White papers are known for being fact-filled and informative and yet gently persuasive at the same time. Their aim is to gently lead your customers to the conclusion that your solution is best for them.
And because they tend to be read by decision-makers it makes them an excellent tool to:
Cut through the noise of your competition Offering your audience a gated white paper can be an excellent source of highly qualified leads. Not only that, a white paper can go a long way to establishing your company brand as a leader in the field. It’s a way of offering high-value content to your customers whilst at the same time helping them decide to buy with persuasive, evidence-based research to support your product or service.
What makes a good white paper?
Two things. First, you need to pick a high value topic that will be of interest to your target audience. Second, you need to position your company as the go-to expert to provide solutions to your customer's problems.
The aim is to enhance your company’s credibility and position you as a thought leader in your field. To do this you’ll need to stay clear of overt selling strategies and win over your customer's hearts and minds with useful, relevant and succinct information that aims to educate as well as persuade.
The payoff is that a well written white paper will have the effect of engaging your customer's interest, gently moving them through your sales funnel with far less resistance than traditional hard sell strategies ever could.
If you can provide your customer's with well researched, high value content, it will be much easier to cut through the noise of your competition and you’ll be one step closer to generating highly qualified leads who are ready to buy.
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A white paper, well written can be an excellent marketing tool.
So how can you make the best of this opportunity to engage your readers attention?
Here are 7 simple rules to guide you.
1. Create an engaging solution-focused title. 2. Focus on benefits. Use your white paper to engage your readers' interest and gain their support by providing high quality evidence based research. 3. Show your customer how you can solve their problems and make life easier for them. 4. Speak their language. Use NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) to appeal to readers across all sensory modalities. 5. Use up to date references to make your white paper a valuable educational resource. Ideally, references should be less than five years old. 6. Include infographics. Research shows that using infographics that combine both words and pictures is a much more effective way to communicate than either words or images alone. 7. Use your own branding discreetly. The last thing you want is for your white paper to come across as a pushy sales document. Be subtle. Use your white paper to engage your customer's interest. The sales conversation comes later. |
Anne Watkins
Hi, I'm Anne, welcome to the Mind Body Ink blog. Archives
September 2019
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