White papers, guides and playbooks: best practices and trends in 2025
Using in-depth content formats is an effective way to engage visitors long-term. You provide them with useful information, strengthen emotional attachment to your brand or company, and encourage them to take action.
01
What formats do you choose, and when?
When you create a new page, a Google bot has to discover your page by crawling it. The bot mainly crawls already known Web pages, checking for updates and new links there.
Awareness
- Inspirational guides that describe the capabilities of your product category, with examples, applications and inspiring use cases.
- Theme guides that clarify the main points of interest when choosing your target audience (what do prospects need and what should they pay attention to).
- White papers with accessible explanations from experts on how your product or service solves problems - often with an emotional or recognizable angle.
- Emotional stories around an important aspect (e.g., innovation, sustainability) that show in detail what your brand stands for.
Consideration
You provide content that supports your target audience in making a choice between your product and that of competitors. Consider:
- Playbooks that zoom in on a specific problem, process or scenario for which you as a brand have a unique approach or vision.
- Comparison guides that juxtapose your offerings with those of other providers, with transparent explanations of why your solution is the better choice in certain situations.
- Case studies showing how other clients made a similar choice and what impact it had on their organization, situation or bottom line.
- Expert interviews that delve deeply into relevant trade-offs within the product category and help substantiate choices from expert knowledge or practical experience.
Conversion
You encourage the people who are already convinced of the value of your product to now also pay the price for it and make a purchase. Consider:
- ROI tools. Substantiate in a white paper with statistics how your solution pays for itself. Integrate an ROI calculator and make it easy to schedule a demo or appointment.
- Buyer's guides such as a step-by-step "how to start. Show how other customers easily got started with your solution and the positive impact it had on their organization.
- Practical Q&A series with common questions around relevant topics. Also help your users with downloadable guidelines to help them make the step to purchase.
- Playbooks with success stories and arguments for decision makers. Link concrete checklists to follow-up steps such as requesting a consultation or a free trial.
Loyalty
Increase satisfaction and usage of your product by providing optimal support to customers. Invest in onboarding content and incorporate up- and cross-selling opportunities into it. Consider:
- Onboarding guides that show customers how to best use your product. Combine articles, tutorials and interactive checklists to showcase best practices.
- Advanced playbooks for optimization and growth. Create playbooks that show experienced users how they achieve their goals and take advantage of new opportunities with your product or service.
- Practical tips in the form of micro-content. Offer regular, accessible content such as "quick win" checklists and tips that respond to current challenges and innovations.
- Inspiring customer stories as ambassador boosters. Showcase stories of successful customers who demonstrate how they achieved their business goals with your solution.
02
Trends: which types - from white paper to eBook - are becoming more popular?
From businesslike and in-depth, to playful and accessible, you can choose from a wide range of whitepaper variants, each with its own strengths and information depth to match.
All content formats are complementary: for example, a white paper can outline the strategic framework, while a practical guide provides the concrete follow-up. Smart content choices help you build a balanced communication mix step by step.
Also read
Content marketing strategy: a hands-on guide for B2B
The future: more interactive and visual
Interaction, experience and humanity are becoming increasingly important. According to research by content agency Isoline, shorter formats such as visual e-Books and interactive guides are gaining ground, even in technical B2B sectors. Webinars and podcasts increased in popularity in recent years, but creative forms of white papers also remain indispensable in your content plan.
More and more companies are turning to "content experiences": think interactive stories, accessible tools, interactive reports or landing pages that provide the user with a rich experience and a taste of your product.
03
What technical form do you use best?
In most cases, the smartest choice is to provide a separate section or subdomain on your website for your digital white papers, inspiration guides and playbooks.
Make sure the structure of your digital white papers is clear and that your formats are also easy to read on mobile. Then your in-depth content will also boost your SEO .
An added benefit of digital white papers, is that you can provide your reader with a more powerful user experience through creative use of interaction and motion design.
Digital white papers are also more powerful than PDFs in terms of measurability, data capture and outreach marketing or seeding.
A pdf has mainly disadvantages: you can't measure usage and you don't score with it in terms of SEO. Still, in certain cases a pdf can have a certain gift value. If you send someone an email with a pdf attachment, they will sometimes appreciate it more than if you send a link to the same content.
Useful alternatives are, for example to share a smaller research report, a Google presentation(see this case about a recent AI research by JaJa) or a Figma Slideshow. In it, you can also easily include a short video.
04
Do you place a white paper behind a form, or not?
This question can lead to heated discussions. Our answer: it depends on the context whether it's best to post your white paper publicly, or put it gated behind a form and reserve it for users who share their data. Ask yourself these questions:
- How heavily do you bet on lead generation and with what ROI? How heavily does the impact of SEO weigh in?
- To what extent do you want your users to feel like they belong to a chosen few ("not everyone gets to see this")? Or does your organization benefit more from higher reach?
- Where in the funnel does your white paper fit? Deeper in the funnel you may ask more of your user, in the awareness phase you better work as low threshold as possible.
Also good to know: in many cases, it works fine if you post part of your in-depth content publicly and reserve a part with additional details for prospects who register.
05
How interactive should your white paper be?
Interactivity is not an end in itself, but a conscious choice that you align with the desired user experience.
What exactly do you want to achieve? What image does your brand have? What target group are you aiming for? How is your target audience's media usage evolving? How will they use your white paper? At what point in the funnel? With what expectations? How complex is the information you want to make manageable? And so on.
Sometimes a well-constructed text is sufficient, possibly supplemented by visual storytelling and infographics. In other cases, the added value of interactive elements grows. Consider simple forms such as elements animated on the visitor's scrolling motion, or more far-reaching interaction with choice paths, embedded videos, ROI calculators or even light gamification. The right level of interactivity strengthens engagement and can drive user behavior toward conversion.
Your brand identity also plays a crucial role. An innovative technology company is more likely to choose scrollytelling, with lots of motion design and 3D visualizations. A service provider with a human touch is more likely to opt for a more classic narrative.
06
How JaJa helps you
Our team of design, copy and code specialists will help you take the right steps and take the worry out of creating an effective white paper campaign.
- Objective & KPIs
- Topic & format
- Plan of action and planning
- Collecting existing content
- Interviews & brainstorms
- Creative sprints
- Interactivity & visual tools
- Call-to-actions & landing pages
- Distribution & promotion plan
- Supporting content
- Reporting & KPIs
- Adjustment & repurposing
Content Strategy
- Together with you, we refine the exact objective for the white paper and link concrete kpi's to it.
- In consultation, we choose the right topic, the appropriate format, the best content structure, the desired look and depth of information, and the tone-of-voice.
- We present you with a clear plan of action and a clear schedule so that no precious time is lost.
Content research
- We collect all relevant existing content (in text, images, video material), interview internal or external experts or hold an online brainstorm with them.
- Together with you, we look at what is needed to provide users with enough in-depth information or emotional stories.
Content creation
- We develop your content in a number of sprints, in which copywriting, visuals, design and development work closely together. Strong copy strengthens the motion design and visuals, and vice versa.
- We build in the desired interactivity, visual help tools, 3D applications and so on, taking into account the corporate identity.
- In consultation with you, we tinker with the most powerful calls-to-action and landing pages.
- In addition to the white paper, we also provide a series of shorter content snippets to enhance your campaign.
Distribution, measurement and follow-up
- Attention to distribution and promotion of your content is crucial, or your content will disappear unseen.
- We develop a customized distribution and promotion plan. What lead magnet do you integrate on your website? What SEA and social advertising campaigns do we plan?
- We also support you with corresponding posts for your social media channels, internal and external newsletters and outreach emails to new contacts.
- At agreed-upon intervals, we report on the agreed-upon kpi's: how well did we score for reach (views, session duration), engagement (shares, clicks), conversion (downloads, leads) and image (mentions, PR)?
- In each report, we also include what tweaks we recommend to achieve greater impact. What does the data teach us for future whitepaper campaigns?
- Where possible, we also provide suggestions for repurposing. What existing content can you recycle and use in a different form to reach a new audience?
FAQ: Whitepapers, guides and playbooks
1. What is the difference between a white paper, guidebook and playbook?
A white paper is usually in-depth and strategic: it offers vision, analysis and thought leadership. A guide (such as an inspiration or comparison guide) is more practical and helps your target audience with orientation and choices. A playbook zooms in specifically on a problem or process and shows your unique approach, often with step-by-step advice.
2. When do I choose which format in the funnel?
In the awareness phase, inspiration guides and white papers are ideal for generating interest. In the consideration phase, playbooks, case studies and expert interviews provide guidance for comparison. For conversion , buyer's guides, ROI tools and Q&As work best. For loyalty , bet on onboarding guides, tips and customer stories.
3. Should I put my white paper behind a form (gated content)?
It depends on your goal. Do you want to generate leads and have strong follow-ups planned? Then gating can work. Do you primarily want reach and SEO impact? Then open publishing is better. You can also work hybrid : part freely accessible, part only after registration.
4. What are popular trends in whitepaper design in 2025?
Shorter, visual and interactive formats are gaining ground. Think interactive guides, e-books with motion design, podcasts and scrollytelling. Interaction increases engagement. Deliberately choose how interactive you make your white paper based on your target audience and objective.
5. What are the advantages of digital white papers over PDFs?
Digital white papers offer a better user experience, are measurable, SEO-friendly and flexible in design and distribution. A pdf can still be useful as a downloadable version with a gift value or as a supplement to direct communication.
6. How will I know if my white paper is successful?
Measure success using KPIs such as reach (number of views, time on page), engagement (clicks, shares), conversion (leads, appointments) and image (PR, brand perception). Report regularly and make adjustments based on the insights.
7. Specifically, how can JaJa help me?
From strategy and creation to distribution and analysis, JaJa guides you from A to Z. We develop not only your white paper, but also the entire content campaign around it - including snippets, landing pages, advertising and follow-up.
