check mate chess

Case Studies vs. White Paper: What’s the Difference?

The secret to creating inbound leads for your company is to produce high-quality, helpful content on a regular basis.

Businesses value case studies and white papers as two of the most powerful and necessary forms of material. Both can be essential in helping you generate quality leads for your business.

So how do you choose between a white paper and a case study, and what’s the difference between the two?

To put it quite simply…

White Papers

  • Lengthy (Typically 2,000-5,000 words)
  • Formal
  • Research-based
  • With a singular focus

Case Studies

  • Shorter (Around 800 words)
  • Focuses on an Individual customer experience
  • Summarizes one specific scenario

To elaborate, a white paper is designed to inform the target audience, while digging deeper into a specific market trend/issue, explaining the causes, implications/benefits, and solutions.

It almost serves as a research paper. It is an in-depth analysis of an issue and outlines why your product or service would be the optimal solution for a problem.

Case studies differ because they describe a particular example of how a customer issue was resolved. It has a particular formatting: starting with a problem statement, followed by a solution, and a summary of benefits.

It is a way to showcase your dynamic between your business and your customer or client.

According to Gordon Graham, from “That White Paper Guy, another way to look at it is…

“A case study is like looking down through a magnifying glass at one flower. You focus in on one company in particular, telling the story of how it benefited from using a certain product or service.”

While, “A white paper is like looking up through a telescope at a whole galaxy in space. You tell the story of how an entire industry has been suffering from a certain problem and propose a better way to solve it.”

You can promote and share your case studies or white papers in several ways.

Perhaps you decide you want to feature your case studies on your website, or say you want to provide these after a sales call, or maybe you decide that a white paper would be ideal for sending out to prospects in an email campaign…

No matter how you approach this, just getting the case studies out there could be your best proof of referral.

And when it comes to white papers, you could really help to explain to customers just how well your service(s) work(s) within your prospects industry.

Whether you choose to go with case studies or white papers for your business, both are a marketing staple and can give you the business leverage you are looking for.

Tell us about your needs for case studies or white papers. Our expert content writers can help create the powerful material you’re looking for.

Contact us today for a free consultation.