What Content Works for Japanese B2B Buyers? Same-Industry Case Studies and a PDF for Ringi
By Cuni Shimizu, Founder and CEO, Edamame Japan. Last updated: November 2026.
What content should you make first for Japan? A client asked me this recently.
Make two things first. A case study from a well-known Japanese company in the same industry as your buyer, and a PDF that your buyer can pass around inside their company for approval (稟議, ringi). In my experience, these work better in Japan than general articles. Articles come after.
Many Japanese companies follow what others in their industry do. If a company they know already uses your product, they think: "if that company does it, we do it too, it must be trusted and good." This lands hardest with conservative companies, the late adopters.
Summary
- For Japanese B2B buyers, the first content to make is a same-industry case study with a company name people know, and a PDF that can be circulated internally for ringi approval.
- Japanese buyers often look at who else in their industry already uses you, so the customer's name and industry matter a lot.
- In an ITmedia reader survey, 34.2% of white paper readers shared the document inside their company, and 47.9% looked at the vendor's website.
- General articles and thought leadership come after these two are ready.
Why Japanese B2B buyers look for a same-industry case study
In Japan, a purchase is rarely decided by one person. The person who finds you has to explain you to their manager, then to other departments, and often to people above them. Every person in that chain wants to know who else uses it.
A case study from the same industry answers that before anyone asks. A manufacturing buyer wants to see a manufacturer. A bank wants to see a bank, or at least a financial institution. A case study from a different industry, even a famous one, leaves the buyer with the job of explaining why it applies to them.
This is also why the company should be well-known. Late adopters want proof that a company like theirs already made this decision, and a name they recognize is the fastest proof.
Why the company name matters in a Japanese case study
Global case studies sometimes hide the customer: "a Fortune 500 manufacturer" or "a leading European bank." For a Japanese buyer, an anonymous case study does little for the reason above. The buyer cannot say the name to their manager, so the case study cannot help them inside the company.
So for Japan, start with the customers who agreed to be named. If one of them is a Japanese company in your target industry, build that case study first.
What goes into a case study for the Japanese market
When we turn English case studies into Japanese, we use a structure that Japanese B2B readers are used to:
- 課題 (challenge): what the customer had to fix, in their words
- ソリューション (solution): what they chose and how they rolled it out
- 結果 (results): what changed, with numbers where the customer allows them
We also show the company name, industry and region at the top, so the reader can see right away whether it is relevant. And we include a quote from a person at the customer, with their department and title.
The Japanese has to read as if it were written in Japanese. A machine-translated case study tells the reader that Japan was an afterthought. We wrote more about this in why white papers fail in Japan.
On a Japanese case study collection we built, each customer is labelled by industry and region, so a reader can find their own industry quickly.
PDFs for ringi approval
Ringi (稟議) is the internal approval process in many Japanese companies. The person who wants to buy writes a request, and it goes around to the people who have to agree before the company commits. You are not part of that process, so your content has to explain you without you.
Website pages and demo videos are hard to attach to an approval request. A PDF can be forwarded and printed, and read by someone who has never heard of you.
ITmedia, a Japanese B2B tech publisher, asked white paper readers what they did after downloading (multiple answers, 482 readers, December 2020, from ITmedia's lead generation service guide):
- 47.9% looked at the vendor's website
- 34.2% shared the document inside their company
- 22.8% attended a seminar by the vendor
- 11.6% contacted the vendor
So about one in three readers passed the document on, and only about one in ten contacted the vendor. A lot of what a white paper does in Japan happens inside the buyer's company.
A PDF that works for ringi has to stand on its own, because the second or third reader has never been in touch with you. It should tell a manager, in a few pages, what the product is, who already uses it, and why it fits their company. A same-industry case study inside the PDF does a lot of that work.
What happens on your Japanese website after the download
The same survey shows that almost half of the readers went to the vendor's website after downloading. The reader, or their manager, wants to see that the company is real and already working with Japanese customers.
If your Japanese site has no case studies, or the case studies are in English, the visit gives them nothing to take back. This is one more reason to put the Japanese case studies on the website and in the PDF at the same time. The buyer sees the same proof in the document they forward and on the site their manager opens.
Why general articles come after in Japan
For a foreign B2B company that has just entered Japan, blog posts and thought leadership are not where I would start. A general article helps people find you, but a buyer cannot use it to explain you inside their company.
If the case studies and the PDF are not ready, a reader who finds you through an article has nothing to take to the next meeting. In a Japan content plan we put together recently, the case studies and the downloadable material came first, and the articles came later.
Where to start with Japanese content
If you are planning content for Japan now, this is the order I would suggest:
- List the case studies you already have, by industry. Mark which customers agreed to be named, and which of them are known in Japan.
- Pick the one or two that match the industry you are targeting first in Japan, and rewrite them in Japanese with the 課題 / ソリューション / 結果 structure.
- Put them on the Japanese website and in a PDF that a buyer can attach to an approval request.
- Start the articles after that.
If you want help with the Japanese versions, our localized materials for Japan page shows what we make and what it costs.
