How Do You Write a White Paper?
Most white papers are designed to promote a product, service, or technology for B2B (business to business) marketing strategies. B2B often means marketing between a manufacturer and a wholesaler or a wholesaler and a retailer.
In a B2B setting, a white paper is used to both inform and persuade the other company that a certain offering is better for solving a business problem or acknowledging a common business challenge.
When seen through the lens of B2B marketing, there are three types of white paper to be aware of:
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- Backgrounders: these explain the technical features of a certain offering
- Numbered Lists: these highlight points or tips about an offering
- Problem/Solution: These point out a common business problem or challenge and offer an improved solution to it
Aside from the different types of white paper for B2B marketing, it is important to note that while a white paper is an important part of marketing, it does differ from other marketing materials. A white paper is not like a brochure or even a blog post.
Since a white paper is meant to offer persuasive and factual evidence about a particular offering or product, they are much more academic in nature than most other marketing materials. In fact, white papers are at least 2,5000 words in length and read more like a research paper or essay than a flashy blog post or a bit of web content.
With this in mind, writing a white paper of your own should look something like writing an academic paper or short essay in which an idea is introduced and elaborated on using supportive evidence and examples. In these examples, the tone should be informative while remaining stringently factual.
Opinions do not have much of a place in the typical white paper and should not be imposed on them. Rather, make sure that you remain matter-of-fact in your delivery of information while also providing evidence that your product, solution, or service can remedy a common problem in a totally new way.
Finally, make sure that your white paper is digging into relevant topics that your potential customers care about. Identify real problems that arise in today’s highly technological world and show how your company can fix them.
Relevant topics for digital marketing businesses can be anything from cloud technology and security solutions to software solutions for content creation and management and everything in between.
