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we're talking about
the next step which would be after the actual writing process is done;
and we talked about now we know why your marketing person shouldn't do
case studies because there's so much involved in them.
They'd be doing them all day, and only that; but what other additional services
does
a freelancer provide
beyond the writing process? Right. OK, so this is something that would
normally be agreed upfront, before you finally hire the person and it
boils down to
do you want the case study writer just to provide the draft,
the first (or) second draft, whatever you're happy with, and that's it?
Or, do you want them to take
all of
the tough work off your shoulders, and handle not only the draft and the
edits
but also getting the customer
feedback
for what needs to be changed,
and the final sign off.
Because i'm finding this sign off thing is actually in some industries, can be a big
deal.
Not all customers, certainly not all customers' legal departments are keen on
releasing information that they might consider competitive or proprietary.
So, sometimes it just,
you need to be clear: is the writer experienced in
talking to the customer contact, and maybe even some of their legal people; just
emailing them, and asking them what needs to change, and handling that
that back and forward between you,
and the end customer. You know, if your writer's familiar with that, it's kind of like a
project manager role;
and they don't freak out about, you know, chasing people up politely and,
you know, getting them to follow-up on actions they agreed to.
Then, you know, you might consider asking the writer to do that as well.
But if you get a sense that they're not, they're 'just' a writer, and they don't
or they can't, handle some of the project management tasks then,
you know, make that very clear up front what you
want them to do and don't let them embarrass you because they can't handle
that process well.
Right, and many writers will charge an additional fee for that project management
portion of the job but, again, being very clear on what you need,
and then what that writer is going to provide, will help you,
definitely.
Yes, i'm finding that's actually the longest part often.
I was told this would be the case and,
it's true. One of the reasons is, and i'm sure hiring
managers and
clients know this, is because their end customers are often too busy, and there's
so much going on that
the case study project, while it might be a big thing
to the writer obviously, and to the hiring manager;
to the end customer it's just another task.
Yes. You have to sometimes see it in that perspective; you know, they obviously want
(probably) for it to get done and for their company
to get written up well, and
the study completed, but it may not be their highest priority.
And that's just a reality that a good writer has to face; and that's where the project
management
role comes in; how to handle people who are really busy
and maybe don't want to deal with your particular sign off task but,
you know, you're respectfully trying to get them to close the project out.
Or give you some piece of information that allows you to move on to the next
part of the sign off.
Right. So, yes, it's a big thing.
OK. So, the next question in the 'after the writing section',
and this is a very, very exciting one, I think, because the internet is
enabling this
type of activity to occur. So, Pamela, here it goes. How does the writer help you
turn a case study into multiple pieces of content?
Well, the case study writer
has gotten much more information than they are actually putting in the case
study through the course of the interview. There's so many different ways that you
can;
you can put it into smaller forms; you can do articles; you can do
press releases, blogs;
you can put articles on the web site; you can put articles in trade magazines;
you can make use of social media and tweet (out) different points as well.
And i think that you can use them for sales brochures; you can use them
in PowerPoint
presentations. You really want to make the most of it by;
you've got a terrific story to tell of your success, so you want to find as
many different ways as possible to get that information out there. A good writer can,
i think, think of many of these ways,
and suggest how this case history can be used, or different pieces of it can be used,
so that you can, you can really get the most out of it.
Yeah, and i think also, that (if)
you as the hiring manager may be having
some budget issues, or you're having, you know, push back on hiring a writer
or, somebody saying, what, just for a case study?
you can,
with the writer's help, show how you can repurpose that content.
Because a good writer will be able to
write you a good case study,
and then,
if they're familiar with blogging, they might be able to blog about it or
suggest the blog topics that could flow out of that case study and,
as you mentioned also, they might mention, they might be able to do press releases,
or again, if you don't want to use them, they could certainly suggest
some of the content, and how it could be
chopped up and reused.
And i think this is really important now because
at the time of this call, there's
kind of tough economic times going on, so people want to get, extract the maximum value
from
any resource, and that would include a freelance writer.
Exactly.
Exactly. And i think i partially answered the question i'm going to ask you.
Go for it! Just, just additional ways to promote the case study.
Using social media, how would you suggest that a company
do that. OK.
Well, (for) business-to-business,
I follow YouTube a little bit and i'm starting to get into it more, but i don't notice it
taking off in a
big way for,
for example, my marketplace; b2b
IT networking. But most of the vendors are on there, you know;
top three or four are there, and some of the smaller ones.
They do all sorts of things; they have video interviews; they have
humorous skits, everything, and i'm sure that they have smart people helping them,
but as far as using a case study is concerned,
what you could do is, you could actually have the case study become an interview.
Now, if you were lucky enough to get your customer to agree to it, you could interview the
customer
using the case study as a script, or turn it into a script very quickly.
Or, you could just
put it online as a series of slide
presentations,
and have that as a
google video with
either you talking over the top in some kind of
instructional audio part,
or just post the entire transcript underneath the video, underneath the you
tube video; there's like an about section you can post a transcript, if
it's not too long.
And most YouTube videos are fairly short, that are
watched,
i think, by marketers; they're maybe six or seven minutes long.
Another thing you could do that i'm just dipping my toe into,
i'm still learning about it is,
think about what
the research is telling us that lots and lots of people are using
mobile devices (smartphones) to access the internet.
So, you know, I'm sitting looking on a macbook at the moment,
but that's a totally different experience if i look at a case study on a smartphone.
You've gotta think about how it's gotta look like,
you know, is it gonna be graphics intensive,
people are maybe not going to read more than maybe two or three hundred words perhaps.
So, you can extract
tremendous amounts of value from a two or three page case study and
make that suitable for mobile users.
And another thing you can do is podcasting.
On iTunes there are a lot of vendors doing this. They release a lot of their information
because they know people are on the move, they're driving, or they're in public transport,
or something,
they're not able to read, it's not safe to read, but they could listen to something.
So, it's not that difficult to turn a well-written case study into
a series of podcasts.
It can be scripted and,
people appreciate that; i think the phrase is, Pamela, consuming
content;
people consume content in the way that they want to.
And,
marketers are finding out, from
what i'm hearing, is that they have respond to how
their
readers and listeners and viewers want to consume.
Some people love podcasts; some people love articles; some people love YouTubes.
You've got to be in the places where your audiences
happen to be,
is what i'd say.
And I think all of those methods are
good to have some kind of mix on your website because that's just going to, you
know, give your website
more visibility; so, experiment with all those is, i think,
a good idea; and then, as you said, find out where your clients are and then target your
information to those areas.