By Ed Gandia
The pressure on marketers and salespeople to generate leads and sales has never been greater. In fact, BtoB magazine recently reported that customer acquisition is the top priority this year for more than 62 percent of business-to-business marketers surveyed.
However, this customer-acquisition mandate is also causing a growing number of marketers to take a wrong turn with their white paper strategy. Rather than using white papers to educate their prospect base, more marketers are now using white papers to blatantly promote their products and services.
For instance, just this week, I ran a search for CRM (customer relationship management) white papers in KnowledgeStorm. The first page showed 25 white paper results, out of which 13 (or 52 percent) blatantly inserted the name of the product or company right in the title-a giveaway that this piece is out to pitch a product.
The logic behind this approach seems to be that the more you tell prospects about how great your products and services are, the more interested they will become.
This is a losing strategy. Prospects today look to white papers for insights and education-not a sales pitch. When companies ignore this expectation, they risk losing credibility and valuable sales opportunities. They’re killing the goose only to find that there are no golden eggs inside.
Skeptical? Think about your own experiences as a buyer of products and services for your company. Or think back to an experience as a consumer. As buyers, most of us appreciate some restraint on the part of the marketer or salesperson. We appreciate a sales professional who is honest, patient and willing to educate us about the pros and cons of each alternative. When the salesperson tries to bully us with what is obviously biased information, he or she loses credibility, or even a sale.
It Works Whether You’re Selling Knives or Networking Gear
A few years ago, I enrolled in a three-day cooking course. The classes took place in a large, professional kitchen inside a cooking supplies store. On the first day, we spent two hours learning basic knife techniques-chopping, slicing, julienne cuts and so forth-using professional-grade cutlery provided by the store.
This was a clever tactic. The school understood that most of us would be wowed by these fantastic knives. Our instructor could have very easily launched into a presentation about why these knives were the best on the market. He could have told us that Emeril, Wolfgang Puck and Rachel Ray swear by this specific brand. And he could have pushed the fact that, neatly tucked away in each of our school-provided recipe binders, were coupons for 10 percent off all purchases made that week.
But he didn’t. In fact, he never once mentioned that the store carried these knives. Yet halfway through our knife training, a student finally asked him where she could buy a set. She was sold. So was I. And a few of us walked out that night with $300 worth of knives.
What Your Prospects Really Need
As marketers, we need to realize that today, more than ever, prospects need credible materials that help them make smart and educated decisions. That’s why the most persuasive white papers (especially business-benefits white papers) are those that exercise restraint. They are the pieces that, through logical claims and strong supporting facts, educate the prospect about the merits of employing a specific approach to solving a specific problem, without turning the discussion into a product pitch. And when talking about the product is inevitable, good white papers avoid being overtly biased or sales-oriented.
When in doubt, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes. What kind of materials would be beneficial if you had to make an intelligent decision regarding a major purchase? What tone would sit well with you? What type of information would you like to see? What approach would turn you off?
Use the answers to these questions to guide your next white paper, and see what a difference this new perspective makes with your prospects.
About the Author: A successful, 11-year B2B sales veteran, Ed Gandia (http://www.edgandia.com) is a freelance copywriter specializing in software and technology white papers, case studies, web copy and direct marketing.
