A client once joked to me: “Creating case studies would be so much easier if we didn’t have to find the right sources.”
We all know that feeling.
It can seem like a daunting process; not to worry, you probably already have several potential sources, and for others, you may need to take a different approach to find them.
Here are a few ideas to help you.
Who has experienced a change worth talking about? You’re looking for a customer or company who has experienced something mentioned in your report.
They’ll be able to explain:
- How they dealt with the issue
- What was difficult or frustrating about sorting it out
- What changed afterwards
- What they can do now which they couldn’t do before
These sources have an emotional connection to the problem you solved. I don’t mean this in a soap-opera-type way, more that they needed to find a solution to the issue, and that’s something your reader will understand and relate to.
Where can you find the right sources?
Good places to start are:
- Your own customers
- Your internal experts
- Specialist consultants
- Trade associations
- Conference speakers
- Experts quoted in other reports
If they can’t help with your case study, they may well know someone who can help you, or they may be able to point you towards another source.
Another way to find sources is to ask yourself, who would benefit from the visibility?
You might have a customer who values being seen as an innovator or leader in their field. Or an author on your topic has recently published a book and would welcome being included in your report. Especially if you also mention their book.
A consultant may have written a well-received article in a professional publication and is looking for more opportunities to be recognised as an expert in their field. There are all sorts of possibilities, and these people can be keen to take part in a case study because it gives them something they can use for their work or business.
Sources sorted
You now have several ways to find potential sources for your case study. With any luck, this has inspired more ideas, making the tricky task of finding the right one a little bit easier.
Stakeholders and others often prefer to use well-known sources for case studies; however, this can lead to other, equally good or even better sources being overlooked because they don’t fit someone else’s view of what’s ‘right’.
The next question is, how do you persuade them to take part? That’s a challenge worth its own post.
I’m Sara Edlington, a research and analysis writer for B2B technology, specialising in cyber security.
After over 20 years in technology journalism, I now help companies create reports that are read and shared.