If you’re looking to use white papers to help your business generate leads, writing the actual paper is just the first step. A white paper will only generate leads if it’s read by the right people. So after you finish writing, you’ll need to make an extra effort to promote it in order to draw potential readers in and, eventually, convert them into clients.
Below are six of the most common mistakes content marketers make when promoting their white papers, and some simple ways to counter them:
Mistake #1: Not creating a proper landing page
A white paper can be anywhere from a few pages long to dozens of pages in length, which can make reading them a daunting task for prospects who are not already familiar with the value and insight your business can provide. Quite often, white papers are placed in an obscure location, like the website’s resources page, or on a page that doesn’t have a way to highlight its value. Placing your white paper on its own dedicated page, in the context of the benefits it provides the reader, can help to convince potential readers that downloading and reading your insight will be worth their time.
There are a few core components every white paper landing page should feature:
A short, persuasive letter that lets the reader know what the white paper contains, and why they need to read it. This sales letter needs to have an attractive headline, and should be around 100 to 300 words long, so it’s quick and easy to read.
A keyword density of 2 to 6 percent, so your white paper can be found through relevant consumer searches.
Don’t forget to provide a link so viewers can download the white paper, or a form that they can fill out to request a copy.
Another important decision is whether to include ads on your landing page. The sole aim of your landing page should be to get visitors to download the white paper. When you include ads on your landing page, you risk distracting them from your landing page or, worse, chasing after the ad offers and not returning to download your content . So it’s best to get rid of all the ads if you want to optimize the your white paper conversions. (More tips to improve your white paper conversions can be found in this post by Rachel Foster.)
Mistake #2: Including company promotions in your white paper’s marketing material
Some people promote their white paper through landing pages, press releases, etc. But these marketing materials can’t do their job if they are poorly focused on the mission at hand (i.e., selling the white paper), or contain more information about the company, the brochure section of the white paper, and your other offerings than they do on educating consumers, building a trusting relationship, and turning them into leads.
People read white papers because they want to learn from others’ expertise and experience. If your promotional efforts focus on how your white paper provides vital insight and information, you will build the trust — trust that will make them want to learn more about your company and its products and services. So you see, by not selling, you actually create a more successful sales pitch for the value your business provides.
Marketing the education value of your white paper is all about sharing the benefits it provides with those who might read it. You want to let them know what they are going to learn, and how this information can help them reach their goals — such as improving their company’s performance, increasing profits, or producing better products. If you can demonstrate that reading your white paper can help them be better at something they want to be good at, it will motivate them to download and read it.
Mistake #3: Asking for too much personal information
There are two ways you can provide access to your white paper: by letting visitors download it directly through a link or by offering it in exchange for providing some personal information (such as their contact information, their company name, their job function, etc). It’s always good to get as much information as possible on the prospects that download your white papers; but if you ask for too many details up front, or consume too much of their time filling out forms, you risk losing their interest — and any ability to connect with them in the future.
If you want to encourage downloads, the information you require should be as minimal as possible. In the beginning, just their name and the email address where the white paper should be sent should be more than enough.
Once they’ve read your white paper and have grown to trust your expertise, the connection you’ve forged should provide you with additional opportunities to gather more information from them directly.
Mistake #4: Forgetting to make your white paper social media friendly
There are over 800 million active users on facebook, 200 million users on Twitter, 100 million on Linkedin and 62 million users on Google+. These figures indicate a huge potential audience you can reach through social media outlets. Even if only a small percentage of these users are searching for good content to read, it still provides a tremendous opportunity for targeting and marketing your white paper.
But if you want your white papers to be shared regularly on social media, you need to make them social media friendly. The first step you can take is to add social sharing buttons at the top of your landing pages, to make it easy for people to “like” it on Facebook, retweet it on Twitter, or share it on LinkedIn.
This can be done by visiting the respective social media websites, copying the HTML code for the button, and posting it on the header of each page of the white paper. You can also add these buttons to your blog or other website pages by downloading and activating an appropriate plug-in, or go one step further by including them directly in your white paper documents. (You can learn more about how to add these buttons by reading this post.)
Once you’ve set up this functionality, readers only need to click on the button to share it on their social media profiles. There’s no need to go through the tedious process of opening the social site page, shortening the link to your white paper, writing a message, and then sharing it.
Another advantage of enabling social sharing is that it can add credibility to your content. When people see that a particular page has been shared multiple times, they are more likely to want to know what’s so special about it — which can drive them to check out your white paper landing page for themselves.
Mistake #5: Not taking advantage of white paper distribution services
There are many distribution services available to help you host and promote your white papers, and they can offer some distinct advantages over self-distribution, such as:
Access to an established audience of people who want to read white papers
Experience with successful white paper promotion techniques
Newsletters and social media channels they can use to increase the reach of your content
Many of these services are available for free and have made the process easy for content creators at any experience level.
If you want your white paper to get more exposure, it’s best to place it on a few distribution services at once, and see which ones perform best for you. Depending on the topic of your white paper, its intended audience, and your ultimate goals, you can start with those that specialize in targeting your niche business area, or you can cast a wider net by going with services that market to a larger range of audience interests. A few good white paper distribution services are CIO White Papers, Information Week, and Bit Pipe.
How do you promote your white papers? Are there any tricks and techniques you would like to share with us? Please leave your comments below.
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