When Marketing Case Studies Can Harm Your Business

Case studies are a great resource for any start-up or business that's trying to achieve traction and growth.  I will be share case studies that feature growth hack marketing often as well as other case studies to show the hidden growth hacks within.  While a case study may not specifically feature the growth hack, chances are there is a hack or two within a successful case study.

Here's my Caution Label Concerning Case Studies

Good case studies can teach us a lot and a well written case study can reveal a growth hack that we can take, learn from and replicate it to our benefit.  A good case study can provide time-saving insights to a growth hack that has already proven itself.

But, taking action and trying to replicate the overall message of the case study can only work if all the other elements of growth hack marketing and a growth hack minded team are present. Like with any recipe, you need to have all the ingredients in place to replicate the outcome.

I recently had a coffee shop meeting with an early stage tech start-up and this error soon became clear.  While I will certainly point out the credit they deserve for putting together a short list of marketing ideas that they felt could work, I soon realized that it's also important for the team behind the product to evaluate who.  Was their product and team able to execute growth hacks.

Trying to apply growth hacks without holding true to the other principles of growth hack marketing may lead the team to a failed attempt without realizing that the failure was inevitable.  Not because the hack was bad, but because the foundation was not in place.

Are you thinking like a growth hacker and are you staying true to growth hacking?  Have you applied the principles of Product Market Fit?  What are you trying to achieve by the hack and is it the right hack at the product stage you're at?  Are you looking for a hack to provide feedback to your team during a minimum viable product (MVP) stage of your product?  Are you even at that stage or aware of what it is or why you need it?

If you are looking for feedback, have you planned out how you're going to gather that feedback, measure it and evaluate it?

My fear is that many well intended product developers may take the overall idea of the case study and attempt to apply it by jumping right to the final traction phase of their business.  When failure is achieved, the tragedy is to walk away from the experience thinking the hack does not work when, in reality, the hack was not the right fit for the product or business or for the stage it's at.

I certainly don't want to imply that I'm discouraging start-up teams from going through the exercise of researching case studies and putting together a list of possible ideas.  In fact, this is exactly the approach I would encourage.  You can learn more about how to use this exercise, check out Traction by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares.  You can find the link to this book in my resources section.

Use Case Studies the Growth Hacker Way

In their book, they walk Start-Up teams through a process they call the Bullseye Framework.  No this isn't something you can get a Target, it's a process a collaborative process that a team can go through to identify the channels that will get them the traction they need for the stage they're at.  From the initial brainstorming sessions through ranking these channels, prioritizing them, testing them and focusing on what works and repeating the process.

So, case studies can play an important part of a traction phase for a hacker start-up, but they need to be applied within the mindset of team that is applying them using a process that can deliver the desired results.  Ironically, the desired result is not necessarily a home run on the first swing.  While this may sound a little crazy, it's important to understand that the hacker mindset is focused on failing fast to find what does and does not work and to avoid wasting time and budget on things that sound great in a case study but do not fit for you product or team.