White Paper on White Papers - A Review
Posted by May 26th 09
We recently stumbled upon a great white paper on the topic of... white papers. It seemed unusual at first that a document's content and form would be so intricately related, but upon reading the paper we realized it made a lot of sense.
The document is appropriately called A White Paper on White Papers: Emerging Strategies for Delivering Traditional Content in New Media Channels and was written by the folks at Eccolo Media. You can download the paper for free upon registering. They introduce the topic of white papers through its technical origins and how it morphed over time to become a business and lead generation tool. They've also performed a survey on the matter of white papers and generously shared the data with their readers. Here are some highlights:
- On 155 surveyed people, 44% mentioned they believed white papers to be very influentials.
- 67% of respondents reported sharing white papers with their colleagues.
- 25% of readers shared the paper with more than 5 people.
- 70% of the people surveyed prefer reading papers on their desktops instead of in print (from MarketingSherpa's Benchmark Guide).
These data advocate that digital white papers are well-worth looking into. PDFs allow for documents to be easily shared and can integrate hyperlinks. The latter is an incredible addition to your essays since they can redirect readers to your website in order to access more information, or simply to join a discussion on the matter. As Eccolo Media points out, it's best to "stop thinking of the white paper as an airtight entity that must be consumed in a particular way. Think of it instead as a succession of value-added copy blocks—thought-leadership nuggets that can be lifted wholesale from the white paper and repurposed for maximum sales enablement." Indeed, digital copies allow you to segment your content, to make it more focused and niche-oriented, but also briefer. People scan digital content, looking for what they're after.
There's a whole lot of information in this white paper for those of you who write or commission white papers that could help change the way you market them. It's well worth looking into!
posted in Reviews
July 2010
