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!

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

We’re now half way through the white paper creation process. In part one, you defined your purpose and determined your topic. In part two, you got down to business, starting with the outline and then putting the meat on the bones. Now you have a fully drafted first version of your new white paper. Although you’ve done the bulk of the hard work, you’re not done yet!

Unfortunately, you might have written the greatest white paper, but your readers will not be compelled to read pages of plain text. It just won’t happen. Decision makers today are very busy and now have a much shorter attention span. They are much more likely to read and stay with a paper that has shorter paragraphs that are broken up with visual interest. Personally, I try to add something visual to each page.

Let’s get started.

Formatting your paper – Begin with the easy part – the margins. Because we will use the margins to include additional, interesting content, set you margins at 1” top and bottom, 2.5” on the left side and 1.25” on the right side. Change the line spacing to 1.5 to open up the text even further. I like using arial font type with about 11 for the body and 14 for the subheads. Subheads may be colored to match your company brand, provided they still stand out.

Because white papers are more often read online, I prefer to use a single-column, left justified style to prevent scrolling up and down. Finish off with headers and footers. Add your company logo, white paper title, and the words “white paper” to your header. The footer might include page numbers, publication date, copyright, and web address.

Charts and graphs – In your research and writing, you may have come across data that would help make your point visually. Charts (tables) and graphs are a quick way to display a large amount of information. Make sure they have proper axis labels, they are assigned a number, and are located before they are mentioned in the text. Be sure you do refer to them and quickly describe the point the chart or graph is making.

Pull quotes – Your reader will read your paper in your voice. Additional (credible) voices will make your paper stronger and help validate the points you are making. Look for opportunities to add quotes from other credible sources. These should be just a sentence or two and added to the sidebar of your paper. Highlight the quotes using color, lines, italics and other methods.

Images and diagrams – Pictures are a great way to break up long text areas. You may already have diagrams that show how your product works or pictures of your product in use. Conceptual images can also be used, provided they add value and are not just space fillers.

I think that’s enough to keep you busy till next time where we’ll talk about cover pages, executive summaries, and getting your paper into your reader’s hands.

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

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.”

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

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.

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

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

I just finished reading this year’s latest marketing survey results over at the Junta42 site. It’s interesting to see the popularity of different marketing content pieces as part of the overall marketing strategy. You can download the report for yourself here.

Social media marketing (with the exception of blogs) is now in the number one spot. 72% of those polled have now incorporated social media into their marketing activities. What I’d be even more curious to know though, is have they seen and improvements? More hits to the website? More inquiries? Even more sales?

The next five things on the list are what I consider to be the new marketing sweet spot. They are the heart of content marketing. When done well, they cover the full spectrum of the AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) marketing concept. Each piece can serve one or more AIDA goals, but the suite should include pieces that cover the complete AIDA spectrum.

From the 2010 Content Marketing Spending Research by Junta42

Each of these content terms mean different things to different marketers. Personally, I’ve seen each term over-used and under developed. Too many times, companies will label the content with a term below and not fully back it up with meaningful content. These are the way I see each piece

1. E-newsletters – Publish monthly and include product and company news, customer success stories, technical “how-to’s”, and business ideas. Combination of short (100 words or less) and longer (up to 1000 words) articles.
2. Blogs – Keep topics fresh, at least weekly, and relatively short (less than 500 words)
3. White Papers – Don’t fall for the short attention span, 2-pager. Do your topic justice by demonstrating a business problem and how it can be solved. Typically 6-10 pages.
4. Articles – These might be in your own publications or industry publications and are probably best as a deep dive on a topic at between 1000 and 2000 words.
5. Case Studies – These can be as short as two pages, but make sure you provide concrete information about the customer’s initial challenge, how it was solved, and lessons learned.

Effective marketers take the time to do it right. It’s not an area you want to hand off to your already busy product managers or the new marketing coordinator you just hired. Make sure the topics are well researched, the “story” told is coherent and professional, and that you accomplish your goal of what you want them to think and do after they’ve read it.

Content marketing is not an easy task and not every company has the resources in house to get the job done well. This is probably why the Junta42 survey also shows that smaller companies are spending twice the amount (as a percentage) on content marketing as their larger counterparts. Find yourself a content marketing professional you can trust and start building your content library, making sure you get the marketing assets you need to be successful.

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

White papers are still one of the most popular marketing tools for BI and high tech companies, among others. Proof positive is that I just finished my fifth white paper in almost as many weeks.

I find some long held beliefs about white papers very interesting. Like many opinions, some are held long past their expiration dates. For some, they want things a certain way because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

I particularly find strong opinions around whether or not to include a table of contents and executive summary, and how long the white paper should be. Here are some considerations I think should help make an objective decision:

Table of contents – Personally, I’m not a big fan of using a ToC in white papers, unless they are very long (12 or more pages). Your goal is to get your reader reading right away and keep them reading. The ToC is yet one more distraction. Having said that, I think they are very helpful in longer papers. Readers can use them to quickly find sections they want to read again. Skimmers will use them to review the flow to get a quick understanding of where the topic is going. Because of that, it’s important to use headers and subheads that alone, in the ToC, can tell the story.

Exec summary – Again, executive summaries are nice on longer papers. It can satisfy the skimmers who don’t need the full details but want to stay current with the topic. But the main reason you might want to include one is if you are hosting your paper with a syndicator or you have a number of white papers in the resources section of your website. If users find your title appealing, they can validate whether they should take the time reading the whole thing by reading the executive summary first. It’s a way of self-targeting and self-selecting.

Executive summaries should be written in a compelling way to entice your readers to want to learn more. Spend the most time on describing the problem (business or technical) that you will be addressing. Add interesting statistics and maybe throw in a small visual.

Length – There seems to be a trend toward shorter white papers. Whereas, it used to be standard that white papers were 10-12 pages. Now we’re seeing more papers in the 4-6 page range. I understand it. Busy executives have less time to read through a longer paper. But I also feel shorter papers may not do the topic justice and may not give the reader the information they need to help build their business case.

So, for thought leadership papers that describe new trends, strategies, and approaches, short papers are fine. But for solution papers, a longer format is generally required in order to thoroughly describe the problem, market drivers, high level, and detailed solution.

Curious what has worked for you, either as a reader or a marketer. What thoughts (and opinions) do you have?

…back to work, got more white papers to write!

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

In my former role as Director of Business Intelligence, a hybrid business/IT role, I read many white papers. Business Intelligence is a fairly technology-driven area and we were in growth (purchase) mode.

Arguably, some of the white papers I read were better than others. As a customer, I was reading for a number of reasons, including:  

·         I wanted to learn about potential solutions

·         I wanted assurance the vendor understood my problem

·         I needed information to support my business case

·         I wanted to be fully-educated on the bigger picture

·         I wanted to know if there were anything else I hadn’t considered

Having said that, I can’t tell you how many white papers missed the mark and left me hanging.

If the objective of your white paper is to move a prospect through the sales funnel, then there are some areas you should be addressing.

Problem Section – Aside from a possible short intro paragraph, this should be the first section of your paper. It should articulate the business or technical problem in detail and include the impacts of the problem, such as increased costs, lost revenue opportunity, difficulty meeting regulations, and poor quality. What will help your prospect greatly is to include quantitative measures of the impacts like dollars, number of customers affected, lost time due to rework. The problem statement is even stronger if you can back it up with fact-based statistics that cite credible sources.

History – Typically, this follows the problem section and helps educate the reader about the bigger picture. What led up to this problem? Did this problem always exist or has something changed? You may even be able to show that your competition is behind the times. You can also use this as an opportunity to show what’s been tried in the past and why it hasn’t worked or isn’t working now.

Market Trends – These kinds of trends shape the way we experience the future. Market trends include new technology or inventions, policy changes such as Sarbanes-Oxley and HIPAA, social changes like social networking or telecommuting, and economic changes including global markets, interest rates, and the economic climate. Your market trends should relate to your industry and not to your solution specifically. Again, use facts and statistics, and quote credible sources such as field experts and industry analysts.

Overall Solution – Now that you’ve set the stage, it’s time to educate your reader about the solution or range of solutions. Talk about the solution at a high level providing the big picture. By starting at this high level, you make the solution easy to understand and can start to guide the reader down the path towards your company’s solution. Be sure to define any common acronyms and add any helpful diagrams. Do not introduce your product here. Wait until the overall solution is thoroughly described.

So many white papers I see are more like glorified brochures. They start and end by touting the product. Nothing turns off a reader more than listening to a bunch of hype. They want real-world answers to the problems they face every day.

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