What is a "White Paper"?

A “white paper” is just one of many types of viral marketing mechanisms that you can use in your business to qualify and attract streams of clients, whether you’re awake or asleep, at work or on holiday. This is truly the “sales person who never sleeps”!

And the best part is, even if you have to pay someone to research and do it for you, it’s the cheapest, most effective advertising you could possibly do! In many cases, with a little help from your fellow business people, you can create your own very simple but effective white paper.

• Definitive report or guide
• Relates to a problem, situation, product or service
• Initially used to refer to particular government publications
• Thereafter used to refer to reports about technical products or scientific advances
• Has now been adapted to all sorts of products and services, including yours

The best white papers point out a crucial and relevant problem which your potential clients would walk over broken glass to get the answer to. Don’t use white papers to try to convince people – that’s way too hard and rarely works. Find a “starving crowd” and offer them “food”!

We’ve proven over and over again that just about any company has a “starving crowd” out there waiting for them, if only they know how to identify it!

Purpose Related to Marketing

If a white paper is well researched and well-written, it has the potential to be passed on to many others. This means that distribution of many thousands of copies of your white paper, to a targeted audience, can be at no cost to you whatsoever!

Studies show that white papers are often passed on to 6 others whom the recipient considers the information important for. Result: High contact rate from qualified potential clients.

You can do the math on this for yourself. If 2 people each pass it on to 2 other people, who each pass it on to 2 other people, within just 19 days it has the potential to reach over 1 million targeted, qualified people. Great white papers do exactly that.

A Great White Paper Must Meet These Criteria

• High relevance to audience
• Unbiased and objective
• Does not in any way appear self-serving
• Informative
• High credibility

A white paper isn’t just an overblown brochure, and in reality isn’t about you or your company at all. It’s all about your client! No wonder your potential clients will want to read it!

Make sure you write objectively, from the client’s point of view, in such a way that the client absolutely knows you understand his/her problem, and absolutely trusts that you have what they are looking for. Be brutal in eliminating hype.

If you do this well, you will build a highly-responsive, trusting client base that will not only make you their first port of call, but will send streams of referrals to you as well. After all, you’ve now established yourself as the trusted “expert” in your business or field.

Steps to Create Your Own White Paper

• Research your topic – do not merely rely on your own company resources
• Decide on a topic and headline that will rivet the reader’s attention
• Begin by briefly describing the purpose/content of your white paper
• Clearly elucidate the problem from the client’s perspective Offer a range of solutions
• Give an irresistible reason to initiate contact with you, that is a logical progression of the white paper

No matter how well you believe you know your clients’ needs, never presume. Use free tools like Overture or GoodKeywords to test out your ideas about what’s in your clients’ minds. Home into what you discover with laser-like accuracy in your heading, and in your very lifelike description of what it’s like to experience the problem, from your clients’ shoes.

Be objective in discussing solutions. You may be aware that there are some solutions that people are trying that are not working – give personalised case studies of those as well as others that are giving good results.

Finally, invite the reader to initiate contact with you in a way that is a natural flow-on from your paper. It may be taking advantage of a coupon, subscribing to an ezine or discussion forum, asking for a further report, attending a seminar, etc, etc. Make sure that from this step, there are others that lead logically, safely and comfortably, to acquisition of your product or service once your client has gained sufficient confidence and trust in you. Remember that the white paper is not a strategy on its own, but is part of an overall marketing strategy!

How We Can Help

Different businesses have different degrees of need for help with their white paper. Some are able to complete the whole task and need no help at all. Others need us to complete the whole process, from initial research to final write up.

If you’d like to see some examples of white papers so that you can start planning your own, by all means search the net for "white paper examples". You'll find that most white papers are still on technical subjects, which is great if that's what you're dealing in. However if you're looking for white papers that discuss services, or seek to build loyalty through demonstration of expertise, then take a look at those in the articles section on our website http://www.speedbusinessnetworking.com/

No doubt you’ll get some good ideas from reading through them!

Christine Sutherland is the CEO of Speed Business Networking, which provides online and live support to SME's who want to grow quickly, easily, and safely. This membership-based site provides a cost-effective way for real businesses to access top-quality consulting in sales, marketing, and owner replication.