In Silicon Valley, every company wants to produce white papers. They’re considered an essential part of marketing technology products, and they’re on the checklist for every product launch. Beyond the launch, Product Management and Product Marketing typically want to provide prospects and customers with a wide variety of white papers on product-related topics.
White papers have their strengths: you have several pages to describe your products, their benefits, and their underlying technology to an interested audience. Customers or prospects in the early stages of learning about your sector get educated about why their problems should be solved, different approaches to solving them, and how to evaluate these approaches. In the case of experienced customers, a good white paper can further establish your credibility and deliver convincing arguments about why your company’s approach is superior. Done right, white papers can be great marketing tools and often generate more qualified leads than any other source.
Unfortunately, though, companies often squander this opportunity. Most technical white papers are never read, even if readers actively sought them out. Typically, in the software industry, many readers stop reading part way through the first page, overwhelmed by verbose, jargon-filled content and wondering how it applies to them.
White papers can avoid this fate and be much more effective marketing tools if you 1) do some up-front thinking, 2) carefully craft your arguments and provide proof points, and 3) use a good writer.
In the case of point #1, up-front thinking, Sure Product Consulting asks clients who want us to write their white papers the following questions. Prior to our even bidding on the project.
- Why do you want a white paper?
- How should this white paper be different from your marketing collateral? Does it have different goals? A different target audience? Will it have different messaging? Different content?
- How should this white paper be different from your competitors’ white papers?
- What are you going to do with the white paper? Give it away at conferences? Offer it as a “freebie” to customers who subscribe to your monthly newsletter? Or just make it a website download for anyone who wants it?
- How critical is it that customers actually read the paper, digest it, and remember its main messages? (This may seem like a silly question, but you’d be surprised at how often the real goal is to collect email addresses instead of truly communicating ideas.)
- How will you measure the success of this white paper as a marketing tool? (Qualified leads generated? The customer’s ability to remember key messages? Sheer number of email addresses collected?)
- Why do you believe a white paper is the most effective method to reach your goals?
- How “neutral” do you want your paper to be? Neutrality increases your credibility. But it also means you must even-handedly discuss alternative ways to solve customer problems—perhaps even naming your competitors.
- If there is just one message you want readers to take away, what is it?
- What tone—informal or formal—should your white paper take? By “informal,” I mean using “you” and “we” and not worrying very much about dangling prepositions and split infinitives. In the software industry, most white papers refer to the company in the third person, rather than “we.” They talk about “customers,” rather than “you.” In our experience at Sure Product Consulting, most software companies prefer this more formal writing style, even though readers are more likely to actually read and retain the messages presented more informally.
If you get clear on these issues before you start to write, your white paper project will go much more smoothly. You might even eliminate a feedback round or two, which has been our experience. The result will be a better and more effective white paper.
