The co-creation process

Learn what you can expect

How we work together to tell the customer's story

Planning: 1-2 weeks

Share your customers' transformational projects and contact details. If the lead is selected, work with Cisco to identify the right leading voice for the story and build a co-activation plan.

Engaging the customer: 1-2 weeks

You help get the customer exited to tell their story. Connect them and their marketing lead with the Cisco storytelling team to do an official storytelling pitch, explaining our process, and how Cisco will help promote their story. Cisco will send a reference welcome letter to the customer to be signed before proceeding.

Creating the content: 1 week to 1 month, depending on content type

Cisco will lead the content creation start to finish, including arranging interviews, onboarding an agency, and managing the timeline. You will be kept in the loop and involved.

Approving the story: 1 week to much longer, depending on response time

Approval is often the stage that takes longest and where preparation really pays off. We may need to run through several rounds of edits, and the customer may need stakeholders to provide final sign-off. Cisco will only publish and promote content that's been formally approved by you, us, and the customer.

Promoting the story: ongoing

The largest benefit of co-creating is co-promoting. We’ll promote the story via our channels, highlighting you and our partnership in front of our audiences. You do the same with a coordinated amplification plan, and together we will reach new customers.

How you can help speed up the process

Everyone involved in a customer story wants to know: when will the final article be ready? We get it! Unfortunately, the real answer is “it depends." But we can give you some general guidelines to speed up the process.

Make the customer want it. If the customer feels like they’re doing us a favor, they won’t prioritize the case study in their schedule. Take time up front to show them the value for their personal brand and they will chase stakeholders for approvals.
Set a hard target. Projects without deadlines slip. If there’s an event coming up that we can aim at, it gives us all a reason to put some pressure on to lock the story down. Ask the customer what pressure points or schedule blocks they have coming up so we can plan around them.
Control the review process. Early in the discussions with the customer, identify their stakeholders who will need to approve the case study and then engage them. Ask the customer for a single point of contact who can consolidate any changes.
Do the prep work. The more background you can give us on the customer, their project, their business needs and their business strategy, the more likely it is that our agency will get the story right the first time.

Build an amplification plan

Creating brilliant content together is just the start. Amplify the stories as part of your marketing and sales efforts to drive awareness and demand.

Consider these tactics as you build a co-amplification plan:

Social: promote the story organically on your social media accounts. Consider paid social targeted at relevant prospects.
Events: build stories in as content in your event sessions and webinars; include videos on stand screens.
Newsletters and emails: use your existing email cadence with customers and prospects to share relevant stories.
Press outreach: when the story is particularly high-profile, work with your PR agency to engage the customer in press events. Please engage with Cisco PR and the customer to coordinate efforts.
Internal comms: notify your colleagues in sales, marketing and customer success when Cisco posts new stories, and ask them to share the content with their networks.

Please note: As Cisco is funding the story, we ask that all amplification efforts lead to our digital properties. While we welcome you to link to the story hosted on our digital properties from your website, please do not re-post any stories into your own templates.