It used to be that if you were selling technology, you talked to IT. They were the ones who understood and controlled the role of technology, and they knew how to select a product that would support the business needs and still fit within the technical architecture. Technology vendors typically only called on IT with messaging focused mostly on technology and not so much the business value.

Then things began to shift. The “consumerization of IT” put technology in the hands of everyone. Apps and technology crossed the barrier from consumer to enterprise. Employees use their personal devices for work productivity. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps meant for consumers are now being brought into the workplace.

Business users have become savvy about how to meet their own needs. At the same time, they were given budget responsibility for projects that included technology. Business users began to select and implement technology outside of IT—many doing so without even letting their IT department know until they were ready to toss it over to production. Technology vendors were quick to respond to this shift by changing their message to support business value instead of IT integration.

This made the divide between IT and the business grow even further.

While much has been said about closing the gap between the business and IT, not much has been said about creating a marketing message that does so. As proof, I’m writing a white paper right now, geared ONLY to the IT reader that addresses only architecture, data, and security topics. The goal is to get IT on board with a product that the business already wants or even has.

It’s come to the point that the real customer is a blend of business and IT. It’s not an either/or. They should no longer be thought of as separate and in some cases may even be one in the same. The sales force needs to make sure that both teams are at the table together.

It’s not an easy job for marketing. They need to provide sales with information that supports both the business value and functionality, as well as providing the technical assurance that IT needs.  Marketing assets should include content with a combined message and deeper content that provides more specific information, geared specifically towards business function and value or technical features.

IT is not a necessary evil as some say. Nor are business users ignorant about technology. IT is an integral part of making the business successful, yet IT wouldn’t exist if the business didn’t see value in their services. While it may be easier to sell to just one side, technology marketers need to acknowledge that harmony between both will help their product be successful in the organization for the long run.

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I’m very pleased to have my white paper chosen as the winner of the 2011 Apex Marketing and PR Publications Award. I have written several Verizon white papers for my client Pivot Communications (who is terrific to work with by the way).

The winning white paper is Verizon’s “The Identity and Access Management Imperative.”  The paper speaks to enterprise security issues as organizations expand their boundaries globally, move data and applications outside company walls to the “cloud,” and extend access beyond employees to vendors, partners, and even customers.

APEX 2011 is the 23rd annual awards program put on by Communications Concepts recognizing excellence in publications work by professional communicators. There were over 3300 submissions in 11 categories. Apex handed out both Awards of Excellence and Grand Awards.

You can view the entire award list here. If you want to see the award I won, look under Pivot Communications, page 27, category 124.

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI

So there you have it—a nicely-written, neatly-formatted, white paper. You learned how to choose a topic and create an outline in part one, how to research and write the content in part two, and how to dress it up with graphs, quotes, and images in part three. Now, it’s sitting there, all shiny, just begging to be read. Now it’s time to make it available and get the word out.

The first thought is to add it to the resources section of our company website. But, how about adding a small blurb and link on the relevant product page? Even so, the “post it and they will come” method doesn’t work very well. We need to do more. Assuming you have a company blog, write up a blog post. You could format in an executive summary style—but don’t give away the ending! Keep the reader intrigued enough to want to read more.

Now it’s time to use your social media channels. Push your blog post, or at least a link to your white paper, to your company’s Facebook page. Tweet about it. Talk about it in a YouTube video. Write about it in your company newsletter. These are the low-cost/no-cost ways to get the word out, but they only reach the community you’ve created. What about the larger community?

This is where online content aggregators come in. For a fee, they will host your white paper on their site, get the word out to their larger community, provide optimized search methods so that your paper will more likely be found, and collect leads from prospects that download. These aggregators used to be specific sites like Bitpipe and ITtoolbox. However, more industry content providers and online magazines are offering similar services. Be sure to check the pricing and reach for each one.

Bonus Section

Here are some other ways to increase the value and usefulness of your white paper:

Online lead generation – One of the main reasons you may have chosen to write the paper in the first place is to collect leads. To reduce the risk that your prospects will choose not to download when needing to leave personal data, use a simple form to collect a minimal amount of information.

Sales meetings – White papers are great tools to leave behind after a sales demo or meeting. Research shows that most white papers get passed around and are read by more than one person. It’s a perfect way to keep your company and product top of mind.

Trade shows – Another great way to capture leads is by taking contact info in return for handing the prospect your white paper. These days, most attendees will let you scan their badge in return for “swag,” but when you have a more serious prospect, give them your white paper to take home.

Sales training – You’d be surprised what your sales team can learn by reading your white papers. They will gain a clearer understanding of the customer issues and the paper will help them articulate the solution and its value. Having been in IT and been pitched by sales folks, I’ve seen many who understand their product but have no clue how it would be used in the real world.

Repurposing – To get the most out of your white paper efforts, find ways to repurpose the content. Explore the issue in more depth in a blog post. Write more about the solution in a newsletter article. Submit a scaled-down version to your industry trade publications. Any time you can reuse content, you’ve just increased your ROI on that content significantly.

I hope you enjoyed the How to Bake a White Paper from Scratch series. It’s not easy to sum it up in just a few blog posts – just as it’s not easy to write a white paper! Many white paper ideas sit on the shelf waiting for someone who has the time to write them. If you have great ideas and no time, or want the benefit of a white paper and still don’t feel it’s something you can tackle, drop me a line. I’d be happy to help. In just a couple weeks, you can have your very own, shiny new white paper!

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In Part One, we talked about planning for your white paper. You need to understand your purpose. White papers require a fair amount of effort, so you should be clear on what you expect to achieve. You also need a well-defined topic. Did you do your homework from last week? Great, let’s get started.

I find it’s easiest to begin with an outline. The outline I like best is the one I learned from white paper guru—Mike Stelzner, author of the book “Writing White Papers.” It goes like this:

Introduction – Open with a compelling fact, statistic or story that draws the reader in. You want the reader to be quickly interested. This is probably 100-200 words.

Problem statement – Here’s where you get into the meat of the paper and it’s the basis for your topic. You want to delve down into a clearly-defined problem—one that your product or service will solve. Describe it in detail and include examples. Include the impact of the problem, meaning the financial costs, extra resources needed, time wasted, other inefficiencies, harmed reputation, etc. This section will likely be one to two written pages.

Market drivers – Are there changes in the market that have created a new problem. These might be new technologies, social changes, economic changes, or even new regulations. For example, Sarbanes-Oxley created many new challenges for companies when they were introduced. This section is probably about a half page or 200 words.

History – This section is interesting as it gives you a chance to educate the reader on what led up to this problem. Using the same Sarbanes-Oxley example, you might talk about the events that led up to this regulation being introduced. This section can also be about 200 words.

High-level solution – This is the turning point in your paper. You finally get to talk about solving this problem. The only catch is, you’re not going to say a word about your own product just yet. Educate the reader using a generic and high-level solution to the problem. For example, if your paper is targeted towards the supply chain management area, talk about how detailed reporting from supply chain software would help address Sarbanes-Oxley requirements. Include a list of benefits that would result, such as reduced risk, improved accuracy in management reporting, and less manual time needed to pull and format data. This section is also probably two to three written pages.

Your solution – Now it’s time to introduce your company and your product. Do not insert your brochure content here! It’s important that you continue in your educational tone and explain how your product specifically solves the issue. Talk about features only briefly. You just want to whet the appetite and get the reader to take the next step. This may be as short as a half page, but not more than a whole written page.

Conclusion – This is the time to wrap things up. Briefly remind the reader about the problem, perhaps one of the major impacts, and the solution. Again, mention your solution. And, finish with your call to action – which might be reading a case study on your website, downloading an e-book, or even contacting a sales rep for more info.

Gather up your content for each of these areas and we’ll talk next about “shaping the dough.”

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Welcome to part one of the “bake a white paper from scratch” series. Here you sit, ready to start your new white paper. You might be a product manager who needs supporting collateral for sales, a marketing team member who’s been given the assignment, or perhaps you have a small or mid-size business, without the luxury of a marketing team, writing it yourself. Either way, you’re facing what might seem like a daunting project ahead. So, let’s take the mystery out of it and work through this together.

The first thing you need to do is determine just why you need a white paper. If you’re going to spend the time to create one, and believe me it will take much time and effort (remember your college final essay?), you better have a plan for its use. For example, will you offer it as a lead generator through a give-away in return for sign up?  Will you leave it behind after a sales call? Hand it out at trade shows? Or, will it just sit on your Resource page in your website hoping someone might discover it and find it worthwhile?

Assuming you have big plans or its use, let’s talk about some tips that will make your white paper a compelling read and successful medium. First off, white papers have been averaging 6-10 pages, and lately, as small as 4-6 pages (though I don’t think you can do a topic justice in such a short format). Expect your paper to be about 2500-3000 words. The tone of the paper should be in third-person (no using “you” or “we”). You want the paper to come across as unbiased as possible. Think of this as more of an educational tool than a sales pitch.

Now you need a topic your readers will relate to. You might brainstorm with your team or your sales rep to identify specific pain points your product solves—or perhaps you already know. Choose just one business or technical problem! If you solve more than one problem, or address vastly different industries, consider writing a second white paper.

Perhaps you offer a learning management solution that tracks employee training compliance and growth goals. Your white paper topic may be how to solve the tough job of assigning specific training courses to employees, sending reminders, and tracking successful completion. Imagine the pain in trying to do that manually with spreadsheets! Your white paper might not get distracted with assisting in employee growth through training (though may mention that as an additional benefit near the end).

Your first assignment till next time is to come up with a specific business or technical problem that your product or service can solve. In the next post, we’ll talk more about the specific details in the paper.

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If you were to ask me which marketing content product I’ve been asked to create most often, it’s hands-down the white paper. One white paper can serve many purposes and plays a very important role in the sales cycle process. However, there can be a bit of mystery about what exactly a white paper is.

For the past four years, I’ve taught the class “Writing White Papers” at Bellevue College. It’s become a required course in their Technical Communication Certification program. Students come in wide-eyed and confused, but leave the class fully understanding what it takes to create a strong, compelling white paper.

Watching that transformation has been rewarding, which got me thinking I should share it with a broader audience. Over the next 4 posts, I will take you through the steps you need to do to create your first white paper. At a high level, they go look like this:

Plan – It’s not enough to decide to write a white paper because you don’t have one yet. You need to plan upfront to determine the need, both internal and external, which will drive out the topic as well as how it will be used.

Create – While one post is not near enough, this is by far the longest, hardest part. Understanding which sections to include, what tone to use, and how it flows is key to a good, educational read.

Decorate – So, you’ve got the cake but it will be pretty unappetizing unless you decorate it. We’ll talk about adding items to help tell the story and how to best design and format the document to add punch and appeal.

Consume – Once a draft is complete, it needs to be edited. And, once it’s final, you need to get it in front of eyeballs that matter. You’ll learn tips for finalizing and distributing your new white paper.

Preheat the oven, get out your mixing bowl, and prepare to create your first white paper!

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI

As the New Year approaches, it’s a good time to take a step back and ask a fundamental question, “Who am I?” I don’t mean this from a personal perspective, though that is always helpful, too. It’s important to understand this from a business perspective. Some of my clients come to me without ever having done this, but it is fundamental to have before starting any marketing program.

The business climate is in perpetual motion. Customers’ needs change. Organizations change. Budgets change. Technologies change. Competitors change.

When was the last time you refreshed your own branding profile? Let’s take a look at the basic building blocks that need to be in place.

Vision – People often get vision and mission confused. Your corporate vision is about who you want to be, while your mission is how you’re going to get there. A vision statement should give all your stakeholders (employees, investors, customers) a good mental image of your desired future state. The statement can be as little as one sentence but not longer than four.

For example, Amazon’s vision statement is: “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” McDonald’s is: “McDonald’s vision is to be the world’s best quick service restaurant experience. Being the best means providing outstanding quality, service, cleanliness, and value, so that we make every customer in every restaurant smile.”

Mission – A mission is all about meeting your customers’ needs. You must first understand what they value in order to craft a good mission statement, and then use that to help define what you offer your customers and subsequently, help set your goals for achieving your mission.

For example, Google’s mission statement is:  “Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” The first few words, “organize the world’s information” speaks to what Google will do to meet customer needs, and “universally accessible” and useful are the goals that can ultimately be measured.  Google takes it a step further and offers a full page on their corporate philosophy.

USP – A universal selling proposition (USP) is a short statement that is easy to remember and describes the benefits your customers will receive as a result of doing business with you – hence the word “proposition”. This short statement should demonstrate your competitive difference and the emotional needs you meet (fears, frustrations, desires).  Your USP can also be used as your tagline.

For example, FedEx: “When it absolutely has to be there overnight.”  And, of course, the comprehensive USP by Nyquil: “The nighttime, coughing, achy, sniffling, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine.”

Ideal Customer – Certainly, you have an idea of who your ideal customer is, but have you actually taken the time to describe them? And, there might be more than one! These descriptions are also known as personas. It’s extremely helpful to have a persona description for every type of buyer AND influencer.

Start by jotting down your primary ideal customer’s title. Now describe the role they play in their workplace. List the struggles they face every day. What do they need in order to be successful? How do they like to do business? What motivates them in their business or career? Describe their line of business. If you sell to a variety of industries and different business sizes, create a persona for each one. Lastly, create a pithy name for each persona.

Competitors – You should be assessing the competitive landscape on a regular basis. These days, that might need to be more frequent than it has in the past. The unstable economy has led some companies to close their doors and others to be acquired. How does this change competition in your industry? What about the new players in the market?

One structured way to do this assessment is to perform a SWOT analysis. This lets you define a competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You can read more about this in my post, “Time to SWOT Your Competitor.”

Personality Attributes – Finally, you need to be clear about how you are perceived in the market. Defining your personality attributes will give a greater dimension to your image and should help differentiate your brand. Go find a list of personality traits and look for words you’d like to be used to describe your company. Are you: Sophisticated and educated? Cool and hip? Strong and stable? Corporate and professional? Fun and innovative?

Once you’ve answered that question, check to see that your visual design matches your personality. There are many color wheels online that show the personality of colors. Red can be bold, aggressive, and professional, while blue can be stable, comfortable, and peaceful. Do your design and colors work?

I would love to find examples you think exemplify a good brand definition – and would love to see examples you think don’t work and why!

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You have a great idea. You turned it into a product. It’s going to solve all kinds of problems. The company you work for is great (lucky you). You see it and you want everyone else to see it too.

You want to make sure people know that you have the coolest thing around, so:
• You write a white paper that tells all about your product and its features.
• You write a case study on who bought your product and how they’re using it.
• You write a blog post letting your readers know what a visionary you or your company is
• You produce a Webinar that demos all the features of your product.

It’s natural. When you’re passionate and proud of something, you want to tell the world. But guess what? The world has their own things they care about and you now have to do something that can be very difficult—step into your customer’s shoes and see the world through their eyes.

Your customers live in a world with competing priorities, differing opinions, and tight budgets, yet are being asked to find answers to real business problems. Can you repeat the business problems your customers are dealing with – in their own words? Do you know the constraints they’re up against?

Beneath the business needs that your product may address, you also need to speak to the personal needs of your buyer. Yes, you’re selling to a real person who has his own personal agenda. Make sure you consider these personal needs as well:

• Make my company money
• Save my company money
• Stay employed by making the best decision
• Stay out of jail (compliance)
• Make me successful

The successful vendor or marketer will be the one who knows how to marry the product benefits with real world needs and do so in a way that shows the customer you understand his challenges. It’s the basic solution-based selling over product sales. Most vendors are doing this now, but we all need that reminder to take another look at our messages and make sure it’s all about the customer, not all about me.

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Yesterday, I went to a luncheon put on by Qlikview at the Seattle Yacht Club. I love these vendor luncheons, not because of the free lunch (though it was delicious), but to keep up on the BI industry and hear first hand from other BI users and managers.

I really didn’t know much about Qlikview. Oh, I’ve heard the name now and then but still hadn’t heard anything of substance. Turns out they’ve actually been around since the 1993 and have been headquartered in the US since 2005. And, last year IDC named them as the fastest growing company for three years running—which is probably where I heard about them.

They have a nice reporting and analysis product that replaces the need for cubes and their associated processing time. Because all of the data for a particular subject area (created by IT) is in memory, users are not limited to a predefined hierarchy and can move around through the data very quickly. Ok, that’s very cool.

As for marketing, they seem to be doing most things right. They have a very robust website, including lots of available educational resources like white papers, analyst reports, a blog, webinars, and several “how-to” videos. They’re also good at promoting their community with an active Twitter account (@qlikview), a very busy forum, user groups, and even a wiki.

Finally – be still my heart – they even have a corporate social responsibility program. Currently, I only see that they will offer grants for free product, hosting, and training to selected non-profits. It’s a start, though I think they can do much more here.

So my BI friends, have you run across vendors that you should have known but didn’t? Why do you think that is?

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI

Remember watching cartoons about Aladdin and the magic lamp? I always hoped I’d find a magic lamp on a beach somewhere and I’d be granted three wishes. Didn’t you wish you could have three wishes too?

Well today I’m setting aside my marketing hat, my BI hat, and my corporate sustainability hat. I’m putting on my customer hat and asking for three wishes I know  your marketing team can grant me.

Here are my three wishes:

1. I want a real relationship with you. I want to know that you are real people. I want to know that your company values align with mine. I want to know you are passionate about what you offer. I want to know you understand my needs and that you care about my success. I want to know how you give back to society. I will look for clues in your blog posts, Twitter tweets, forums, and other forms of social media.

2. I want you to help me be successful. I need to fully understand my challenge, including the business impacts. I need to learn better ways to do things, including best practices. I want to know how others have been able to overcome challenges and be successful. I need you to help educate me with credible and objective information. I need you to help me justify my business case. I will look for this in your white papers, case studies, data sheets, articles, webinars, e-books, and other educational content and tools.

3. I want to be able to find you when I need you. I want to easily find the information I need. I want my questions answered quickly. I want you to communicate in ways relevant to my needs. I want you to know who I am when I call. I will look for a well-designed, organized, and complete website, regular newsletters, targeted e-mails, trade show presence, search engine results, and most of all: contact information that leads me to a real person.

Rather than standing in the middle of the marketing department and looking out, I encourage you to walk over and stand in your customer’s office and look out. How do they see you and your company? Does your brand personality show through? Are you approachable? Do you offer a variety of content to help meet their educational needs?

If the magic genie could grant you three wishes (not necessarily marketing or business related), what would they be?

AMC - Content Marketing for BI and High Tech - Freelance Marketer for High Tech with a focus on BI