A tale of growth and pivoting strategies
Hopin is a massive name in the events technology space. Founded in 2019, the company became a unicorn in just eight months, and it grew to $7.75 billion and 850+ employees in under two years.
We partnered with Hopin at the peak of their growth, playing a crucial role in supporting the company’s efforts to position themself as more than just a pandemic tool.
Hopin already had a good strategy in place, but they needed help with the execution. They needed a partner to help them pivot their multi-billion-dollar brand to ensure its continued relevance as a virtual and hybrid event powerhouse even post-pandemic.
Here’s how we helped Hopin achieve this goal.
The initial work: Readying for a massive undertaking
We designed three page templates for Hopin’s case study page template, including layouts for the video content, pull-out statistics, and copy. All I can say is that before meets after never looked so good.
But the process wasn’t just about making the page look good; it was also about making sure that whoever visited the case study pages had a positive experience. So, we brought in our specialist UX designer to ensure that every interaction with the content resulted in the best user experience.
With such a strong emphasis on UX, we developed the case study page templates to do two things:
The first was to highlight how various Hopin features assist customers with everything from event planning to execution to post-event reporting and analytics, as well as proving event success to key stakeholders who want to know if the event worked. We accomplished this by segmenting the page into four distinct sections: overview, pre-event, in-event, and post-event.
Second, we designed the page layout to accommodate multiple methods of content consumption. For example, research-focused people who would want to learn as much as they can about Hopin before signing up got around 12 minutes of video, statistics, and lots of copy.
Skimmers, on the other hand, could go the TL;DR route by watching the overview video, reviewing the key statistics, and quickly skimming the pre-event, in-event, and post-event sections.
Delving into strategy execution
With the templates, it was now time to get into the weeds, but the process couldn’t have been more complex.
Picture this… Each case study required around 1,000 words of copy and three minutes of video for each of the four page sections (overview, pre-event, in-event, and post-event), all done remotely because, for the majority of the engagement, the pandemic left us with no option for in-person video.
Add in the many stakeholders involved in this project… For each case study, we had to get approval from multiple stakeholders within Hopin. We then needed to get a sign-off from the customer on whom the case study was based, which could take up to a month (yes, a whole four weeks or even more of chasing the customer before starting the actual work).
To add to this, we always had five to 10 case studies in the works, each with its own design assets and copy. It was, as you might expect, a logistical nightmare!
But, in true Literal Humans fashion, we made it work, and very well at that.
We also helped Hopin improve their processes in several ways:
Upping the email outreach and project management game
Equipping our clients with the tools and resources they need to achieve their objectives is a big part of what we do. One of the crucial things we did at the start of our engagement with Hopin was to make sure that their messaging was as sleek as possible. For example, we assisted them in developing copy for their outreach emails — there’s nothing more off-putting than inviting a client to an interview with a sloppy email.
In addition, we helped Hopin build a survey for interested customers to complete in order to determine if they would be a great fit for the case study. We also wrote Hopin’s pre-interview emails to send to their clients.
When it came to project management, we trained the Hopin team to improve and streamline the entire content creation process. For example, we gave them checklists to send to the customers we were interviewing, and we explained processes to interviewees before each interview to ensure quality output.
And, of course, we had a comprehensive Asana board for this massive project, where it would be very easy to get lost and very difficult to stay on top of all the moving parts without some solid project management.
The board was especially useful for delegating responsibility and ensuring that everyone (all of the many people involved in this project) knew what they were supposed to do and when.
By improving the quality of the emails and project management, we were able to reduce the total turnaround time for each case study to around a month, including the time it took to get stakeholder approval, create content, and take care of the other many moving parts.
To put things into perspective, the first three case studies we completed for Hopin took about three and a half to four months to publish, so developing systems and processes that cut this time by a whopping 75% was a massive accomplishment that we’re extremely proud of.
Nailing remote filming
Quality content, including video case studies, is built on a foundation of robust preparation and planning.
We developed a process for prepping and training Hopin customers to record good interviews. This included training the Hopin team on how to acquire quality b-roll from their customers (which was a huge undertaking) and when to bring it into the conversation.
But things don’t always work out how we want, and that’s part of the process. There were a couple of instances where we had to make do with not-so-great-quality source material — we’re talking about taking a video shot on someone’s 720p webcam and turning it into a polished, professional-looking case study.
Ultimately, we managed to create some good…no, make that great content while helping Hopin to nail the art of conducting quality interviews. As evidenced by the Latinas in Tech and 365labs case studies, it’s no hyperbole when we say that we produced some high-quality case studies. And, yes, these two case studies were filmed entirely remotely.
But it wasn’t just the remote filming we helped Hopin nail.
Taking on the complexities head on
One thing about us as an agency is that if there’s a way to get the best results for a client, we’ll find it, even if it takes a bit more work than usual or brings us out of our comfort zone (comfort zones are where dreams go to die anyway, so we’re not complaining).
We sent a team of videographers to do several in-person customer stories at one of Hopin’s conferences. This added to the complexity of an already elaborate engagement, but this specific part of the project needed in-person video, so we got it done and ended up with some high-quality case studies.
Integrating with both internal and external teams
From crafting outreach email copy to creating resources for educating customers on interviews to project management, we collaborated extensively with Hopin’s internal team. However, as an agency, were are all about flexibility — we will work with both our clients’ internal and external teams. For instance, on the external team front, we worked with Hopin’s web agency on a ton of tasks that enabled us to do our best work.
I admit that things were a bit complicated given the number of stakeholders we were working with, but we devised a system that allowed us to collaborate with everyone involved in this project, whether they were on Hopin’s internal or external team.
So, whether our clients simply want a partner who will work well with various members of their team or they want someone to help them handle an incredibly complicated internal politics system while still producing some awesome content, we’ve always got them covered.
Going multilingual: From hello to bonjour to hallo
By now, you probably have a good idea of how much of a complex undertaking creating the Hopin case studies was. But what happens when you go from creating case studies in English to include not only French but German as well?
You need a whole new set of superpowers (seriously), expertise, a strong network (we reached out to our personal network of language specialists to ensure quality output), plus some good planning and execution.
We did all this and more — creating both copy and video content — and managed to produce some brilliant French and German case studies, even if we do say so ourselves.
Maybe it’s all to do with the fact that we’re always striving to provide the best results for our clients. Take, for example, the French case study. We specifically worked with a bilingual journalist who specializes in the tech industry, the same space in which the customer that was getting interviewed operates.
This was not a matter of us just finding a person to translate the interview into French; we actually partnered with a person who could conduct the interview in the best way possible.
The biggest takeaway?
If you’re going to work with an agency, you need to make sure that they are agile, versatile, and responsive to your specific needs — just like us.
Using time more efficiently
We facilitated Hopin getting the most out of the hour-and-a-half customer interviews. For instance, Hopin would regularly have their account managers and UX team on the interview calls to ask specific questions about Hopin’s features and products.
We ensured that Hopin was able to get multiple things done at once without compromising on quality and efficiency. They were able to use insights from these meetings for product research among their biggest power users and to engage their community and keep them happy. Now that’s what we call a win-win situation.
Creating economies of scale
While creating video content in-house is possible, it’s often more expensive than outsourcing to an agency. Hopin was able to leverage our expertise in creating video content and tap into our extensive network of partners to produce great case studies at a good price.
Could they have purchased cutting-edge video equipment and software, as well as hired various internal team members such as videographers, copywriters, project managers, and translators, all while managing timelines, implementing new processes, refining old ones, and finalizing deliverables?
Yes, indeed…
But, given that Hopin is an event platform rather than a video production company, would this have been cost-effective, strategic, and efficient?
Most likely not.
Outsourcing the case study production to us gave Hopin access to resources and video content experts, as well as established systems, processes, and networks that enable economies of scale.
Improving reporting
When we partnered with Hopin, they had a reporting system in place, but we did add some rich elements to it. Consider, for example, how we ensured that Hopin could see:
- view totals for each case study video; and
- how many people watched all the way to the final video on each case study.
We also made sure that Hopin could retarget past website traffic based on how many videos a person watched and how far along the case study they got.
The results: 2x the average time on page
Now onto the all-important numbers…
Compared to their previous case studies that only had copy, Hopin was able to double the average time on page with the new video case studies.
The results are proof of the caliber of case studies we created for Hopin.
In the end, we created 30 case studies, in three languages, with customers across eight timezones. We produced several hours of video and thousands of words of copy.
We were thrilled with the output, as were Hopin and their clients. In fact, 10% of the 30 customers we interviewed ended up contacting us about doing similar work for them, including GRIN Therapeutics.
The lessons
The outcomes speak for themselves; we did a solid job.
However, we’re not going to pretend that the entire engagement was smooth sailing. Of course, things didn’t always go as planned, and we learned a lot throughout what was a large and complex engagement with Hopin.
We learned to change processes and fix problems as they arose. For example, early in our engagement, the process of obtaining b-roll was less than ideal. B-roll was introduced into conversations at the wrong time and without the necessary context in some cases, making it difficult to obtain quality material. We were fortunate to recognize this early on and upskill Hopin, which resulted in a significant improvement in the quality of material we had to work with.
Furthermore, we learned to take multiple stakeholders’ opinions and expectations into account and use them to build better systems in which everyone’s input was considered and everyone worked toward the common goal of creating the best case studies.
We also had the opportunity to improve our agency’s communication systems and processes. When you work with as many people as we did during our partnership with Hopin, it’s easy for some messages and requests to fall through the cracks. Our communication system was put to the test, and we gained some insights that helped us improve and build a more robust way of communicating with multiple stakeholders.
30 case studies, lots of work, and some valuable lessons later…. We were able to take Hopin from conceptualization to delivery and post-delivery management. We nurtured client relationships every step of the way and were even chatting with Hopin’s customers after the case studies were published, engaging them and making sure they were happy with the final product. In the end, many of the customers shared their case studies, helping to expand Hopin’s reach even further.
We managed the entire process and delivered top-tier video content, as we have for other clients such as Chipper Cash.
If you’re looking for a partner to help you level up your content marketing with some high-quality video content (or other types of content for that matter), Literal Humans can help.
We will ensure that you get content that drives results. But more than that, we will support you with all the other aspects of your business that you need help with, whether that’s improving processes, working with your team, or even taking care of your customer engagement.
