Putting White Papers to Work for You

There are white papers and there are white papers. Some of them make money for you! Best of all, it’s easy to tell the difference between those that do and those that don’t. 

The kind of white paper that doesn’t make you money is big. Sometimes huge! Dozens of pages filled with detailed explanations of what was done in the course of a recent project. They’re meant for a technical audience and the writing is filled with terminology and references that will likely be unfamiliar to the reader you want to make money from. 

A Marketing White Paper is usually fewer than four pages in length, and the language is easily accessible and readable by any businessperson, including those who can only operate a checkbook and a pen….

In these four pages you’re going to teach something valuable to your readers. It might be how to plan a data backup strategy, or how to understand cloud services better, or why some people use email when others prefer to text. It could be literally any business technology topic, as long as the reader comes away knowing something they didn’t know before, and it demonstrates to your reader that you have the knowledge and insight they want in their technology partner. 

One of the hardest but most important things to remember when writing a white paper is that you are not pitching any particular product or service. You are instructing. You are teaching. You are delivering valuable and useful information. Not selling. 

At the very end of the white paper, when the reader is fully appreciating what they’ve just learned from you, take a moment to tell the reader how to connect with you for more information. Marketers like to call this the “call-to-action (CTA)” but that sounds too imperative. You want to keep your reader very comfortable with your white paper, and happy they read it. 

Nobody likes to be sold, but everybody likes to learn new things. Offer a number they can call or an email they can send to in order to receive more information. 

Your job is not to close a sale, even here at the end. Your goal is to move the reader along the next step in the sales motion, which is to connect with you for more information. Then it’s up to you to make the magic transition to selling mode. 

There are providers of white papers you can crash imprint your logo and info on to distribute them to your customers. Two problems with these:

1. It is likely your competitors are sending the same papers with their logo and info.
   
2. The information is not YOUR information. It’s general information. It says nothing special about your expertise than readers will appreciate and want to avail themselves of. 

Your best white papers are going to come from your own technical people. Consultants, engineers, solution architects, any of these may be your source of excellent learnings for your readers.

Just remember that these people have probably never been called upon to write something that anybody other than another technical expert will understand. You want to take their smarts and turn them into compelling content. Interesting. Engaging. Provocative. You want to capture the reader’s imagination so they see themselves using your solutions to build their business advantage. 

White papers make you look more professional while doing a great job of impressing upon your readers that you are the technology partner they want most to engage. But only if they’re written compellingly while containing your people’s best insights.

This will likely require the services of a creator of compelling content who also has a deep technology background so they can understand what your people are saying when he interview them.

Yes, you’ve guessed it. Your friendly neighborhood compelling content creator, HMC, is just such a writer. 

When you decide to add white papers or any other written content to your marketing arsenal, please peruse my portfolio at http://www.howardmcohen.com/portfolio. Then you can easily reach me at hmc@howardmcohen.comto learn more about how to get the kind of content that will get you the results you seek!

See how that closing paragraph worked?