Writing Case Studies Using
the Reader-Centered Approach
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Case studies are a highly-effective selling tool for your products or services. You take a success story where your company's products or services provided a successful solution for one of your clients -- and write a 1-to-5 page summary of how you were able to solve your client's problem. In doing so, you demonstrate the value and effectiveness of your products or service solutions.
Potential clients are hungry for this kind of information. A success story with a previous client provides evidence of the value of your products or services. The potential client wants to know how your products or services can solve their problems as well. A case study may make the difference in convincing a potential client to do business with you.
That's why it's best to use a Reader-Centered Approach to write your case studies. With this approach, you write your success story from the point of view of the reader -- that is, the potential client -- who will read the case study.
What Is Your Market?
First, define your market(s) for the case study. Which customers, in which markets, are you trying to impress with your success story? Will your case study be a general case study about your work for a large, high-profile company or organization? Or will your case study target customers in a specific market, or sub-set of a market?
It's important to have both kinds of case studies. General case studies show the versatility of your company in providing solutions to different, high-profile industries, hospitals, universities, government organizations, etc. Market-specific case studies let you target potential customers within those same markets.
Once you have defined the markets for your case study, select a success story for a client company that appeals to those markets. For example, if you are targeting high-tech customers with your case study, select a success story where you provided a solution to a high-tech client.