Helpful Hints for the Clydesdales of B2B Content

It’s probably hormonal, but I’ve had the urge lately to read  white papers, and I’ve come to the conclusion that these things truly are the Clydesdales of Content. A good B2B white paper, like a good draught horse, is strong enough to haul a heavy load of concepts about, smart enough to handle complex instruction and gentle enough to be around children. They go quietly, diligently about their work, with the bonus of adding a little fertilizer as they progress.

But I am troubled, brothers and sisters; troubled because there are other breeds at play in the propaganda pasture.

Now regular readers of this blog will recall that I’ll pee in a cup for a good piece of content, so imagine how disappointing it is to surrender all kinds of information and then download a horse of an unexpected colour.

I have, for example, a pile of dressage horses on my desk: all ribbons and braids and bedspreads. They are nimble, to be sure, but not so good at the heavy lifting.

There are a few stunned-looking  racehorses eager to rush me around a short track and call it a good time, and over in the corner there are some really very sad starter pony specimens.

After years and years of cranking these suckers out, I can sympathize with their authors. Sometimes you start out with a big old Clydesdale, and by the time sales, legal and the Hand-Wringers are through, you have a carousel horse that’s facing the wrong way and won’t go up and down (liability risk).

So to all you breeders of white papers, here is

The Helpful Checklist of B2B White Paper Clydesdale Characteristics

• Make it at least five pages and no more than 12 (you can go longer on the super technical things you submit to conferences)
• Cite real data from someone who isn’t you and who other people have heard of before (if it’s your data, then you’re not writing a white paper; you’re writing a research report.)
• Use language the reader’s boss can understand —  this makes it easy for the F-Word to pass along to the C-Suite without having to explain it)
• Be on your reader’s side — scolding, chastising and ridicule are for blogs and letters of resignation, not white papers)
• Give readers stuff to steal — make it easy to grab a chart or graph or handy statistic from your white paper and stuff it into their give-me-budget-please presentation
• Never, never NEVER mention your product by name until the very end and even then, with extreme care and deference. Seriously. Just don’t. It turns your Clydesdale into a supermarket horsey ride
• Put in a sidebar with a case study about a real customer — yes, your customer, using the real product, which you refer to only in its most generic sense
• Failing that, find a published article you can link to with a customer story — If you don’t have a customer, maybe don’t write a white paper
• Steer clear of direct product comparisons — even your dumbest reader will see through the bias
• Imply comparison with a checklist of things your reader will need to know or do to get the desired result — only the bright ones will notice what isn’t on the list
• Go vertical, not horizontal — while the same machine may be used to shred tires and dismember fruit, the guy running the marmalade factory wants to hear from the jam industry, regardless of how much his product may taste like a Goodyear.
• Make it work — whitepapers are expensive to raise and feed and should be earning their keep at every turn as the basis for conference presentations, webinars, podcasts, the CTA on some junk mail or a borrowable deck on SlideShare.
•  They also need to work hard as gatherers of data — even the flimsiest of registration walls will offer up email addresses and tombstone data. If you have some self-righteous Web Lord who’s been reading too much Seth Godin and won’t let you gate your content, then follow up with an online survey and the vague promise of a lovely prize in a random draw. I promise, people will tell you just about anything if they think there’s an iPad in their future.

 Links to Helpful Tips on Writing  a B2B White Paper

• Content Marketing Institute – Why Your White Paper is Failing
• Content Marketing Institute – Write Like a Content Marketing Jedi Post
• Savvy B2B Blog – White Paper Best Practices

Before we leave, we need to acknowledge that a workhorse is only as good as its master. And by this I mean the people who help the white paper convert curiosity into revenue – that’s right, the sales team.

Two Helpful B2B White Paper Tips for Sales

• Hold your horses. Just last week I had a sales call less than ten minutes after I clicked download. No, I haven’t read it. No, I don’t have any questions. No, I don’t want to meet your boss. Thank you, my health is excellent. Now fu*k off and let me read
• Read the damn thing. All of it, not just the wordsearch at the end. You don’t get to phone someone up and then make them talk to a sales engineer. Marketing, your job is to make sure sales can get through a ten minute conversation about the paper– so be sure you include briefing notes, sample questions and a list of related publications your reps can send to interested customers.

Related Posts

Why Content is Social Media Dietary Fibre
The Revenge of the Content Monster

BizMarketer is written by Elizabeth Williams
I help companies have better conversations
Drop me a line at ewilliams@candlerchase.com
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