Case studies are king

You’re only as good as your last piece of work (unless you’re still harping on about some logo you changed the colour of ten years ago).

Case studies are incredibly valuable (even the ones that are a little past their sell-by date). You can write all the hyperbole about yourselves you want (and I’ll challenge every last claim just for fun) but if you show me a case study with results and testimonials, well… I’m going to accept everything as legit and an honest insight into your abilities (and if it all turns out to be lies I will hunt you down).

In the top ten “Biggest Red Flags” of a recent Semrush report, “Lack of testimonials and case studies” scored high on the list of company turn-offs, proving the point that someone else’s review of your work will always trump your own self-promotion.

When we check out potential new clients, we scroll straight past anything vaguely “About us”-shaped, instead looking for factual case studies (or at least a portfolio).

When we advise clients on the creation of case studies, many seem reluctant due to a lack of ‘real results’ to report. Seriously, don’t worry about that - a simple testimonial is worth its weight in gold if you can’t conjure up a “300% increase in sales”.

Oh, and if you ARE lucky enough to have a “300% increase in sales”, PLEASE drop that into the case study early and LARGE. It might seem a little grotesque, but showing potential customers a solid commercial outcome your work led to is always a good idea.

New business and social media

Following 678 - Followers 8

It’s my strong belief that anything you do when it comes to self-promotion should directly be linked to winning new business. Social media has become a quick and easy way to share results, key announcement and the work you actually produce. It can, however, also become an albatross around your neck (or at least several pigeons if you don’t have albatross in your region).

One quick exercise… take a look at your followers on any given social platform that you actively spend time posting on. How many of those might one day become customers, and how many are simply other agencies that want to keep an eye on you (or followed you back because you followed them)?

I imagine the ratio is pretty heavily weighted towards peers rather than future customers (let’s be honest, what are the chances BA’s Marketing Director follows loads of design agencies on Instagram?)

So, the larger question is, why are you spending all this time showing off to your competitors? Is it to prove you’re better than them? Is it to gather those eight ‘likes’ from chums in the industry who appear to spend their lives looking for things to like?

If you put all your time posting on social media down as building “good brand awareness” you’re simply trying to justify a massive waste of time in your day. The time you’ve spent showing off on social media could have been spent reaching out to potential customers.

Stop trying to make people who will never employ you think “oooh, how clever”.

Every time you get the urge to prove how clever you are, instead impress me by writing a great email to a potential client. You might not get any ‘likes’ that day but you might make a new connection and win some business.

Built by robots

There’s a PC game I play (to an almost obsessive level) called Factorio. You could argue that it’s not really a “game” in that anyone watching me play it would struggle to ascertain how much “fun” I’m having, but I genuinely love it. I could spend hours describing the game, but the key to success within the game is automation.

You start off with nothing, punching trees to gather wood to fashion into wooden tools… to then bash against rocks to make stone furnaces (fuelled by “punch wood”) to then forge stone tools, etc. etc.

After a while (about 400 hours to be exact) you’ve levelled your way up to having solar, nuclear and steam power, all feeding itself - and the rest of your production line - via beautifully-complicated systems of robot arms and conveyor belts. It’s like Sim City meets Minecraft (which I’ve just realised I could have said initially and saved us all several paragraphs).

HOWEVER (are you still here?) once you finally reach automated self-sufficiency, you find yourself missing the simplicity of how things were 400 hours ago when you were getting your hands dirty and had a solid ‘feel’ for how things were actually going. If you can zoom out far enough from your world to 1) still have it larger than your screen and 2) be so far out that you can’t see anything anymore, you might have gone a tad too far. The same can happen in business.

In New Business Development (see - I did remember why I’m here) there are SO MANY tools on offer to ‘help’ you automate your outreach campaigns it’s staggering. Automated news alerts kick-start segmented CRM systems which are linked to macros automating your auto-personalised emails, which are linked back to your CRM, which then updates your calendar… and so on, and so forth.

It’s tempting to spend 400 (ish) hours setting up such an automated masterpiece, but be aware of the perils of ‘zooming out’ so far that in any given moment you don’t actually know where you are in your campaign(s).

Many’s the time I’ve walked away from my game only to return to some snarl-up in my automated mega city. For me that involves some panicky robot building; for your company this could mean some very embarrassing and costly errors by the very macros you delighted in creating.

Remember: It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever.*

*Unless you press the STOP button.

Stalking with confidence

Good people tend to move about in an industry. Luckily for us we have LinkedIn, which not only lets us know when a ‘connection’ changes jobs but then demands we congratulate them with the idle click of a button. How sincere.

The more important thing to consider is how you should react to any new appointments you’re privy to.

When a new Marketing Director (for example) arrives at a company, they are generally expected to sprinkle glitter over existing problems and solve a few key issues. Here’s your chance to be smart and become a part of the solution.

Congratulate them, certainly, but more importantly do some research and try to ascertain what problems that new hire might be confronted with. If you know that the company in question has recently merged, how might you help in this tumultuous time? If they’ve recently won new business, how might you help nail that new client’s needs. In a nutshell, how do you make the new hire look awesome by being his or her ‘secret sauce’.

Don’t just list your services when you say “well done”; let them know you’ve done your homework and already know what the Post-it notes on their screen say.

If you’re going to stalk, you might as well do it with purpose and style.

One size does not fit all

It’s very easy (and quite tempting) to spend time putting together a creds deck specifically for use in the cold channel and then pop the kettle on, safe in the knowledge that you’re done with that until your next unnecessary internal rebrand/renaming.

However, it’s worth remembering that in the course of your new business endeavours you’ll probably be approaching a fairly varied selection of targets. You’ll likely hit up some small teams with a big freelance roster… some start-ups… maybe some industry giants. Because of this, you always need to be prepared to review your static creds and ask, “are these as targeted as they could be?”

One area where we see lots of mismatches occurring is with testimonials.

If you’re about to hit a bunch of local companies to cash in on that ‘stay local’ vibe, make sure your testimonials come from sources that these prospects will relate to. If you’re hitting a four-man operation a mere two years into their existence, a quote from IKEA (about work you did six years ago) isn’t going to resonate with them. Yes, it will probably impress them, but it might also make them think “blimey - we don’t have the kind of budget IKEA must have spent” and file you away under “too big for us”.

Make sure all your testimonials are about the same ‘scale’ as the prospects you’re approaching. Show them output similar to the work you’d like to be doing for them, with relevant testimonials and budgets. If at your first point of contact you already seem like a great match, you’re now ahead of your competitor (who was so busy impressing people that they frightened half of them away).

Remember: don’t wear a suit if everyone is in flip-flops.

Words are results too

We’re constantly asked for advice from both clients and business acquaintances regarding the best way to present case studies. Our reply probably seems a little simplistic but - in a nutshell - it’s “results results results”.

People don’t buy processes and they don’t buy services; these are just the mechanics necessary to get what they really want - i.e. the aforementioned results (results, results).

Business Development (especially PURE cold channel new business) is all about maximum impact in a minimum of time. When people say you have three seconds to grab a cold prospect’s attention, they really aren’t exaggerating.

With that in mind, don’t drag your heels when presenting case studies. People aren’t ‘fascinated’ to hear all about “The Brief”… “The Problem”… “The Solution”… etc. They want to know… “DID YOU WIN?”

Don’t show me your copywriting ‘skillz’ with a text-heavy case study… SHOW ME THE MONEY! (or at least show me the outcome, which is more accurate but not as much fun to shout).

And if you don’t have a great big “400% INCREASE IN SALES” or “15,000 IMPRESSIONS” to shout about, make use of a testimonial. If the ONLY thing a prospect sees about your case study is the CEO of Aldi saying “OUR SALES INCREASED” then your three seconds have been well spent (and you’ve probably got a 1.5 seconds left to play with).

If you can’t say it with numbers, say it with words.

7 ways to stop making dreadful sales calls

First, let’s get something clear: we do a lot more than make phone calls for our clients. Today we’re just addressing the fact that most new business calls are remarkably bad. We don’t claim to have a magic wand, nor do we promise ridiculous results from our work. We do however make sure we avoid wasted opportunities. The phone call is a prime example of where waste can occur over and over in a single day. In a single hour. At a new business agency like Sponge NB, we see this affect outcomes directly - so we’re strict.

1 - Research it

The first compliment you can pay your prospect is having taken the time to research them. Even a little bit. It’ll make all the difference to your confidence. It’ll make all the difference to how receptive they will be. You don’t need to know their dog’s name (though if you do, please find a way to mention it without sounding like a stalker (on second thoughts, you will sound like a stalker. Probably keep it to yourself)), but knowing where they have worked before (Linkedin will help with that) or which agencies they’ve hired before (trade press can yield that information) will show that they’re not just a name on a list. You’d be stunned at how many BDMs don’t do the simplest research.

2 - Make it different

Most agencies’ new business calls open with something like “We’re Crunchy Frame Creative and we’re a creative agency and we’ve worked for Channel 6, Harbinsons’s Jam and Nevaslip Prophylactics. Can I have a minute to talk about your marketing?”. Other than the fact that you’ve already started talking to them without establishing that they are okay with having an agency badly described at them, it’s just dull. You’re an agency? With clients? Wow! When can we brief you? If you’ve done your research and you’re smart enough, you’ll be able to open with a question that prompts some conversation. Some of our team are sometimes guilty of not using their research to spark natural conversation – it makes the call far harder to get anything from. Nobody in any marketing department wants to know who you’ve worked for or what type of agency you are until you’ve created a compelling reason for them to desire that information. You might create that compulsion through your clever questions, your knowledge of their company or simply your genuine, carefully directed enthusiasm.

3 - Stick to what you say you’ll do

If you tell someone you’ll send them information straight away. That means moments after the call. If you’re not going to send it immediately, then tell them when they’ll get it. If you tell them 3pm, make it arrive at 3pm.

4 - Follow it up properly

Your prospects get a lot of calls. If you’re going to build any relationship with them then you will need to stay in touch. If you don’t then despite how amazing your agency’s work is, they won’t remember you. There’s a fine, nay (nay?) invisible line between “staying in touch” and “pestering the heck out of someone”. Stay on the right side, but don’t convince yourself that they’ll call when they need you. Too often they won’t. If polite contact from time to time is enough to annoy them then they weren’t going to hire you anyway.

5 - Don’t offer outs

“Can we respond to your next advertising brief, or……..”. This “or”, hanging off the end of the sentence is like a comfort blanket to new business people. In fact I’ve heard it from salespeople of all types over the years. Listen to your new business calls. If you hear that, then stop doing it the way you’re doing it and hire us (quoting SNB_OURPREVIOUSNEWBUSINESSCALLSWEREAWFULSOPLEASEHELPUS for a 7% discount). Don’t offer exits along the way. If the prospect doesn’t like your approach, or if your questioning uncovers the fact that they don’t want you, then they’ll find their own exit. You ought to be looking for the next best thing, all the time. When are they reviewing? How long is the current agency contract? Are there ever projects that fall outside of their current agency’s remit? But don’t roll out the red carpet to the exit door, or why did you call in the first place?

6 - Don’t immediately mention something you sent

You sent information and now you’re calling. You mention it, right? Let’s look at the possibilities:

1)      You call, saying that you sent the information about your amazing work on Harbinson’s Jam. The prospect remembers this information. But the prospect also remembers seeing it and not calling or emailing you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be calling them, eh?

2)      You call, saying that stuff about the PDF about the jam guys. The prospect doesn’t remember seeing it, or didn’t have time. Now you’re back at square one, but the prospect now views you as the guys who sent the information that he instantly forgot, or couldn’t be bothered to read.

3)      You call, use your research and intelligence to ask questions, building on the previous information that led you to send information. If the prospect doesn’t mention it, then you can send it as if they’ve never seen it. If they now remember it of their own volition, then their image of you is rather stronger – they remembered your jam work unprompted.

In case it’s not clear, number 3 is best. So if you sent info, don’t mention it. Sounds counter-intuitive, but it isn’t about your ego, it’s about creating a compelling reason for a prospect to hire you.

7 - Close, boldly, openly and honestly.

There are loads of different types of closes – the assumptive close, the Ben Franklin, the negative close. Bin them – they’re too prescriptive. How about something like:

“I hope I haven’t interrupted your day too horribly, but if I did then here’s the short version: we’re a cracking new business agency and you’re an agency that could do with a long-term, coherent, effective new business campaign. How can we do some work for you?”. Too prescriptive? Of course it is. The conversation should guide the words you use to close. Do close though. It’s the bit that’ll start your stomach churning but when it works (and if you follow all of the above, it’ll work more often), it results in those lovely highs that make the new business slog worth it.

We’re Sponge NB and you can hire us to do ALL of this for you. Call 01708 451311 or email Steve on steve@spongenb.com