Newsletter: The Role Case Studies Play in the Sales Funnel🌪 ; Are Store Openings Part of Your Cause Marketing Strategy? 🏪 ; Close More Partnership Deals with Affability & Authenticity 🙂

These days I'm writing a lot of case studies for partnership teams that are eager to use "social proof" to recruit more corporate partners.

It's a wicked smahht strategy.

Again and again, case studies come up as the #1 way to engage prospects - especially in the middle (evaluation) and at the bottom (conversion) stages of the sales (aka partnership) funnel.

Most nonprofits have enough happening at the top of the funnel - the awareness stage - for the initial attraction. What they lack is anything afterward to keep the process moving along and to the prospect engaged. That's where case studies can help.

A few other things I've learned writing case studies....

1. It's not about the case study, grasshopper. Paradoxical, right? What I mean is that it's not not about the written case study. It's about learning how to use the case studies as a tool to recruit partners. The case studies by themselves will do absolutely nothing for your prospecting efforts UNLESS you make them central to your selling process. In short, you have to learn how to SHARE and USE the case study. I'm helping more of my nonprofit clients become more case study-centric.

2. Every version of the case study is a first draft. Everyone wants to get the wording of the case study JUST RIGHT. I get that. I want to get the words just right too! However, your case study should always be changing because the partnership is (should!) always changing and evolving. Did a partner drop you an email with some positive feedback? Work some of that language into the case study. Is your partnership headed in a new direction? You should update the case study. Like my beautiful flower gardens, case studies should grow organically and change with the seasons.

I tell clients that I'm not there to write the definitive case study for them. I'm there to write the first draft.

3. Having one or two case studies is a great first step, but it's not enough.

Note: I say this but I want to acknowledge all the wonderful people that hire me to write a case study as a way of supporting me and my newsletter. People will write and say: "Joe, I love getting your newsletter every week. How can I support your work in small way?" My response: "Hire me for an hour of coaching or let me write a case study for you?!" And a lot of people have done just that! It's a wonderful gesture and is very much appreciated.

However....having only one or two case studies is like heading out to the garden with just a shovel. Yeah, that shovel works for a specific job, but you're going to run into a situation where you need a different type of tool. It's the same way with case studies. That case study you have on your retail partner will work great with other retailers. But what are you going to use when you sit down with an engineering company?

Different prospects require different case studies. Better to have a whole shed full of tools!

Interested in having me write case studies for your your nonprofit? Just hit reply to this email and I'll let you know next steps.

✍️ Partnership Notes

1. If I was a local nonprofit I'd be targeting new business openings in my community. They are great fundraisers and the business can get lots of publicity, which is exactly what a new business/location needs. For example, this grand opening fundraiser raised $30,000!

2. This online insurance company donates money to your favorite cause when you don't file claims. Could you do something like this with a regular insurance company? Or could you earn a donation whenever a policy is purchased?

3. Close more partnership deals with affability and authenticity. I've been doing this my whole life, folks!

4. An iconic retailer that raised hundreds of millions for charities, including over $100 million for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is down to just three stores.😞

🤑 Marketing Your Cause

1. If your nonprofit wants to create exceptional content, you MUST limit your options.

2. If you are not sure what to do next with your content strategy, use the content performance matrix.

😎 Cool Jobs in Cause

1. Corporate Development Manager, Mercy Ships, Remote ($75K - $80K)

2. Lead Associate, Corporate Partnerships, Save the Children, Fairfield, CT (Preferred)

3. Director of Corporate Community Engagement, March of Dimes, NYC ($120k - $150k)

4. Senior Marketing & Communications Manager, Action for Healthy Kids, Chicago or Remote ($68k - $75k)

🧠🍌 Brain Food

1. Research: Consumers care more about how companies donate than how much.

2. How Ukraine’s biggest and most luxurious department store is giving back.

3. Wellfare, a nonprofit that is working to flip the food-pantry model, distributes free boxes of premium food products to low-income families.