Fill that White Space in Your Industry: 7 Outstanding Whitepaper Examples Worth a Second (and Third) Look
Picture this.
You're on a blind date. To your relief, he or she is attractive and has a warm, sunny smile. Good start!
You order drinks, shoot out a few get-to-know-you questions. Oh, he works there? Cool. She got that degree? He knows so-and-so? After 15 minutes, the answers are coming in strong. This person seems interesting, but they're not exactly deep or multi-dimensional. If anything, their personality is disturbingly devoid of verve, depth, and spontaneity. Heck! Is this a date? Or a soliloquy?
Attractive as your date might be, conversational (or intellectual) ineptness can be a romantic dealbreaker. Like most people, you're looking for someone who takes the time to relate to you and is deep and flexible enough to lure you into the whims of their shiny personality.
Now navigate to the latest piece of white paper you put out to the world. Does it scream "vibrancy, authority, energy, and momentum," or is it merely an assortment of "dry, dissuading, low-quality" writing? If it's the latter, this blog is for you.
Below, we take apart, piece by piece, the greatest white papers ever created, so you get to know exactly what it takes to write a piece of long-form content that explains, edifies, and enlightens with crystal clarity. At the end of it all, your content strategy will be giving you a high-five and your target audience? Well, they'll wish they'd discovered your brand sooner.
Let's get to it, shall we?
But before that, here's your cheatsheet on creating one kickass, vibrant whitepaper that sucks those leads in like a vacuum on steroids.
The Crème that Eventually Came to the Top: 7 White Paper Examples that Will Blow Your Mind (and Your Customers')
#1: Google—Google Cloud Security and Compliance Whitepaper
A rare entrant, I know. But guess what? No whitepaper deserves a spot on our list more than this well-publicized Google gem.
It's a business white paper at its core, and boy does it do a brilliant job at elaborating all of Google's Cloud Platform encryption benefits to its G-suite users and potential customers alike. It's valuable and insightful, vivid and laser-focused—the exact traits of any long-form piece of content worth its salt. Reading through it feels like reading through a Forbes magazine special.
While it falls short design-wise, the Google Cloud Security whitepaper makes up for this flaw with crisp delivery throughout. In there, you'll find well-expounded sections about Google's security culture, including titbits on operations, technologies, and certifications that support this overarching goal.
In all honesty, Google's marketing team must have burnt the midnight oil for days on end crafting this top-performing middle-of-the-funnel piece of content—and their efforts have been rewarded accordingly. For this valuable document, spectacular is an understatement.
But that's not all to what the marketing team did, here are other vital whitepaper marketing tips that will boost your conversions by 400%.
Now, would you do us (and your prospective customers) a favor and make this the #1 reference template for all business white papers you'll be churning out in the future?
#2: Bitcoin—A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
Talk about an industry-shaking white paper. Talk about a conversation-shaping piece of long-form content. Talk about juicy nuggets and eye-opening submissions. Satoshi Nakamoto's "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System" is all that and more.
Where most Bitcoin-oriented white papers fall flat, this one edifies and clarifies—and still goes the extra mile. In there, you'll find a crisp picture of Bitcoin's customer journey encapsulated within succinct paragraphs and subsections.
While a complex topic, this white paper makes Bitcoin feel relatable, simple, easy-to-use, and a literal treasure trove. Add to that a string of well-positioned diagrams and permutations, and you can almost feel the sweet gizmos of the world's most popular decentralized digital currency in the palm of your hands.
With this white paper, Bitcoin killed two birds with one stone:
- Reached a far wider audience than they had any done with any of their previous types of content
- Built email lists of immense value—lists that have quickly moved from potential customers to sworn users in a span of what…12 years?
That's the power of great whitepaper writing, and it would be a great injustice if you didn't use this as a leading template for all of your future inbound marketing endeavors.
#3: CodinGame—What Developers Want
Quick question.
What do developers actually want?
A full-fledged vacation to Ibiza every summer or a steaming cup of cappuccino every few hours?
Or maybe they crave an insanely fast super-computer that compiles a million lines of code in a split second?
Jokes aside, this whitepaper travels the path less-charted with astounding adeptness and clarity. Line by line, paragraph by paragraph, the question of "what do developers actually want" is answered in a way no white paper has ever done. And it's a one-pager, meaning every word in here is no-fluff, character-rich, and of extreme value to the target reader.
Part a thought-leadership whitepaper and part a business white paper, CodinGame's What Developers Want is a great example of how any type of content should be—lively and engaging yet thought-provoking and concise.
And for that alone, it deserves a seat at the table of whitepaper greats.
Plus, it's got a pretty accessible design. The animated, interactive data charts take potential clients through a sensational pictorial journey that culminates into one unequivocal conclusion: developers, like every worker, deserve a workplace where they can feel good and have their work appreciated. By elevating the design experience a notch higher, the writers of this incredible piece of content knew that they'd be reeling in the target reader deeper and deeper into the sales funnel—and that's been CodinGame's story thus far.
I know you're probably wondering: "With all these pizzazz, why is this whitepaper #3 and not #1 on your rundown?
Well, it didn't include a table of contents as any piece of long-form content should.
But that doesn't take away the fact that it's incredibly meaty and fact-driven. Now, ladies and gentlemen, would you be kind enough to pin this whitepaper template for future reference?
Cheers.
#4: BDO—Privacy & GDPR
And breathe…
We're at #4 on our top whitepaper examples list, and we firmly believe that you have enough takeaways to take away (forgive the lame pun here). Still, you could do with a few more examples.
BDO's Privacy & GDPR whitepaper does little wrong. From the table of contents to the well-thought-out lines to the fact-backed paragraphs, everything in here reads like an expert manuscript.
As for the design elements, they're well well-produced and carefully curated to fit the overall white paper topic. The black-and-red color combination brings out BDO's brand image in a subtle yet impactful way. Once a target reader lays eyes on the white paper's cover page, they're immediately reeled into BDO's wonderful world—with no more than two colors and a few well-chosen words.
Above all else, this BDO whitepaper removes the bones from the complex issue that is GDPR (and customer privacy) and makes the whole thing digestible and relatable. Interactive content goes a long way in carrying a target user through the sales funnel, and this white paper barely puts a foot wrong in this regard.
So if you're looking for a piece of long-form content to inspire your inbound marketing goals going forward, look no further.
#5: Marketsmiths—Why Copywriting May Be the Best Investment You Can Make
Who said whitepapers have to be dull, boring, and unconventionally nitpicky for them to be impactful?
Marketsmiths, like the rest of us, strongly disagree with this and many more statements of such caliber (oh, the many failures of our education system).
That said, everything in this long piece of content is put together with masterful precision and the dexterity of an award-winning chef. From the first word, the target reader is hooked. Word by word, insight by insight, they're left smacking their lips, licking their fingers, and yearning for more of those juicy nuggets.
Unlike most white papers, Marketsmith's trailblazing content marketing white paper actually tells a story—and not just any story, a remarkable one. With vivid language, insightful narratives, and plenty of twists and turns, the white paper convinces the target reader (beyond reasonable doubt) that copywriting is actually a worthy, wonderful endeavor that, if done right, can turn even the staunchest of potential customers to sworn, high-paying followers. And we couldn't agree more.
The bottom-line? Even fun, lighthearted white papers can carry a target reader closer to the finish line—as long as the fundamentals of crafting gated content are followed to a tee. As they say, boldness always pays.
#6: CAS—Building a Foundation For Profitable Digital Transformation in Sci-Tech R&D
Tech aficionados, this one is for you.
Putting pen to paper on a tech whitepaper may sometimes feel like sprinting through the sand on a hot, gooey afternoon in September.
However, this ground-breaking white paper from CAS puts that notion to bed once and for all.
A complex topic articulated in a simple, free-flowing way? Check.
High-quality lines that ooze facts, scream credibility, and (eventually) establish authority? Check.
Stats, stats, and more stats? Check-check.
What's particularly impressive about this piece of content is how it aces CAS's business goals while still sticking to the overall theme of profitable digital transformation in sci-tech R&D. It's truly a piece of whitepaper writing genius.
#7: ADP—5 Steps to Rid Your Business of Payroll Stress
If we're being honest, business white papers don't come much better than this one from ADP.
"Quality," as John Ruskin once said, "is never an accident." And the saying couldn't be more truer for this whitepaper. You can tell the authors really took their time in putting together this masterpiece.
Where words fail, graphics elaborate beyond a shred of doubt. Where design elements fall short, words dazzle and reel in potential customers in a way only crisp copy can. At the end of it all, the reader is left perceiving payroll stress as one of many negligible business issues that can be dealt with effectively.
And with that, we crown this as a template worthy of a spot in your whitepaper examples list.
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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash: Thanks Towfiqu : )
