#7-case-studies-stories
Thread
Would appreciate the collective wisdom of the group on this potentially sticky situation. We are working on a case study with a customer, and he returned a rewritten draft that is not in our brand voice or tone. Much of the sentence structure and phrasing (not verbatim quotes) is written in an Indian English dialect. Which would be fine for a blog post, but it diverges significantly from our typical case study style.
WWYD? I don't want to drag this draft on forever, and I want to be sensitive to the time he took to revise it. He's an engineer, so he doesn't have the same perspective as a copywriter/copyeditor would.
Hi @Emily Coleman - I've been here to many times to count. I would offer 2 or 3 blogs to him, in his native English/Indian tone so that he can use it for social etc. Then let him know that for a "case study" story layout we (you) need to stick to the following xyz, to stay in compliance with your company brand values and strategy. Since he is an engineer he may not be aware of the intricate details of how a case study should be written and developed to stay on brand. Hope that helps 😉
I have also been there! Big commiseration as even following best practices doesn't guarantee this gets across the line 🥺
He told me he spent an hour working on it and I was like, "awww, you shouldn't have!" (no really, he shouldn't have)
Literally nothing worse than someone thinking "review" means "rewrite" 🥲
I think next time I send a draft out, I'm going to suggest that if there are larger substantive things they want to change, to leave a comment in the draft instead of rewriting as a way to save them time. Because I think they have a vision in mind for what they want to communicate, but writing is a whole different skillset!
I would try a Frankenstein approach from a content perspective. Leave the language changes out (ie. maintain your style guide), but incorporate changes to the actual story. If there aren't changes to the story and it's mostly word choice that reflects a regional preference, you can always point back to your global audience and a style guide that dictates your content maintains those global standards. Emphasis on their story having global reach can often be the carrot needed.
Great framing. I'm definitely going to use that.
What about a compromise? Publish both his blog post (slightly modified) for the customer community + have him approve a case study that "follows your company's style guide and guidelines"? I might also go one step further and collect a high res recorded quote that can be used to promote both. I have several example posted on LI.
We did create a blog post draft for him to revise and use as he wanted. He opted not to revise or use that one. We also have several good-quality testimonial videos from him already. Otherwise, this would be a great option!