Video or Written Customer Story – Which Comes First?

Author: Casey Hibbard; Published: Aug 17, 2009; Category: Video testimonials; Tags: video case studies, video customer success stories, video customer testimonials; 5 Comments

In the multimedia age, more organizations are creating both written and video customer case studies and success stories.

It’s a powerful way of catering to prospects’ varying preferences for consuming information.

But in what order do you produce video and written versions of case studies and success stories?

I’ve done it both ways – created written case studies based on video footage, and scripted videos and questions based on a written story.

But which is best?

Personally, I find it more effective to create the written story first. Here’s why.

In interviewing and writing a customer case study, you have a lot of flexibility in the way you present information, and customers go through the process of tweaking and approving their public comments on paper.

It’s a process that allows customers to think through their comments behind the scenes without being "on the spot" on camera – increasing the customer’s confidence level.

Creating the written story first also allows you to flesh out what your story is, and then work on translating that to video.

Once you capture your customer on video, you can’t easily go back and make changes. What’s recorded is what’s recorded. It’s better to be as prepared as possible before the video process.

So, with written first…

You can focus your on-camera questions more specifically.

You can loosely script out the video.

It takes less time to arrive at the sound bites you need.

You already know the story you want to tell.

Your customer feels more comfortable on camera because he/she has already thought through the answers.

You spend less time on the more pricey medium of video, and less of your customer’s time perhaps.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

Do you prefer to capture video or written customer stories first, and why?