White Papers vs. Case Studies: What Works Better?

When considering your most effective marketing tools in B2B sales, case studies and white papers consistently rank at or near the top. But is one better than the other? Which should you use?

The answer is both. Together, these two powerful players are teammates that can deliver winning results for your marketing campaigns.

But they perform very different functions. Their differences, however, are why they make such a potent combination. Consider them a terrific1-2 punch..

White papers are informative and persuasive, combining the factual elements of an article and the influential aspects of a brochure without the gloss and hype. They are highly educational, used as a vehicle to establish trust and credibility in business-to-business marketing.

"Educational marketing" is an apt description for white papers, since they are mostly by businesses that have a complex or technical product or service to sell. They should focus on the prospects’ needs and aid them in their decision-making process.

By comparison, case studies are a third-party endorsement of a businesses’ products or services. Commonly referred to as customer success stories, case studies are built around a problem/solution format. They showcase your business by profiling real people at real companies who have overcome obstacles and solved their problems, thanks to the help of your firm’s product or service.

Written in a similar style to a magazine feature story, case studies are benefit-driven. Human nature draws us to a good story. People would much prefer to read about other people and how they – rather than a product or service – solved their problems. Also, an engaging story carries much more credibility than a sales pitch.

Whereas white papers make the business case – by talking about general benefits across a wide swath – case studies highlight specific needs and challenges by one person or a single company.

There are varying points of view – and certainly no right or wrong on the subject – but white papers are generally used early in the sales cycle during a prospect’s research stage. Entire industries rely on white papers for lead generation. Of ten, they are the first piece of marketing collateral sent out.

Once a prospective buyer moves beyond the initial stages and ventures deeper into the sales funnel, case studies become particularly helpful. By now, prospects are actively pursuing more detailed information and how it relates to them. At this point, they are looking for specific solutions to a problem and how your product might help them. Case studies fill this gap nicely.

However, many use white papers in the mid and final stages of the buying cycle to further identify technical features and compare products as part of a competitive analysis process. Case studies are also multi-dimensional as many companies produce entire libraries of them to resonate with different segments of the market based on industry, size, demographic, challenge and so on.

The 2007 Tech Target and CMO Council Technology Buying and Media Consumption Benchmarking Survey found that in terms of delivering information needed to make enterprise technology purchase decisions, white papers enjoyed an effectiveness rate of 85 percent, with case studies right behind at 75 percent. The only conversion tool that enjoyed a higher ranking was trail/demo software downloads at 87 percent.

There’s no gray area here. By combining white papers and case studies in your marketing arsenal, you’ll put your business in the black.