These White Paper Mistakes Waste Time and Money

Don’t Squander your Organization’s Trust & Authority

White papers can be an extremely productive part of a B2B marketing strategy, or a total bust.

In 2024, when Edelman and LinkedIn surveyed 3,484 global business executives across a wide range of industries and company sizes, nine out of ten purchase decision makers said they are moderately or very likely to be more receptive to sales or marketing outreach from a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership.

Notice the qualifier here: high-quality.

Imagine you purchased a service or product for your company and what you experienced was mediocre. What’s your loyalty going to be for that supplier? What would you look to see from another vendor that might convince you to purchase from them instead?

If you consistently produce mediocre white paper content – or worse – while a competitor publishes high-quality, thought-provoking publications, your business is selling uphill.

While your company wastes time and money on ordinary, low value thought leadership, your competitors are conveying that they have more insights into the challenges and problems your prospects and clients are facing today.

Not only is your organization going to lose clients and win fewer sales over time, but you’re also losing money and countless hours of productivity from your team right now. That’s time and money that could have been put to better use growing your business.

In this blog, we’ll explore four major pitfalls that can derail a white paper’s clarity and credibility and cost you dearly. By understanding—and avoiding—these mistakes, you can set your team up to produce thought leadership that drives real results and positions your organization as an industry authority.

1. Overuse of Promotional Language

A white paper should inform readers with authoritative insights and credible data, not bombard them with sales pitches. I regularly download thought leadership to understand what my clients and their competitors are producing, and one of the biggest mistakes I see is a brand cramming their pages with proprietary product mentions and marketing copy.

When a white paper reads more like an advertisement, readers begin to suspect that every piece of advice is a disguised sales pitch rather than an unbiased solution. As a result, valuable leads will click away, and if they feel their time was not well spent, they will be more reluctant to take a call from your sales team or review any future content from you.

How to Fix It:

• Save Product Mentions for the Right Sections: Devote the initial and majority of your pages to sharing insights, research, and best practices. Save for the end your sales pitch and only sparingly include links to your website service pages throughout the document.

• Adopt a Helpful Consultative Tone: Encourage your team to write from the client’s perspective and to adopt the voice of a trusted advisor. For each point raised in the white paper, ask: “Does this benefit the reader, or is it simple self-promotion?”

• Emphasize Actionable Details: Offer real actionable tips or frameworks the reader can apply, regardless of whether they purchase your solution.

2. Shallow Depth of Data

Another major slipup is failing to back up claims with real data, or quoting research results that are so broad, the immediate response a reader has is “So?”

If your data and assertions appear thin, potential clients will not trust your expertise enough to keep reading and they certainly won’t be motivated to do business with you. Having been a journalist, I can tell you for certain you will lose out on the amplification from press and industry influencers. In fact, if your targeted media does not regularly promote your thought leadership, that’s a pretty good indication you are wasting your team’s time and your organization’s money.

How to Fix It:

• Include the Details: If you reference a study, state who conducted it, how large the sample was, and when it was conducted. Links to original research may take someone off to another web page, but being transparent demonstrates credibility.

• Interpret the Data: Don’t just present statistics—explain them and the implications from those trends in a conversational manner. If you can embed stories with the data, even better.

3. Flying Too High

Case studies and real-world success stories help focus the client at the ground level and give authenticity to the trends and challenges your data relates to. I have sat through hundreds of webinars and read an equal number of poorly crafted white papers where we never flew below 30,000 feet.

Thought leaders who fail to articulate the practical applications and implications of the data being presented do your organization an injustice and causes your audience to question the data or wonder if it is exaggerated or cherry-picked. Meanwhile, you lost a valuable storytelling tool—concrete examples that could have built emotional engagement and return on investment (ROI).

How to Fix It:

• Craft Detailed Narratives: Demonstrate how the data translates for your ideal client through a case study, even if you hide the example’s identity. Craft narratives that review obstacles faced, define implications from remaining status quo, and state which tactics yielded results.

• Highlight Measurable KPIs: Provide clear and impactful before-and-after metrics.

• Feature Quotes and Context: If you can, include quotes from the client, project lead or other team members who help build a first-hand account of the journey.

4. Weak Calls to Action for Meaningful Next Steps

Finally, many white papers end with a generic message, like: “Contact us for more information,” without giving the reader a solid plan of action. When a prospective client is already engaged enough to read to the end of your white paper, failing to channel that momentum into a specific next step can be a huge missed opportunity. The audience is left uncertain about how to proceed, requiring them to do extra legwork on their own (which often never happens).

How to Fix It:

• Provide a Roadmap: Offer some kind of simple blueprint, like a three-phase pilot program, can help the reader envision a path forward.

• Offer Multiple Contact Points: Not every reader wants to pick up the phone. Provide clickable links to scheduling software or an online chat function for immediate Q&A.

• Show Immediate Value: Invite readers to subscribe to a newsletter for industry insights, download a free ROI calculator, or try a cost-savings assessment. Clear, singular calls to action resonate far better than “Email us for more.”

In an age when decision-makers are inundated with content, a well-written white paper sets you apart from the competition. And the field is wide open for you to take the advantage. According to the Edelman/LinkedIn survey, only 15% of decision makers said the quality of today’s thought leadership is “very good or excellent.”

You have a very real chance to both retain your existing clients, and steal market share by focusing on clarity, objective tone, and detailed, data-backed advice. With this approach, you’re no longer just selling—you’re guiding, informing, and empowering your audience to succeed. And that is precisely the role a truly great white paper should play.

Contact me today to set up a 30-minute review of your current thought leadership program. I will help you source some of the issues that may be reducing your sales conversion rate and help you consider some improvements you can put in place right now. Click on the button below.