By Kevin Gault
Recently, a major company that uses white papers as a key marketing weapon learned a valuable lesson: It’s not enough just to use white papers, you’ve got to know how to use them to get the best results.
Hoover’s, Inc., founded in 1990, is an online business that provides in-depth information on companies, industries and the people who lead them. After offering white papers online for the past two years to generate sales leads, Hoover’s realized that the tactic was missing the mark.
“Using white papers to get sales leads didn’t work well for us,” explains Leslie Kuykendall, senior media manager at Hoover’s. “We had been using white papers in that capacity in our online display advertising and email campaigns. We would create a display ad with the offer of a white paper and run it in email campaigns and on websites such as Bizjournals.com.”
Within five minutes of completing an online form and downloading a white paper, the prospect would get a phone call from Hoover’s asking if he or she is interested in doing business with the company.
“Most of the time, people just wanted a white paper and didn’t want to talk to anybody,” Leslie added, “so most of those leads would be closed out as ‘not interested’ leads.”
“This year, we’ve decided to take a different approach because, given what we know, white papers will probably serve us better as part of a nurturing program,” said Leslie.
An Educational Role
Now, Hoover’s uses white papers as an important part of its registration programs. When someone responds to an ad and downloads a white paper, the company puts the registrant’s name into its database.
Twenty-four to 48 hours later, Hoover’s makes contact via email. That email is the first in a series of communications that educate the reader on the product linked to the topic of the paper. The idea is to increase ROI by nurturing these prospects until they’re ready to buy.
“The hope is that once we educate prospects on the value of Hoover’s, they’ll reach a point where they need more from Hoover’s than what the public website can offer,” says Leslie. “At that point, they’re ready to talk with one of our business-information specialists and possibly try one of our products.”
White Papers Are Key
According to Leslie, Hoover’s white paper offer gets the best response of all of the company’s online offers, which include a product trial, 25 business leads, Hoover’s list of Fortune 500 companies, and a detailed report on any company.
Hoover’s white paper ads account for more than one-third of total ad clicks and total leads generated, and for 20% of subscriptions generated. See a sample below:
“White papers are a key component of our marketing program, both in our online advertising and our email program,” says Leslie. “They go a long way in promoting Hoover’s as an expert and educating our target audience on the benefits of using a service like ours. To get the results we wanted from white papers, we had to learn from trial-and-error and find the ideal way to use them for our situation.”
Knowing how to use white papers can unleash their full potential, which in turn can unleash the full potential of a company’s marketing program.
