Writing White Papers Right

Writing White Papers Right, By Jill Schuller

 The heart of marketing is strong branding, and building up credibility about your company creates a strong brand. One of the tools we often employ as part of a brand-marketing program is a “white paper”. A common definition is a report that discusses relevant problems and explanations on how to solve them. They are used to educate readers to help them make decisions. While more common in the political realm, they are a valuable tool in business and can be posted on a corporation’s website as well as included in prospecting materials such as mailings, presentations, e-newsletters, etc.

While it is considered an old-school method, it has high value when used in conjunction with other marketing tactics. For example, publishing a white paper for a company creates more search engine opportunities for that company – more views, more info, more hits, more awareness.

Let’s look more closely at what a white paper IS and IS NOT and steps to develop white papers.

A White Paper IS:

A persuasive essay that presents factual and useful information about your service, your thought process, and how you produce a product that will impress new clients, but avoids overtly selling them.  It is a credible source of information that prospective clients can read before they make a decision.

A White Paper IS NOT:

An obvious advertising promotion of the company. Creating a white paper should be done with the goal of educating the reader in mind, not selling them. Readers are intelligent, and a half-hearted attempt to be factual when you are really presenting a sales pitch will sound like a sales pitch. If the paper sounds like a self-promotional piece, it will be dismissed and your brand image will be weakened, not to mention you have just lost the interest of a viable prospect.

First Steps to Develop Your White Paper

1. List your goals – what do you want the report to accomplish and what do you want the audience to learn from reading it? You may have more than one goal, but they should each be very clear and intentional:

• Positioning the company as a market leader
• Providing genuinely helpful industry information to serve clients and potential clients
• Lead generation
• Building credibility among existing prospects and clients, and helping the overall sales process

2. Define your target audience – who will read the report? The way you write your white paper report is determined by who you want to read it. 

• Influencers are not necessarily responsible for selecting a product or service, but provide critical information to their superiors who make the decisions. These are typically middle management or administrative coordinators.
• Decision makers are the ones directly responsible for and who have the authority to make purchase decisions. These are typically upper management or owners.

3. Choose your topic – what does this audience care about? The audience wants FACTS. Stand out by including content that is relevant and helpful:

• Case studies that show how a product or a service improved a business
• How-to guides – especially “5 Steps To Success” content
• Research or other reports that provide an analysis of something relevant to your industry (find out why prospects are looking for you by reviewing web analytics or conducting interviews) and speak to those issues that they feel are important
• Review recent news articles about your industry or something relevant to your audience

4. Write the white paper – make it interesting, and make it work for you.

• Is your opening paragraph engaging the reader by presenting the problem clearly?
• Think back to high school term papers – have you summarized your message in the beginning, and then clarified and expanded on it in the body of the paper? Then summarize with bullets at the end so the reader can easily get the ‘valuable takeaway’ from the report.
• Does it provide compelling content that provides education about some type of business improvement or industry research?
• Use headlines and even sub-headlines to help organize the content for the reader.
• Is it timely? Are you able to weave in content that is current about what you audience is dealing with now? (This is why you must know what they care about!)
• Jot down 5 or 6 key issues that relate to your chosen topic and make sure these are things the reader can use right away.
• Make sure any statistics you use are properly cited and acknowledged.
• Keep it simple – in tone, in content, and in length. Your audience is busy, and they need to read the info quickly, get the facts, and decide if the information you presented is worth keeping.

What Do You Do Now?

Don’t ask readers to call for more information, but encourage them to download the white paper from your website, or make a direct request by phone or email at no charge. Value with no strings attached is, well, valuable. It positions you as someone with so much knowledge and expertise that you can still afford to share it with others and not hurt your business. You can follow up with the leads and pitch the prospect accordingly, but it makes the sales process a lot easier when they have already defined you as an expert in the field.

In a Nutshell

Don’t confuse a white paper with an advertisement, do your homework, speak in clear language, provide information that is meaningful to your audience, be sure about your goals, and make the paper educational.