WHITE PAPERS: EDUCATIONAL MARKETING HELPS PEOPLE MAKE DECISIONS AND TAKE ACTION

OVERVIEW
White papers are a great way to keep your current clients engaged, and attract potential new clients. Our objective is to review how the white paper has evolved into a commercial educational tool with a high return on investment. It also examines how you can leverage educational content as a marketing tactic that helps your target audience make business decisions while positioning you as the knowledgeable thought leader - and candidate for new business opportunities.

trial, and then adoption. Therefore, if you are just hearing about a business opportunity through an RFP, you are most likely too late because you have entered the decision process at the stage between trial and adoption. White papers allow you to get into the important first step of the decision-making process; the educational awareness stage. RETURN ON MARKETING INVESTMENT Currently, with the slow economy, businesses have cut back on attending tradeshows and spending on other mass-market advertising efforts. It is likely that this trend will continue into the near future. The result is an ever-increasing pressure for you to do more with less. White papers are a very economical way to reach your target audience, and provide them with ideas and information on best practices that work and will deliver them a greater return on investment.
The most important thing is to focus on ROI and focus on things that will make the company money, such as sales lead-generation programs, Webinars, and white papers.
(analyst Naylor Gray of Frost and Sullivan, on marketing in a slow economy)

USING WHITE PAPERS TO OVERCOME MARKETING CHALLENGES

There are three problems that educational marketing with white papers can help you overcome: ESTABLISHING TRUST It has always been a challenge to develop trust while establishing new business relationships. One of the best ways to build and gain trust is to be helpful, give valuable information, and help answer questions. White papers are an effective way to package up information as a resource for your current and prospective clients, and establish your legitimacy. GETTING THERE BEFORE THE RFP IS ISSUED When you provide an intangible service or a product that is complex and difficult to showcase, it can be difficult to create awareness of your offerings attributes, and how they benefit your audience. We know that the standard process for decision making within your target audience starts with awareness,

TOP TEN REASONS TO USE WHITE PAPERS

Infographic from Content Marketing Strategy for B2B Software Vendors: Starring the New White Paper by Julie Hunt

EVOLUTION OF THE WHITEPAPER

White papers can be very different in substance and complexity, and can be defined in many different ways by different people. But they all have the same goal to educate and persuade a specific audience. Here are the basic origins and evolution:

CONTENT STRATEGY
Great creative usually stems from a sound strategic plan. In that context, white papers are no different than a television spot or a print advertisement. The first step before beginning the creative process is to start with a plan of attack, and follow a direction that ties back to your overall business objectives. This plan, a content strategy specific to white papers, should address the following details: IDENTIFY WHAT YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE The first part of your content strategy should identify your overall objectives for producing white paper content. Ultimately, what should be achieved by writing your series of white papers? This answer will help you determine and prioritize the best topics. After reviewing these overall objectives, the writer will understand from a macro level why the piece is being written, helping to guide the development. ALIGN CONTENT AND TOPICS WITH YOUR UNIQUE STRENGTHS AND EXPERTISE The second part of the content strategy is identifying your value proposition, and using that as a springboard to determine white paper topics that will play off your unique strengths.

Government was the first to use white papers. These

were information-rich briefing books that helped legislators make informed decisions. These were bound with white covers, and henceforth were referred to as white papers.

Science and Industry used these as the preferred

medium to provide a well-researched point of view on new ideas, current and future industry trends, and best practices. The research was presented much like a thesis with supporting data, charts and graphs to show results and conclusions. of white papers into sales support materials.

Software companies were the first to shift the use Marketers in other technically-oriented industries
followed suit, and the content began to evolve into a more biased research advertorial for product promotion. Across the board, the true researchbased educational features of the traditional white paper morphed into a product-based promotional vehicle another part of the standard marketing mix. gradually diminished as a requirement for white papers, as the new target audience became much broader, and the white papers content and structure needed to follow suit in order to be more easily digested by readers, and more succinct and simplified to promote a new technology or product. text-heavy advertisement, to an accessible brief on business or industry trends, and to the highlyinformative document suitable for print in a business or scientific journal.

Intensive research and high-level technical writing

What are your key points of differentiation? How do you solve unique problems better
than others?

What are the opportunities in the marketplace

that tie back to your internal strength Your goal is to outline all the key problems your company can solve for your target audience, and address these in a series of white papers that can showcase your thought leadership and problem solving. You will also want to review external factors as part of your strategy. What can you do that your competition isnt? Simply review your competitive audit and analysis to see what your competition is already broadcasting, and look for gaps in thought leadership to fill. It is acceptable to replicate topics in your market space as long as you avoid having a me too appearance by ensuring that you provide your own unique perspective. IDENTIFY YOUR AUDIENCE The content strategy should define who you are reaching, and outline the most important things for your audience. It should also define whether your

Currently, white papers run the gamut from a

Here, we focus on aspects of the more commercial genre white paper, used specifically as a marketing or sales tool. For businesses selling products and services ranging from financial, legal, insurance, and even medical - white papers are a nice way to provide a prepackaged mass consultation.
White papers remain the most effective piece of marketing collateral, with 86% of respendents finding them moderately to highly influential in the purchasing decision.
(Eccola Media)

audience is broad or can be segmented. If your audience is segmented, you may need to develop white papers for segment-specific topics as well as those for the broad audiences. You may also want to assign values to segmented audiences to shape your priorities for your overall strategy; e.g. if 80% of your revenue comes from one or two segments, then you may want to prioritize development of a number of segment specific white papers for those segments and produce only a few more broad topic white papers to cover the remaining segments. DETERMINE THE IDEAL LENGTH FOR YOUR PAPERS Your content strategy will also need to take a cue from the types of end users in determining the best length. Most of your executive business audience does not have as much time for reading large documents as in the past, especially in our current era of do more with less. People in general have become accustomed to quick information in the form of sound bites, text messages, and tweets. Following that trend, it is now common to limit white papers to a two to four page executive summary. The caveat is that you are writing on a single industry topic, trend, or best practice that is not technologically, scientifically, or metaphysically complex. Those more dense topics are better served by an eight to twelve page paper. Ultimately you need to understand your audience and their preferences to arrive at the correct balance of presenting your complex information in as few pages as possible. Brevity will increase the chances that your readers will completely review your information. TIMING DEVELOP A SCHEDULE THAT MAKES SENSE Your strategy should address any special timing for your white papers. This will help you prioritize the development schedule to match your needs. A few questions to consider:

Instead of being reactive, and rushing to push out white papers, a plan for your entire series of white papers will help you prepare well in advance, and allot the proper lead time necessary to develop quality content. DETERMINE HOW YOU WILL DELIVER YOUR WHITE PAPER Delivery is another consideration in your content strategy. Review the best channels to push your content out to your audience, and be aware of the different formatting and delivery expense each requires. These can include:

Direct Mail E-mail (attachment or link will make

it easy for them to forward to others)

Web site (Quicklink) Social media (blog, Tweet to announce your white Webinars (host a Webinar to discuss your white
paper, and forward to all participants)

paper, invite feedback on this and other social media channels you and your organization may use)

PR (Does your white paper warrant the extra push

into the market with a news alert and/or press release? Could the white paper help you land a byline article in a trade pub, or help you become a thought leader/expert resource for the press?)

You will also want to consider how your white paper series will be integrated into your overall marketing mix. This can be a great lead-generation tool, education tool, or a platform for a more detailed business case and can be part of a longer-term overall content strategy for your business. DETERMINE YOUR RESOURCE INVESTMENT Return on investment writing can take from 20 to 80 hours depending on the topic, the writers familiarity on the topic, and the time needed for research and interviewing. Once you have a list of topics and timing developed, you will want to make sure you allocate the appropriate resources whether these are internal hours or a budget for outsourcing the writing.

What are the buying cycles? When are audience segments looking for
information?

Are there any special seasonality considerations? Are there any upcoming dates for main trade
shows, conferences, or events that would also be an optimal time to push out fresh and timely white paper content?

DETERMINE YOUR EXPECTED RETURN: WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM PROSPECTS IN RETURN? Some people charge a fee for their white papers, which is good in the sense that it opens up an additional revenue stream. However, if your goal is to reach out to a large number of potential customers, you may want to give the paper away for free as a loss-leader; if you push out content that is relevant and answers a key industry challenge, you will position yourself strongly when those readers take the next step. The middle road answer is to collect user information in exchange for the white paper this can be done on your Web site or through Webinar registrations.

problems. It is not worth beating your chest by writing a paper focused one of your strong attributes if it does not tie back directly to something that can be used by your target audience. An example of this would be an investment firm writing a white paper about choosing a brokerage firm when most of their target audience wants to hear about how changes in tax laws could affect their long-term investments. Validate the Reality of the Challenges Explain how the problem will affect other areas of business for your audience now or in the future this could be growth, use of resources. Show examples to illustrate your point, and if useful, provide some historical context. Explore the Answers to the Challenges Present some ideas for resolution of the challenge in a non-biased, educational way. It is very important here to focus on the resolution not your product or service offering. Explain all aspects of the challenge, and if possible use a brief case study or two. Provide the overview of all the key considerations for the challenge. It is important to remember that the marketing function here is to help establish your knowledge and capability. As long as the amount of substance it there, you can use this as a lead-in to show how your offer uniquely addresses challenges. Review Your Unique Approach to Answering the Challenges After presenting the answer to the challenge and the unbiased answers, you can carefully position and talk about your point of differentiation in relation to solving the challenges. WHITE PAPER EDITORIAL GUIDELINES Once your white paper topic and structure are settled, there are a number of considerations to remember while fleshing out the outline.

EXECUTION
The most important part of developing an effective white paper is to avoid one of the common pitfalls of pro-bono public service advertising execution, where there is a tendency to focus on the problem and create awareness of the problem, but not offering the important education on the steps to a solution. To create awareness of problems and challenges faced by decision makers and influencers, you need to make sure that your white papers dedicate enough content on logical answers to questions to provide true education, and inherent value.
A white paper must quickly identify problems or concerns faced by its readers and lead them down the path to a solution provided by your product or service.
(Michael A. Stelzner)

STANDARD WHITE PAPER OUTLINE Once your white paper strategy is set, and you have outlined some topics, there is a basic outline to help you educate and persuade your audience: Introduce Your Topic Your white paper should educate why your answers are right by first giving a bit of background: What is the past history of the topic/problem, what is the present situation, and what are the future implications? Identify the Challenges of Your Topic Position a challenge that your key audience has which is most likely attributed by a gap in their internal and external strengths and weaknesses. It is important to keep your audience in mind, and write for the purpose of answering one of their

Who will write it? Since this is a substantial

investment in time, you may want to consider a freelance writer or someone in house to prepare. With an internal writer, it is likely that the writer will have more familiarity with the topic and related details vs. an external writer. However, that writer will also need to fit this into their workload and work environment. An engineer with a full plate of responsibilities and management role will have a difficult time staying on task for the large blocks of uninterrupted, focused time that writing requires.

Likewise, a freelance writer will enjoy the complete focus and concentration, but will most likely lack the inherent knowledge base and familiarity with specific details.

Maintain your brands voice without sounding

like a salesman. This is like a press release in the sense that it is meant to be reviewed as editorial writing. This is where the quality of the writing is important, because you can still skillfully weave your product features and benefits into the content while reviewing the answer to the problem presented in the white paper. advertising, so it is important to have legal counsel familiar with your industrys specific limitations and restrictions review and provide any necessary legal disclaimers. written piece. To provide a true benefit, your content must be compelling and authentic. Make sure to include more than just cursory information; load in all pertinent details, examples, and facts.

Remember that white papers can be considered

RESOURCES: Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged 2007 by Michael A. Stelzner The White Paper Marketing Handbook 2006 by Robert W. Bly Crafting White Paper 2.0: Designing Information for Todays Time and Attention-Challenged Business Reader 2009 by Jonathan Kantor http://www.whitepapersource.com/report/ This is a study of more than 500 white paper writers and includes details about the time and prices writers charge for white papers based on experience levels. This is the only report ever focused on white papers exclusively.

Dont underestimate the value of a high quality, well

LEARN MORE
At dio we believe strategic planning should tie directly back to your companys business goals and objectives. Our experience shows us that great business results come from great strategy. If you would like to learn more and discuss your strategy and strategic planning process including how long-term and short-term content management strategies can help you educate clients to enhance your business volume, please give us a call at 717.764.8288 x 104 or e-mail us at dpridgen@diousa.com

Written by Glenn Cudaback, Account Director