Getting an education can pay off in life.  When you’re creating white papers, giving an education can pay off big time.

White papers that educate the reader get far better results than papers that rattle off one sales claim after another. California-based Apani Networks learned this lesson over the past year.

Founded in 2003, Apani manufactures high-end enterprise software security products. The company has cutting-edge products, but until recently, relatively few people knew about them.

Creating Awareness
“Last year, we realized that we needed to improve our brand awareness and establish a public perception of us as a thought leader,” explains Ryan Malone, vice president of marketing and business development at Apani. “We needed to let the world know that our products solve business problems and we needed better leads for our sales team.”

Malone and his marketing group evaluated their campaigns and decided to change their white-paper program. Up to that point, they wrote hard-sell papers and published them on syndication services such as TechTarget, CMP Media and Bitpipe. The marketers turned to Michael Stelzner, author of Writing White Papers, for advice.

“We were using ‘product-pushing’ white papers,” says Malone, “and we followed Mike’s recommendation that we create white papers that educate the reader. Our white papers that emphasized education far outperformed every other marketing tool we’ve used.”

Impressive Results
The numbers tell the story. When Apani used hard-sell white papers, 13% to 15% of the sales leads generated were highly qualified. When the company changed to papers that educated the reader, 26% to 27% of the leads received were highly qualified.

Not only were the leads more qualified, there were a lot more of them. In the first two quarters that Apani used “educational” white papers, the sales team received almost three times the leads generated by the previous type of white papers and four other types of collateral combined.

A Multi-Purpose Paper
The educational white papers served multiple purposes for Apani. The company’s PR agency used content from the papers to create a news release that states Apani’s view of the tech marketplace.

The agency also used material from the papers to craft an article abstract that it sent to industry publications. Malone says that at least one prominent publication will run an article based on the white paper’s content.

When Apani was invited to speak at an industry conference, Malone and his crew didn’t think the company fit into the event.  They sent an educational white paper to the conference organizers and the organizers created an ideal space for Apani to make a presentation at the event.

Can you ask for more from a single piece of collateral? Abundant, qualified sales leads. Widespread publicity from a news release and trade-magazine article. A speaking engagement at an important industry conference.

The next time you’re creating a white paper, focus on giving the reader an education. You’ll see the payoff in enhanced brand awareness and increased sales.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Case Studies, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.