By Nettie Hartsock
For this edition, we turn Laurie Hood, vice president of marketing for KnowledgeStorm who shares her experience and insight into the world of white paper marketing, tips for crafting white papers and thoughts on podcasting.
WhitePaperSource: Which is better: educational white papers or a straight marketing-based format?
Hood: Up-front people want to consume something that is going to be educational, make them smarter, or introduce them to an area they’re interested in learning about. As you move further in the sales cycle, people are more interested in information specific to products and services, but they don’t want marketing hype; they want real ROI, what are the business benefits of this, and so forth.
WhitePaperSource: Are there white paper formatting tips that work well, like the use of executive summaries or actual paper length?
Hood: You know, we see for a white paper probably 10 to 15 pages in terms of content. It’s somewhat hard to talk about length. For instance, the other day I was looking at a customer’s white paper and it was 17 pages, but it was actually only 11 pages of real content, so sometimes that can be deceptive. But I also think sometimes people will still pull these papers up, and go, “Oh my gosh, it’s 17 pages! I don’t want to read 17 pages.” Especially now as you see that people are bringing the papers up in PDF format and see that page number immediately, I would say be careful with that. And keep it to a manageable amount; people want you to make it easy for them.
WhitePaperSource: What are some tips for getting white paper leads?
Hood: The main thing would be to keep in mind-as a company-that the paper is not ALL about you. That is a big thing. It needs to be about an industry issue or an educational area. If you’re going to talk about your product and service, which I do think you have a right to talk about, usually that should come at the back and be really brief. While you can have the tone of the paper speak to the advantages of what you can do in addressing the problem, I think that people expect a white paper to be educational. So I would say make it educational first.
Second, really know your target audience and create the content that’s going to be relevant for them. A lot of what we see are these papers that try to be all things to all people and they end up not being technical enough for a technical audience, being too technical for a business audience, and being too detailed for an executive audience.
WhitePaperSource: That’s interesting. So try not to tackle everything?
Hood: Absolutely, I think you can successfully start with a core paper and then spin it into addressing your different audiences, probably through some minor changes.
WhitePaperSource: What you’re saying is that with a little bit of rewriting you could generate three white papers that meet a specific audience?
Hood: Right, and in probably 30% more time spent than generating the one, but really addressing the three audiences. You’re going to take what you have, for instance, and cut it down for your executive audience and then you’re going to take that core and put a little more spin on it for a business audience or your technical audience.
WhitePaperSource: White papers are so much more prevalent as part of the purchasing process now. What are your thoughts on that?
Hood: People need to understand it’s not just IT people looking at them, it’s all kinds of business people. I think the Internet has done two things: on one hand it’s a great equalizer for the business person because before it was the IT person who held all the knowledge. So the business person would ask, “Oh, can we do this?” and in the past an IT person would probably say, “No.” But now a business person can go online and read a white paper and with a case study and go back to the IT guy and say, “Yes there is information out there I can understand, and we can do this.”
WhitePaperSource: What are the biggest misconceptions about white papers?
Hood: I think, from the vendor’s perspective, the biggest misconception is that a white paper is purely a marketing vehicle and needs to be a chance for me talk about how great I am. I think it’s important to know that white papers are so much more than that.
From a technology buyer’s standpoint I think it varies. There’s such a proliferation of white papers out there, some really outstanding ones, and then some really bad ones. So from a buyer’s perspective it can be a crapshoot. Those buyers have an idea in their head about what they are looking for or what they want to read about, so they are looking at the titles or the executive summaries to tell them precisely if the paper is going to give them what they need.
WhitePaperSource: And how do you keep up with the challenge of competition in distribution?
Hood: The challenge to vendors is getting seen on the crowded Internet. So the big thing is how do you get your papers where your potential buyers are? Use companies like KnowledgeStorm that go deep and broad in terms of getting stuff out there or partnering with professional associations and industry groups. You’ve spent so much time producing this content, you need to look at what you can do with it. Cut it up and use it for article placement, use it on your blogs. Sometimes I think people don’t really see production or creation of a white paper that leads to more opportunities for repurposing.
WhitePaperSource: Finally, can you talk about podcasting and getting more traction for the papers?
Hood: Right, we’ve just started an initiative. We’ve had four of our own white papers converted into podcasts and we’re doing that for some of our customers. And that’s another great example of taking an asset that you’ve created and continuing to leverage it.
We’re about to do a survey about podcast consumption. It’s kind of the buzz right now, you know they’re cool, they’re interesting. But I’m not sure. Is it a really fun hobby thing or is it really a business avenue that is growing? It might be another case where the control is shifting to the buyer. For example, can you deliver your content in a way that the buyer is interested in consuming it? I prefer to read, but I imagine there are plenty of people who are out there who are going on a trip and would love to download some podcasts to listen to on the plane.
Again it’s being responsive to what the buyers want.
WhitePaperSource: Absolutely. Thank you so much for all your great insight.
About the interviewer: Nettie Hartsock is a contributing editor for WhitePaperSource Newsletter and is constantly seeking relevant writing and marketing experts for possible interviews. Contact Nettie via email at nettie@whitepapersource.com.
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