So you’re sold on the value of creating and sharing your customer success stories. Excellent!
But whether it’s a lack of capacity, the desire to scale your case study production, or just a need for a specialized partner, you’re wondering if outsourcing your case studies and video testimonials is even possible—or as good idea.
b) A good idea!
Outsourcing case studies can be a contentious issue, especially given the high-touch nature of customer success stories.
How can you know your clients will be treated with respect? Can an outside team really get the level of detail and insight you need? What about brand voice and tone—will those be compromised? Will the ROI be there relative to doing them in-house?
All of those are good questions—and things well worth being worried about. ‘Outsourcing’ also has connotations of being cheap and sub-par (which is why we view it as more of a partnership.)
If you’re thinking about outsourcing case studies, here’s what to expect:
- You’ll scale (and beat) your production targets
- Your turnaround time will improve
- You’ll get a stronger, more strategic end product
- You’ll ditch the heavy lifting
- You’ll tap into years of focused expertise
- You’ll circumvent internal politics
- You’ll how clients and internal teams you’re invested
- You’ll get unfiltered customer feedback
- You’ll look really, really good
- You won’t feel quite as weird sharing your wins
Let’s dig in!
1. You’ll scale (and beat) your production targets
The most common problem with trying to produce written case studies and video testimonials in-house? They don’t get done.
Inevitably, other needs and priorities emerge, and you end up putting aside the interviewing, writing and designing that’s needed to create your customer success stories.
And sometimes, it can feel like every step forward brings delays or problems:
- The customer can’t find a time to meet.
- They won’t get back to you with edits.
- The project drowns in internal approvals
- The end product is shaping up to be something entirely different than what you had in mind when you started. And on and on.
And so your case studies go nowhere.
When you outsource your case studies to Case Study Buddy it’s less like a ‘hand-off’ and more like a collaboration that takes massive heavy lifting off of your plate. Customer success stories is ALL we do: they’re ALWAYS our top priority.
We’re also relentless in following up and pushing through. In fact, we once persisted with a case study that took an entire year to complete. Why so long?
In this case, the customer is in the pharmaceutical space. When COVID-19 hit, the company’s top and only priority was to find a vaccine (which we heartily applaud!).
Still, we stayed with it, periodically following up with the customer without being pushy. Finally, one year later, we got this case study across the finish line, to the amazement of our client.
Would an in-house team have stuck this one out? Perhaps.
But given the chaos and disruption that the age of COVID has brought, perhaps not.
2. Your turnaround time will improve
Nobody wants your case studies to take a year to get done—that’s an extreme edge case.
What usually happens for our clients is that stories not only get done—they get done more quickly, because:
- You have one focused team in your corner for all of the project management, coordination, interviewing, asset creation, editing, and final approvals, and
- We advise you on how to set the right expectations with your customers, and set projects up for success.
We’ve had years of focused effort to invest into optimizing the case study process—valuable lessons learned on shortening the time it takes to get assets out, secure approval, and ultimately go live.
With SO MUCH administrative work involved in case studies, outsourcing case study creation to a partner with a plan means sidestepping serious landmines that can derail a study halfway through.
3. You’ll get a stronger, more strategic end product
When case studies are an afterthought or ‘just one more thing’ for your team to tackle, there’s not much time to think about problems like…
- How can we make sure every story aligns with a business or revenue goal?
- How do we make the interview as productive and deep as possible?
- What’s the best way to tell this story across channels and media?
Case Study Buddy has time to consider ALL of that—and help you do the same. We’re closely monitoring the latest in what’s working—and what’s not—in deploying customer success stories across sales and marketing funnels in almost every industry.
We’ve also written thousands of case studies (and filmed many more!) so we can brag that our writers, videographers, and interviewers have more focused experience than most teams in the business.
All of which means you’re going to get a top-of-the-line end product.
4. You’ll ditch the heavy lifting
Most people dramatically underestimate the time and hassle involved in creating customer success stories.
Whether it’s wrangling interviews, writing, filming, managing revisions, editing video, drafting release forms, or coordinating design, it can be a logistical nightmare to manage all of the moving pieces—and to do so in a tight timeframe so the client doesn’t lose interest.
When you hire a case study agency like ours, all of those hassles are taken off your plate and placed squarely on ours.
Which frees you up to focus on other important things in your business.
When you work with us, all of the hassles of creating a customer success story are taken off your plate and placed squarely on ours.
5. You’ll tap into years of focused expertise
You may know (or think you know) exactly what you want from your case study.
But is there an opportunity you’re not seeing? Is there a pitfall you can avoid?
What about getting answers to questions like…
- How do we get our sales team to help with case studies?
- How do we tell powerful anonymous case studies?
- How do we ask customers for a case study?
We’ve done so many of these things, it’s not surprising that we have some experience-based ideas and opinions; we’ve seen what works across hundreds of organizations.
And we’re always happy to offer those up to you if you’re looking for input or feedback on your case study marketing strategy. No extra charge.
6. You’ll circumvent internal politics
Sales and marketing not getting along?
Struggling to get buy-in from leadership?
Are you unable to get agreement on an angle for your case study—or much of anything else?
When you hand your case study project to us—a neutral third party—you may find that many of those internal disagreements disappear or become easier to navigate.
When you hand your case study project to us—a neutral third party—you may find that departmental disagreements disappear.
Because we’re an experienced advisor that lives outside your organization, internal departments are often willing to take our advice and direction. We’re good at getting teams to see both sides, align on goals, and recognize that ultimately, the assets we’re creating are going to benefit everyone in ways that make sense for the targets and challenges they’re facing.
After all, we’re not here to pick sides.
All we want is to get you the best customer success story possible to help you achieve your sales and marketing goals. Full stop.
7. You’ll show clients and internal teams you’re invested
It’s a hard truth, but sometimes in-house projects aren’t given the respect they’re due, no matter how important they truly are.
But bring in an outside consulting firm to do the project—and voilà! Suddenly, the project rises to the top of the priority list.
We sometimes see this scenario play out with our clients.
Case study programs that stalled, limped, or never got out of the gate suddenly come together once we’re in the picture.
Sure, we like to believe that our initiative in pushing these projects forward has a lot to do with it.
But we must admit that even just having us on board helps to overcome inertia and sets an expectation that it’s ‘go’ time.
8. You’ll get unfiltered customer feedback
One of the side benefits of working with us is that we can (if you choose) use the interviews to solicit feedback from your customers.
Clearly, they had a good experience with you (otherwise we wouldn’t be writing a case study about it).
But…
- What’s the one thing they would change if they could?
- Who else did they consider, and why?
- What almost stopped them from converting?
- Where do they see the future going with you?
When we ask these questions—again, coming from a neutral third party—your customers are more likely to give their honest feedback, because they’re not worried about having someone from the company sitting right there with high expectations.
And you can use these valuable insights to improve your products, services and processes even more.
9. You’ll look really, really good.
Our clients introduce us to their most valued customers every day of the week.
It’s a real honor and privilege that we don’t take lightly.
Which is why we…
- Engineer our process for their convenience
- Optimize for speed without compromising quality
- Work hard to be proactive, but never pests
- Approach this work with kindness, consideration, and excitement
Every day, our team brings the very best of themselves to the job, whether it’s writing, interviewing, filming, editing, selling, consulting, project managing or anything else.
Your customers will be impressed with our professionalism—and they’ll also be impressed that you cared enough about their success to bring in an outside specialist to tell the story.
10. You won’t feel quite as weird about sharing your wins
If you feel weird about sharing your success with the world, we can take the awkwardness out of it.
Zeph Snapp, CEO and Founder of Altura Interactive and a valued Case Study Buddy client, explained it best on Twitter:
We’d love to be your case study partner!
It’s really not about outsourcing case studies: it’s about partnering with professionals who can help you level up.
We hope we’ve convinced you that choosing Case Study Buddy as your case study partner is a no-brainer compared to doing them in house—but if not, we’d welcome a chance to hear your concerns and talk through them.
Want to get your customer success stories off the starting blocks and to the finish line?
Contact us to start the conversation.