Member Article

CaseStudyNinja.com Survey Reveals What Journalists Want From CaseStudies

Case Study Ninja Tech Survey Reveals What Journalists Really Think Makes a Great Tech Case Study

The Top Five Most Important Factors of a Great Tech Case Study According to Some of the UK’s Most Influential Technology Journalists include:

1. That the case study mentions the involvement of a named organisation or individual (45/77)
2. The case study is about a hot topic – e.g. IoT/FinTech etc. (43/77)
3. It has an authentic voice – is ‘non-salesy’ or full of jargon (42/77)
4. It describes an innovative or disruptive approach (35/77)
5. The case study shows a quantitative impact (33/77)

CaseStudyNinja.com, a dedicated cloud software product and support service that enables businesses to create, manage and publish great case studies effectively, is pleased to announce the findings of the first UK survey to find out exactly what journalists believe makes a great technology case study. The survey received an unexpectedly high response with 77 influential technology journalists taking part from key UK national newspapers and leading business and technology trade titles.

The survey results show that the highest percentage of tech journalists said that a good tech case study should ultimately mention the involvement of a named organization or individual – receiving 45 votes out of 77. This highlights the importance of properly accrediting the organisations or individuals that were instrumental in achieving all project outcomes.

This factor did not distinguish whether the organisation or individual had to be high-profile or not. Indeed, the importance of ‘Having a High-profile Organization’ in a case study scored quite low, in joint seventh position along with the importance of having a case study ‘Copyright Cleared.’ This is good news for the hundreds of innovative tech start-ups and smaller businesses that are successfully flying the flag for Britain on the global technology stage.

It is perhaps understandable why journalists scored the second highest factor in a good tech case study as being ‘a Hot Topic’ – receiving 43 votes - since most journalists are required to be agile in their response to current issues and newsworthy events. For a similar reason, it is not surprising that the detailing of ‘An Innovative or Disruptive Approach’ polled in fourth place with 35 votes.

In third place with 42 votes, technology journalists also ranked highly the importance of having ‘An Authentic Voice’ within a good case study. This shows that journalists want genuine thoughts and feelings about the way a project has gone, rather than language that is too self-serving or littered with technical jargon and industry buzz words.

Surprisingly, the importance of ‘Quantitative Impact’ took the fourth pole position with 33 votes, indicating that a good case study does not necessarily have to have strong ROI stats to be considered a good one.

In 6th position with 20 votes came the importance of including ‘Contact Details.’ ‘Brevity’ (e.g. a case study with less than 1000 words) reached 8th position with 13 votes; and the importance of a ‘Client Testimonials’ made 9th place with nine votes. The importance of adding ‘Video’ to a tech case study was ranked the lowest priority, securing only three votes, which shows a strong preference for the written word among UK tech journalists. However, it has to be noted that broadcast journalists who might be more interested in the use of video in case studies, did not take part in this survey.

A few journalists included their additional thoughts regarding what, for them, makes a truly great case study:

George Bevir, Technology & Facilities Editor, Broadcast Magazine: “Too many of the case studies I receive are basically advertorials, with the focus on a sole manufacturer or product. For us to run a case study it needs to be broader in scope and include a range of suppliers or manufacturers that have worked on a project so that we can give readers a more complete view. And I like to treat a case study as the starting point for a feature, not as a finished article, so access to contributors and those quoted in the piece is useful.”

Jack Torrance, Web Editor at Management Today, said: “When putting together a case study you need to be mindful of who you are targeting. Many of those I receive aren’t at all suitable for MT’s audience because they are overly preoccupied with technical details rather than the wider significance for management.”

Sarah Dillingham, Founder, Case Study Ninja said: “Our survey is an important part of a wider campaign to show businesses how to create compelling tech case studies that would appeal to influential journalists every time; but also to position Case Study Ninja as the leading repository and publishing portal of the best technology case studies in the UK. We have recently teamed up with Dyogram, the leading IoT market development membership organisation to help promote member case studies to showcase exactly how some of the most innovative smart technologies out there are starting to make a real difference in the way we all live and do business. Case studies play a critical role, especially within the fast-paced technology industry, in helping businesses to show-off their creativity, expertise and business successes quickly and effectively. We look forward to significantly expanding our technology gallery over the coming months, and to enabling more innovative IoT players to achieve the recognition they deserve for their business achievements.”

Additional Notes

The online survey was carried out between 22nd September and 18th October 2016. 77 Technology editors, correspondents or reporters responded to the survey There were a total of eleven tick box questions in total. These are the results: Top 5 most important factors are:

1. Involvement of a named organisation or individual - 45 votes (58.4%)

2. Hot topic e.g. IOT, FinTech - 43 (55.8%)

3. Authentic voice - 42 votes (54.5%)

4. Innovative / disruptive approach - 35 (45.5%)

5. Quantitative impact - 33 votes (42.9%)

6. Contact details - 20 (26%)

7. Copyright cleared - 14 (18.2%)

8. High profile organisation in the case study - 14 (18.2%)

9. Brevity (e.g. under 1000 words) - 13 (16.9%)

10. Client testimonial - 9 (11.7%)

11. Video - 3 (3.9%)

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Sarah Dillingham .