framework around case studies and take

Justin Simon:

the whole framework around distribution first and the idea of distribution

Justin Simon:

first mash them together and you have a crazy good strategy to create

Justin Simon:

this content.

Joel:

Let's say for example, you're trying to break into a new

Joel:

industry and yes, you've got your first case study in that industry.

Joel:

Well, here is what kind of mapping this out could look like, how you

Joel:

could leverage it across the quarter.

Joel:

I think number one, okay, cold outreach.

Joel:

A shoe in bake that into some of your cold outreach messages, maybe

Joel:

try attaching a one sheet test out.

Joel:

If you've got it, you know, a little 30 second video or something that

Joel:

goes along with a follow up, but use that in your cold outreach and use

Joel:

that to kind of test out as Legion.

Joel:

You can also deploy these really nicely in social ads.

Joel:

So taking that piece and, and maybe it's a LinkedIn carousel that now

Joel:

you sponsor and it keys into the pain points or, or that industry.

Joel:

And now you've got this really succinct version that I can either

Joel:

click on and, and go ask for a demo or have a conversation.

Joel:

Or maybe it pushes me to like a resource or a checklist or an asset,

Joel:

but you can deploy it that way.

Joel:

Another way you can nearly immediately deploy any story you have is remarketing.

Joel:

So not just.

Joel:

You know, ads themselves, but remarketing ads, we've seen clients be really

Joel:

successful in if they have campaigns, they're running, someone comes in,

Joel:

checks out a landing page instead of following up with like a push to

Joel:

demo or a call us now, remind them of the value with a story over time.

Joel:

It's not as aggressive a tactic, but it can really, really work because

Joel:

it's kind of this story selling.

Joel:

Uh, you might bake that case study into a newsletter.

Joel:

You might take that and bake it into a blurb that goes out.

Joel:

If you have a quarterly or monthly newsletter, you might.

Joel:

You know, bring it back once or twice through that you can then, you know,

Joel:

think about if you have permission to do it, maybe it's a Q and a style blog post.

Joel:

You've got this, you know, deeper dive piece that you've got in your resources

Joel:

section, but maybe it's a Q and a style post on your blog where it's an interview

Joel:

with X person about why challenge and you take all of the quotes from the interview

Joel:

and mash it up a little bit differently.

Joel:

Now you've got a blog post that you can go and deploy if you captured

Joel:

video, kind of what you were talking about with the cut content, right?

Joel:

Taking little snippets about the pain points, try those out in ads, try those

Joel:

out in social posts, taking little snippets about the ROI, again, same

Joel:

thing, try those out in ads, try those out in newsletters, posts, embedded on

Joel:

your site, and leverage in that way.

Joel:

So there's lots of things you can do near immediately when you have this story.

Joel:

But what's also really exciting is let's say you go through the year.

Joel:

And you've captured the four stories.

Joel:

Now you've got this body of stories that you can start to build on too.

Joel:

So one of the things that gets overlooked, but is really valuable

Joel:

is things like compendiums.

Joel:

We, we see clients doing nuclear decks where they combine stories

Joel:

into one asset that kind of has.

Joel:

Some high level quotes and value and sales loves those being able to send those out.

Joel:

You can do kind of a yearly roundup, you know, here's the

Joel:

biggest stories from this year.

Joel:

The biggest ROI and use that as kind of a new piece of content.

Joel:

You can do a highlight reel style of video where you take

Joel:

the best quotes from each story.

Joel:

And now you've got, you know, four different people all talking

Joel:

about the pains being resolved or the outcomes being resolved.

Joel:

So there's some near immediate kind of value with individual

Joel:

assets that then builds into these.

Joel:

Bigger assets.

Joel:

Once you've got a few under your belt, that's all pretty attainable short term.

Joel:

Once you've captured this, got approval for it

Justin Simon:

and so on.

Joel:

And what I love about distribution first and the whole mentality

Joel:

you're describing is that matters all the more with case studies.

Joel:

That proactive thinking, that beginning with the end in

Joel:

mind because it's high stakes.

Joel:

You don't get a mulligan.

Joel:

You're, you, you're asking for someone else's time and someone else's reputation.

Joel:

If you, you know, build something internally, if, if it's just a piece

Joel:

that your team has written or what have you, most of the time, you can go, okay,

Joel:

we didn't get this, but there's some way of us going back and amending that.

Joel:

With case studies, that's incredibly hard to do.

Joel:

Any interview based content, that's really hard to do.

Joel:

And that whole distribution first mentality is something For example, you

Joel:

know, that, that we apply ourselves, we had this amazing opportunity where, you

Joel:

know, we, we worked with a company in the healthcare supply chain, uh, sort of

Joel:

niche in, in industry, amazing company.

Joel:

And at a previous conference, they'd kind of just set up this video

Joel:

interview booth and captured whatever they could and got tons of content,

Joel:

but then when it comes time to, okay, how do we go and leverage this?

Joel:

There's a lot of what you're saying there's regret or an off only we had asked

Joel:

this question Oh only we had captured this type of piece, right and that

Joel:

distribution first mentality that you're so tuned into that You're spearheading

Joel:

that you're really championing for clients and for people in the space is so

Joel:

important because when we adopted that for ourselves It changed, you know, we took

Joel:

that approach to the event that we were involved in and we could map out questions

Joel:

and we could go, great, these questions, they're going to, they're going to help us

Joel:

support the, the, the post session videos and the newsletters that go after these

Joel:

questions, they're going to help us, you know, transform this into specific pain

Joel:

points for specific industries, these questions, you They're going to help us

Joel:

get by and to do this again next year with the next people who have to go through

Joel:

their legal and PR and all of that.

Joel:

So that intentional planning, that thinking, that distribution first

Joel:

mentality, whether it's case studies or anything is really important, but

Joel:

especially customer driven content because you just don't get that mulligan.

Joel:

You don't get a do over in most cases.

Joel:

It's you got to go in thinking and I love that proactive kind of templated.

Joel:

Thinking through what do we really need and how do we want to use it?

Joel:

How do

Joel:

we want to distribute it?