I saw a great presentation earlier this summer at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum by Michael Stelzner titled “Attracting Quality Leads with White Papers.” Michael has generated 60,000 qualified leads with his program, so I thought I would share some of his ideas.

Here are Michael’s 6 mistakes Marketers make in regards to whitepapers:

1. Product Marketing Curse - Using a technical document for lead gen.
2. Marketing the Wrong Content - used car salesman approach, highly focused on company and product.
3. Post and Hope Syndrome - You need to drive prospects to the content, “If you build it, they will come” only works for Kevin Costner.
4. Brief Landing Pages - long form with little content
5. Immediate Access to Excellent Content - No registration, no follow-up emails
6. Not Integrated with Other marketing Efforts - Not promoted through email or direct mail campaigns, left out of newsletters and blogs

Michael gave some compelling reasons why whitepapers should be a part of your marketing mix. To get to the point, they are a proven lead gen tool, help educate your buyers and position your company as a thought leader.

Here are Michael’s tips for writing and publishing whitepapers:

• When you sit down to write the whitepaper, you first need to determine which type of problem you are going to solve: People problems, Process problems, Quality problems or Absent problems. Then lead with the challenges faced by the ideal reader.
• Discuss the solution is generic terms. People need to think that they need a solution like yours before you can sell them your specific solution.
• Include a “what to look for” list - This is your silver bullet where you create a condition where only your product or service can succeed. Be sure to call out points where you deliver over your competition.
• Only at the end of the whitepaper do you mention your company and the product or service you are promoting. Do be sure to have your branding on every page as well as the landing page.
• Save the call to action for the very last sentence - make it compelling, actionable, and measurable
• Think of the first page of your whitepaper as a movie trailer - show them enough for them to be willing to pay (fill out a form) for the rest.
  • Identify the ideal reader, summarize the challenge, summarize the solution, state the goal of the paper
  • AVOID: detailed explanation of the solution and features, introduction of your company, humor
• When developing a title, keep in mind “what’s in it for me?” and the 3 U’s:
  • Ultra-specific
  • Unique
  • useful to readers
• Test the title with current customers, they will be the best judges.
• Have long landing pages (this is against a lot of what we are hearing right now, but Michael has the results to prove that it works)
  • Provide a significant amount of content at the top of the landing page with a very short form (Michael suggests just name and email) at the bottom. This way readers are already hooked by the time they get to the form and more likely to fill out the form to get the rest of the whitepaper.
  • It is also great for SEO
• Don’t allow immediate access to the whitepaper. Wait 30 minutes to send the pdf directly to the email address given. This does two things. First, it provides a sense of anticipation. Secondly, this is a way for you to verify that they gave you a valid email address, not mickeymouse@mickeymouse.com.

I am working on implementing some of Michael’s ideas. He shares a lot more in his book, Writing White Papers. Do you have any suggestions for what works in writing and promoting whitepapers?