Jun
19
When companies decide to use a white paper, they often hastily write a few pages, convert it into a PDF, and then throw it out on the website. Then, a few months later, they start to complain that the white paper isn’t bringing in any results. Surprisingly, the results they have don’t match their expectations.
Here are several questions to answer before you launch into your campaign.
1) Who is my reader?
Try to define your reader as precisely as possible. Understand things related to their role in the company, their title and what that means, their biggest obstacle at work and their role. Know their basic job responsibilities and their daily operations. This information will focus your writing on your reader. Know your audience.
2) What are the pressures on my reader and how does my product help them?
Answering this question positions your product correctly. You can frame your writing in a manner that will have the most impact on the reader. Ignoring this question leads to a lack of focus, which causes the reader to quickly discard the paper and move on to other things.
3) Is my paper written for them or for me?
Here’s the fastest way to tell. Have someone read the paper and count the number of references of ‘me versus you’ or ‘my product versus your problem.’ The numbers should be skewed towards the customer. Otherwise you are talking too much about yourself.
4) Where in my sales cycle does this paper fall?
This is probably the most difficult for people to answer. Sometimes it’s due to a lack of a funnel, more often it’s the writer isn’t aware of the process. Most white papers are used as lead generation - they are distributed to get people interested in the product. However, white papers are also useful in closing deals, providing additional social proof for a customer, or to justify the economic value of the product. Each of these applications falls into a different part of the sales funnel.
5) What are my intentions for this paper? Or, how will I know if this paper is successful?
If you don’t understand what you expect from the beginning, you’ll never know when you get there.
6) What is the next step I expect the reader to take after this paper is complete?
There are several additional actions you can have the reader take. You can take them to a special landing page, have them contact the sales person, send an email, or download a trial offer. However, you need to be specific in your expectations of the next steps.
Use this questions to help evaluate your use of the paper. You’ll have much greater success in the use of the paper.
Jun
19
Adobe is adding support for it’s scripting technology, called Flash, into the PDF standard. Flash support provides white paper writers with an entire new palette of services to communicate.
In addition to your text product description and value proposition, you can insert dynamic Flash descriptions of your product, including animation, video, and interactive diagrams. This capability will help illustrate your product and highlight the value in your offering. I can envision a large number of uses of Flash within a PDF.
That being said, I’m tempered in my enthusiasm. I’ve seen many technologies introduced and watched them mature. In every case, the beginning of a product launch holds much thrashing before the technology matures. This ‘thrashing’ refers to the initial attempts of users to wrangle control over the technology. It takes time before the best practices start to emerge.
Remember the early days of the web? All developers thought it clever to add flashing animation, loud bells, and other annoying elements to a page. That’s thrashing. Over time, those obnoxious practices dwindled and the best practices came into the mainstream.
I suspect that we’ll start to see several PDFs incorporating Flash that distract rather than contribute to the paper. Over time, things will steady out.
Jun
4
I’m fascinated by movies involving multiple personality disorder. Although in real life, the events causing this are often tragic, I’m intrigued by the fact that a single person could be holding multiple people in their head. One head. More than one person.
I realized this is exactly what a white paper writer has to do. They take multiple perspectives, often with conflicting agendas, and incorporate them into the development process. The perspectives, conflicts, and edits from each viewpoint eventually congeal into a coherent (and hopefully effective) white paper.
The 3 perspectives are:
1) Producer perspective - This is the viewpoint of the product manufacturer. The relevant information here all relate to product. What are the benefits? What are the strongest selling points? What problems does it solve?
2) Writer perspective - The writer perspective is all about communication. You must have the ability to disassociate yourself from everything and focus on the communication of the information. Am I communicating this point clearly? Is this the best possible phrase? Can this point use further elaboration?
3) The consumer’s perspective: This is essentially: “Why do I want this product?” This viewpoint is always considering, “Is this product useful to me?” and “What am I getting out of this?” During the discovery of the paper, you should consider, “Why will I read this white paper?” During the reading of the paper, this perspective will be thinking at each moment, “Is this bringing me some type of value?” If the reader ever says ‘No,’ then you’ve lost them.
You should try to hold these perspectives in your head simultaneously, but not many people have the ability to do that. In fact, it’s quite a hard trait for anyone to do.
In practice, I find a sequential process can work as well. When you are doing your research, use the perspective of the Producer. What are the key benefits? What problem am i solving?
While you are writing, keep your writer’s hat on.
After you’ve reached a fairly stable draft, pretend to read from the customer’s perspective.
When you’ve completed a few papers, you’ll soon be able to carry to all 3 perspectives in your head. And, if you get really good at it, you can start adding your psychiatrists bill to your invoice.
