Why White Papers Often Fail

By Ann Grove, Logical’s President

Many marketers consider white papers the leading tool for influencing buyers, and yet they are difficult and expensive to create and sometimes fail to capture buyer attention. If you want a successful white paper, I offer these thoughts on what you SHOULDN’T do. If you don’t believe me, do some testing.
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Without further adieu, top reasons white papers fail:

1. Your paper fails to deliver value. It is too salesy. It lacks substance, is poorly written, or is inaccurate. This is the Number 1 complaint I hear and quite honestly it makes people angry. The reader considers the white paper a contract: they give you their attention to read it and you deliver some sort of value in the form of knowledge. If you don’t deliver as expected, they are unlikely to do business with you and unlikely to download your future papers. Nobody likes to be tricked into wasting their time as a sales target.
2. You make it too difficult to obtain the paper. (a) You require too much information to register. The more information you require on your registration form, the less likely people are to complete the transaction. Name and email address are all that are truly required. People are going to drop off when you start requiring telephone number, place of employment, etc. (b) You block gmail and other free email domains. I saw this the other day on a webinar registration form for Amy Porterfield who supports course entrepreneurs, and I was baffled that someone with that audience would block gmail addresses. Legitimate buyers sometimes use free email domains. For instance, sometimes a buyer will need to research a purchase but is not authorized to represent the organization. Also, sometimes in these days of spam and malware, a legitimate buyer prefers not to put their company email at risk. Do you really want to turn them away at the door? By the way, if the goal is to prevent spam registration, consider adding a CAPTCHA test to detect a human or add a custom profile question such as “Are you a robot?”
3. Your paper's title is too long.  Literally, the shorter the title, the better it generally performs, assuming it is still descriptive. Try questions and active language. Focus on outcome. If you have too much information, put it into a subhead. Paper title is an easy candidate for A/B testing.
4. You are talking to the wrong audience. If you are targeting the C suite, you need to talk about business problems instead of technology problems. If you are targeting technical folks, you better be air tight on technical facts. You can sometimes appeal to both audiences by having a business-oriented introduction and conclusion (for those who flip to the end) and a well written technical section in the middle. If you play it well, the tech audience will hand your paper up and the managers will hand your paper down.
5. You don’t have the social media or sales maturity to adequately distribute and promote the piece.  
6. This is your first and only white paper. If so, people are not used to looking to you for thought leadership. Try producing a couple more and also produce several related blog pieces per paper to boost traffic and build authority.
7. Your paper lacks visual appeal. Try adding an infographic. See if icons are effective for you; some people say the use of icons is on its way out, but iconography is currently alive and well so consider it. Also, while many in marketing look down upon stock photography, testing shows that people still respond to a person looking directly into the camera so test that with your audience too. Testing eliminates the need for guessing. Get to know your audience and do what works.
8. There is no apparent call to action or next step. Ideally, you should include a call to action to move the reader deeper into the sales cycle, from awareness to prospect to client. A call to action can prompt the reader to get the next white paper, webinar, or resource such as templates, for instance. I prefer to put the call on a page following the conclusion, so the ask is separate from the valued content. You can get away with a weak or missing call to action if your main distribution channel is your sales force, because they will naturally follow up and escort the prospect to the next step.
9. You chose the wrong writer or failed to provide your writer with the right support. The writer must be someone who isn’t afraid to get in the weeds with independent research and a technical collaborator to create quality content. Don’t assume that someone who can write blog posts can also write white papers. Likewise, a white paper editor may be a willing writer but lacking in some skills. Sure, give your resource a chance but provide a coach or have a better-suited resource on call in case things don't work out.
10. Reader’s choice. What would you add?

 
About Ann

Ann Grove is often Logical’s lead consultant. She is known for producing security and compliance white papers that resonate with the C suite.  In January 2019, Ann started a Facebook group, White Paper Mastery, for white paper enthusiasts.