How to Make White Papers Work For You
White papers don’t have to be dull, according to Patrick Rea of The Press Unit. Written and used effectively, they can be great tools in highlighting your expertise and unique selling proposition – to develop new prospects as part of your public relations, social media and e-marketing programmes..
So what is a White Paper? A guide to your products or services – but more than that, it should be an authoritative report that helps the reader solve a problem. It should educate readers and help people make decisions.
The content of a WP should be dictated by the information your client needs to make an informed decision to start a dialogue with you. So in addition to the features and benefits of your solution, it should ideally also address competitor offerings and their relative merits and de-merits.
Here is a guide to how to write a White Paper:-
1. Summary: what your offering is, the alternatives, and the benefits of your solution. This may be all that is read, so it needs to be good - informative and interesting
2. The problem(s) that your offering addresses. Define and quantify the costs of the problem, where possible
3. Current solutions: what is your competitive landscape - the alternative offers and their benefits and shortcomings?
4. Your solution – summarise what it actually is and the benefits
5. Added Value: what are the savings, revenue or performance benefits for the prospect. Benchmark the data and provide comparatives
6. The Buying Process: set out how the prospect will buy from you, the key stages. What is the process with regard to specification, legal issues and delivery, perhaps.
7. Case studies: three short testimonials or case studies are useful at this stage, to validate your claim
8. Cost summary: people are more inclined to buy if you are up front about the costs
9. Technical details: now is the stage to provide more detail – for an IT solution it could be about platforms and compatibility for example
10. Buyers & reference sites: details of whether, where and how the prospect can see or hear about your solution in action.
11. Call to action: your contact details and the offer of a demonstration, consultation or specification. A time-based offer works well to prompt the prospect to act
The use of Illustrations will make the document more appealing than text alone and can assist understanding. So consider some coloured tables and charts at the very least – ideally one per page.
If you want help in researching, writing or otherwise producing Case Studies, then please contact us at www.pressunit.co.uk - Patrick Rea is a London public relations consultant, CIPR registered: Reference: How to write a White Paper.
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