Writing Case Studies Using
the Reader-Centered Approach
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Who Is Your Reader?
What position will your reader hold at the company where they work? Are they the CEO? The CFO? The Chief Technology Officer? The Director of Business Operations? The VP of Sales and Marketing?
Ask yourself, who have you dealt with in the past? Look at the client company that is the subject of your case study. Who did you work with there? Which executive or manager made the first call to engage your company? Who made the decision to buy? These same kinds of executives and managers at other companies will be the people who will read your case studies.
One trick I've learned is to go to your client company's web site, and read the short biographies of the executives and managers that you will mention in the case study. It's probable that readers of your case study will have similar backgrounds, duties, and responsibilities.
What Does Your Reader Know?
How familiar is your reader with the basic concepts of your products or services? What do they know about the solutions you provide? What do they NOT know? How much will you need to explain to them?
If your readers are familiar with your products or technology, you probably won't need to explain the basic concepts. You can focus instead on the technical features of your products or services, and how those features provided benefits to the client company.
If your readers are CEOs or other executives, they will be focused more on the "bottom line" -- the problems you solved for the client, the cost savings, ROI, TCO, etc. You don't need to go into too much technical detail. But be wary of assuming that a CEO or other executive automatically understands your products or services. You may need to explain some basic concepts to them.
Once, a high-tech executive returned a case study draft to me with a section crossed out. He added a margin comment: "We don't need to explain this. Everyone already knows this part of the technology."
I wrote back to him: "Everyone in your industry knows this part of the technology. But we are targeting your high-tech solutions to business CEOs, real estate executives, and hospital boards. They have no prior knowledge of this technology. Therefore, we need to explain the concepts to them."