Marketing Case Studies: 5 lessons from effective marketers over the past year (with ideas on how to apply them)

Over the course of a typical year, I report on approximately 150 marketing case studies. We bring you a behind-the-scenes look at how marketers and entrepreneurs got more leads, sales, clicks, traffic, emails, etc. by showing you specific examples with results.

Since summer is a season where you may have more time to kick back and reflect – on your campaigns and careers – I thought it would be worthwhile to bring you a few lessons from those case studies to spur your next great idea.

Lesson #1: Communicating value never goes out of style.

Looking at the past year, it’s hard to overlook the impact of technology in marketing. Especially artificial intelligence. But before we get to tech, I wanted to point out that communicating value is always in style. Even back when the hot tech was the printing press.

Shop keepers needed to communicate value to sell in ancient bazaars. Traditional direct mail and print advertising focused on communicating value. And even in an AI-saturated world, our core job as marketers and entrepreneurs still revolves around discovering a value proposition and communicating it to customers.

If you’d like to apply this lesson and get some ideas for better communicating your products’ value, take a look at…

• Financial services company gets 241% higher CTR by adding value prop to landing page in Define the Value Proposition: Examples of using SMS, SEO, and a landing page to enhance perceived value

• Domo takes a show (instead of tell) approach, engages 661 CIOs in Value Proposition Articulation: Examples of helping customers understand and believe your business’ marketing messages

• How recruitment firm defined its value proposition, increased pitch wins 35% in Understanding Customer Experience: 3 quick marketing case studies (including test results)

• How rethinking a Mother’s Day email campaign helped a nonprofit sell 16 product bundles in Successful Marketing Campaigns: Get ideas from a Mother’s Day email campaign, digital advertising, and programmatic SEO

Lesson #2: AI, of course.

What can I say about artificial intelligence that hasn’t already been said, er, make that generated…by AI itself.

The biggest difference for marketers and entrepreneurs in the summer of 2022 and summer of 2023 is, of course, artificial intelligence. AI was a very powerful and emerging technology one year ago, but it was more behind the scenes. Generative AI – especially ChatGPT – has surfaced it in a way that cannot be ignored.

I’m not smart enough to tell you with any certainty what AI’s impact on marketing will be one year from now. But if you are looking for ideas on leveraging AI in your marketing mix, here are some specific examples of how marketers have used it…

• How SAP used AI-powered contextual intelligence to increase brand awareness 4% without cookies from Artificial Intelligence Case Studies: Two companies that boosted brand awareness with AI and another marketer that used humans instead

• AI can help make your website interactive from Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in Marketing: What marketers (even those who don’t care about tech) should know about AI and ML

• How to use conversational AI to inform your marketing headlines from AI Marketing Tools: How marketers are using artificial intelligence to help their campaigns right now

Lesson #3: Don’t just guess what will work in marketing. Test.

There are so many times in my life, when faced with difficult decisions, I wish I could have engaged in a little testing.

Go to both College A and College B, then measure the results 10 years down the road.

Or…half of me orders the Ultimate Tour of Fried Food, followed up with a triple chocolate brownie sundae. The other half orders the salad with grilled tofu. Which version of Daniel does better during the meal? After?

What isn’t possible in real life is a common practice of highly effective marketers. To spur your own test ideas, here are a few juicy experiments…

• How online tutoring provider increased conversion rate by 28% with call-to-action (CTA) testing from Understanding Customer Experience: 3 quick marketing case studies (including test results)

• Global animal health company increases quiz completion rate from 80% to 92% with transparency from Marketing Testing: How marketers tested an email form, product bundle, and advertising channels to increase marketing performance

• Quick Case Study #2: Nurse influencer increases email open rate from 13% to 56% by piquing curiosity from Self-reflection Empowers New Marketing Approaches: Reactive PR campaign for gaming website, email A/B testing for nursing influencer, ad buying for gutter service

Lesson #4: Make it easy for your customers to do business with you.

Your product or offer gets a few moments of your ideal customer’s attention. And the competition is just a click away.

Don’t make them work. Don’t make them jump through hoops.

Make sure your website is easy to use and that your checkout process is simple and straightforward. Make the terms of your offer surprisingly easy to understand and fulfill. Make customer service a convenient, joyful experience with many different ways to get in touch. Provide a disruptively better customer experience.

These quick case studies will give you some ideas for reducing friction and improving clarity…

• How Nestlé used AI for personalization to get 45% more clicks from Marketing Relevance Case Studies: Right offer, right time, right person

• Pizza Hut drove a projected $7.8 million annualized uplift in revenue through one A/B test from Value Proposition Articulation: Examples of helping customers understand and believe your business’ marketing messages

• Fiction author increases conversion 20% with dedicated landing page from Conversion Rate Optimization: 3 effective marketing strategies explained by the marketers who created them

Lesson #5: Collaboration > isolation

Marketing is an ideas business. Sure, throughput is important. You need to be able to execute. But without ideas for overcoming your biggest marketing challenges or grabbing the customer’s attention, all that executional acumen isn’t going to get you very far.

I hope our MarketingSherpa case studies spur great ideas in you. Along with the How I Made It In Marketing podcast and our Q&A blog posts. But you can read and listen to all that content in isolation, frankly.

As an introvert, this isn’t easy for me to say – no marketer is an island. Yes, it’s important to get that time alone to reflect and ideate. But we also have to surround ourselves with other people like us – in this case, customer-first marketers – to keep the creative fire burning. To see the challenge from a new angle. To help us confront our assumptions.

Which is why we formed the MECLABS SuperFunnel Research Cohort a little over a year ago.

Flint McGlaughlin, CEO of MarketingSherpa and MECLABS Institute, explains the strategy behind community formation to address today’s most pressing challenges and opportunities for marketers in The Way of the Marketer (in Chaos): A Path through the complexities of the AI Revolution.

Here are some case studies from SuperFunnel Cohort participants to show you the power of community, and give you ideas for your own funnel…

• Sleep product increases earnings per click 10% by using a more natural review headline on its presell page in Using The Customer’s Words To Improve Your Marketing (specific examples with results)

•  Digital advertising experiment increases CTR 252% for digital marketing consultancy in What Is Brand Awareness? A glossary definition | plus 4 marketing examples with results

• How fractional CFO company got 33% more high-quality form completions from homepage headline and subheadline test in Marketing Relevance Case Studies: Right offer, right time, right person

I’ll leave the final word on the topic of the SuperFunnel Cohort (and community in general) to Brad Horan, Business Consultant, Lucrature…

“Thanks to the team at MECLABS I have grown so much on this journey. It's not so much about learning in marketing but really learning life lessons about what we do and how we do it.

Digging deeper into what we are as a business, what we are all about, who we serve, and how we serve customers.

It's not about fluffy messages, flashy gadgets, or clickbait tactics, it's about real communication, self-awareness, and understanding the people we serve.

We have also formed small cohort groups and having others to lean on and support is amazing. I personally have grown so much and continue to do so every week.

Thank you MECLABS Institute.”