White papers can establish a level of credibility for your organization and its writers, and should be valued by your clients and prospects. Most white papers focus on technical issues, but the concept is expanding into non-technical topics as well, including marketing.

Below are Q2 Marketing’s 11 tips for consideration in creating a winning white paper program.

1. Inventory pain points to craft a white paper that speaks to your customers’ and prospects’ greatest needs. Determine what critical needs are going unmet to your prospect base and craft a white paper on how to meet those needs. Determining your competitors’ white paper market penetration and distribution strategy should be a core component.
2. Establish goals at the outset. Will this white paper be a method of capturing qualified leads? Establishing credibility and mind share for an innovative technology, product or service? Will it be a component of a larger white paper library? A component of a direct mail strategy? Answering these strategic questions early will lead to greater success.
3. Determine distribution strategies. How can your white paper get the greatest visibility? There are many good IT white paper distribution networks including Bitpipe, KnowledgeStorm, TechRepublic’s ITPapers and ZDNet. MarketingProfs is a comprehensive source for marketing industry white papers. Various trade publications also have white paper portals and distribution methods. These can be powerful methods of sharing your knowledge with the market.
4. Have a follow-up strategy in place. What do you with the leads the white papers generate?
5. Determine how you will measure the results of this campaign before initializing. Will it be web site registrations, increased qualified attendance of special events, shorter sales cycles, etc.?
6. If you make your white papers publicly available, it’s recommend to capture information from prospects requesting your white paper. Yes, the information provided may be phony. Your competitors may download your paper and they won’t tell you who they are. But many individuals will give accurate information that will tell you who they are and why they’re interested. This will help your sales force understand what actions to take next.
7. Sometimes it’s smart to make access to your white papers a privilege, particularly if it includes information you’d prefer your competitors not to have. If your white paper has value for prospects, make them take an action. This even more greatly increases the perceived value since the paper is not publicly available.
8. Use it as a direct sales tool. Your white paper can be an additional resource for your sales force during sales appointments and can further establish your organizations as credible, proven and leading edge.
9. Re-purpose the paper. Bylined articles and presentations, for example, will increase the exposure of your content-and its visionary creators.
10. Reward outstanding performers with the privilege of creating or contributing to the development of white papers. This positions your people as thought leaders and can go a long way in employee loyalty.
11. Sound complicated? It can be. But it can also be extremely effective. To find out more about using white papers to generate leads and position your company as a thought leader, contact Q2.

Posted: Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 | Lead Generation
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