Recently I spoke with a CMO who wanted to market a commoditized IT product. Naturally, his product has its own competitive advantage. But it was clear to me that his target market would be shopping first on price, and that a feature-benefit message would be challenging to push.

Early in our conversation, he asked, "How much will a white paper cost?"

Like his own prospects, he, too, was shopping on price. He was thinking of his marketing message as a commodity, too.

But that's the last thing he can afford to do. Pedestrian, fill-in-the-blank content simply doesn't have enough appeal to sell a commodity product. On the contrary, the message must be that much more compelling to stand out. That is why hard-to-differentiate products, like cola, beer, and wireless service, have the most creative TV ads.

B2B marketers are increasingly tempted to churn out cheap content. They have hungry channels to feed, such as blogs and email newsletters. Meanwhile, budgets are slashed. So the question, "How much will a white paper cost?" tends to be the first question marketers ask.

Relative to other marketing expenses, good content is a great value. B2B marketers can easily waste the budget they have if they push a weak message that sales won't use, and the market won't read. Our job is to make the prospect care--and the harder the product is to differentiate, the more creative we need to be.

Labels: business to business (B2B), content marketing, white papers

As content strategists, we stress to our clients the importance of repurposing content in all channels. This post titled "6 Things the iPad Means for B2B Marketers" by Steve Woods of Eloqua, describes the new opportunities of Apple's iPad as one of those channels. Number 3 of the 6 is particularly interesting:

Books and whitepapers become interactive: as books and whitepapers are more and more read on devices like an iPad, rich interactive aspects become increasingly possible. Embedded videos within a book, links for more detailed exploration of topics, and interactive experiences to highlight a point all become possible, allowing us to rethink the book and whitepaper formats entirely.

The iPad--and other technology that will inevitably follow--will not only provide new channels for repurposing content, it will up the ante.

There is a lot of talk surrounding the iPad's potential to revitalize print media--but not just from the economic standpoint of selling more newspapers and magazines. The iPad will revitalize the formats. The boring white paper will become a thing of the past--the interactive, fun-to-read, fun-to-play white paper will take its place.

Of course, we have had the ability to create rich media content in the web browser for a long time now. For some reason, readers have not demanded media much more rich than a PDF file for e-books and white papers. YouTube has made video a viable channel, but rich media remains rare and expensive to produce.

Will the sheer portability of the iPad change the media formats for marketers, just as the iPod changed the format for music? Are thought-leading marketing executives ready to engage their audiences in bold new ways?

Labels: business to business (B2B), content marketing, technology, white papers

A survey by Spiceworks reveals that IT pros--key influencers in B2B buying cycles--are increasingly resistant to downloading white papers, because of the registration forms. In an interview on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog*, Jay Halberg of Spiceworks says:

Those that do share their [contact information when downloading a white paper] obviously don't mind doing so, but they DO mind a pesky vendor that calls them 10 times over the next 30 days. We also found a lot of people – more than 75% – DON'T sign up for papers requiring registration, which means the vendor is missing the opportunity to share and disseminate their knowledge.

B2B marketers are asking, "Is the White Paper Dead?" Of course not--the white paper is simply a medium for content. But what is rapidly aging the white paper as a tactic may be the over-reliance on automated marketing systems and processes--compounded by the incredible pressure on sales teams to close a deal.

I myself am wary about offering my contact information in a reg form because on several occasions, I have hit the submit button and gotten a call from a sales person trying to close me--within a minute.

If we can all relax a little bit and remember that great content is a better way to qualify prospects than registration forms. Great content helps educate prospects and lets them "self select" and raise their hand when they are ready. Prospects become buyers when it's their idea--not when they get enough phone calls and register for the webinar.

That's why B2B marketers are adapting their content strategy to thought leadership. To this end, white papers must deliver useful new information that plants the seeds of the idea to buy. Ten vendor calls in 30 days kill the seed. (Ardath Albee's post, "When Thought Leadership Isn't", and comments there, provided inspiration.)

By the way, The Content Factor's white papers are "Free Downloads." --without reg foms.

* Interview by Stephanie Tilton on the Savvy B2B Marketing blog, discovered via Dale Underwood's blog, B2B Conversations Now, which was recently aggregated in the B2B Marketing Zone.

Labels: lead generation, thought leadership, white papers

White papers are a great way to convey thought leadership, solve customer problems and create interest for marketing programs. But many companies make some basic mistakes when writing a white paper. Here are the five we see most often:

1. Overselling: A white paper may be part of your marketing program, but its first goal is to educate or inform. If you try to oversell, you will likely lose credibility and the opportunity to make a sale later in the sales cycle. Sure, you can mention your product or service, but it should be primarily in the context of an example or a solution that can help solve the problem that your white paper has helped illuminate.

2. Give the conclusion first: Readers of white papers are just like everyone else: busy! Give them the findings on the first page. Then, spend the rest of the paper building the background and logic for that conclusion. Too many writers “keep their powder dry” until the middle or the end of the paper. Readership falls off dramatically from the first page to the last. Make sure the reader gets your key message(s) up front.

3. White papers don’t have to be just “black ink on white paper”: Use illustrations and diagrams to help make your point. Studies show that pictograms—the combination of words and pictures in an illustration or diagram—are one of the most effective methods of communication. And don’t forget to add an explanatory caption to these visuals. Make sure you tell the reader what the diagrammatical “take away” is. Don’t assume they will get it.

4. Two columns are too risky: If your white paper will be read from a computer screen, don’t format it in two columns. You may like the two column look when the document is printed, but it forces the electronic reader to scroll back up and then down the page again—twice per page. That’s a sure-fire way to lose them.

5. Have someone else say it for you: Research by KnowledgeStorm and others shows that third-party quotes and research from analysts, journalists and other informed sources carry a lot of weight with readers. Use this information as much as you can. Put it in callout boxes and footnotes as needed. Make sure it stands out.

Labels: white papers

New research by KnowledgeStorm supports what many already knew: vendors are more likely to close new business when they do a good job of educating potential buyers in the earliest stages of the sales cycle.

While sales reps often avoid prospects who are “just kicking the tires,” these prospects are usually doing important research. In most cases, they have not yet established standard metrics such as budget and timetable—and are looking to vendors to help them set realistic expectations. So vendors that help educate and influence these early stage prospects have a greater chance of being on the short list when it comes time to buy—and buy they do. KnowledgeStorm shows that the majority of these “tire kickers” do end up signing on the dotted line.

White papers that educate without blatantly selling are great sales tools at the early stage. They help develop insight and interest in prospects that frequently have little knowledge about your product or service. More importantly, they can help prospects develop a preference for your solution over the competition’s, and they start a relationship with your company that might be the first one that the prospect makes with a vendor in your space.

Yes, focusing on early stage buyers takes a bit longer, but isn’t educating a prospect from the start better than getting a picked-over (and highly competitive) RFP at the end of the sales cycle? And white papers are relatively easy and affordable ways to get those early relationships started, answer the common questions that “tire kickers” have, and establish your company as a knowledgeable resource.

If you’d like to know more about how to create a white paper, check out our Eight Rules for Creating Great White Papers, or visit the white paper Gallery on our website for some samples.

Labels: lead generation, white papers

Feeling misunderstood? Do your clients or prospects have a popular misconception about what you deliver…or about what you should deliver? You can jar them out of their confusion—and relieve your frustration—with a snappy article or white paper that brings the misconception into focus. While your competition is doing what’s safe (and sometimes just plain boring), like playing up the company’s strengths, focusing on testimonials, or simply listing obvious benefits—you can be turning a misconception into thought leadership.

Dan McDade, founder and CEO of PointClear, was frustrated with his prospects. PointClear is a lead generation and sales development company. Prospects expected PointClear to deliver leads, leads, and more leads, at the lowest cost possible. But after 20 years in the lead generation business, McDade knows that it’s quality, not quantity, that makes a good lead gen program. Only the right kind of leads can be converted into customers. The misconception was costing PointClear valuable business opportunities.

So PointClear turned the problem on its head. Working with The Content Factor, the company created a position paper entitled: Why Your Sales Force Needs Fewer Leads. This paradoxical play on words was a bit risky for a firm whose business is lead generation, but denigrating the value of leads worked. Because McDade knew what he was talking about, the piece rang true and came off as good, sound advice—not just marketing. The position paper has been effective in building business for McDade and his 100-person firm. It’s been repurposed as a webinar and in contributed articles. In fact, one of PointClear’s prospects at Xerox said that Why Your Sales Force Needs Fewer Leads was the “best piece of marketing content he has ever seen.”

Why was this paper so effective? Because the title immediately grabs the attention of lead-hungry sales execs. And the content inside provides valuable insight and competitive advantage; sales organizations can outsmart their competition by pursuing fewer high-quality leads. Readers win, and PointClear scores big.

Labels: lead generation, white papers