Have white papers seen better days?

Over at Paul Dunay’s ‘Buzz Marketing For Technology’ blog, there’s a controversial post that argues they have:

“Is the white paper dead for b2b marketing?”

The premise is that the very term ‘white paper’ has lost its uniqueness and authority status.

Why?

Because the ‘market’ has become saturated with pre and post-sales / marketing collateral that’s hijacked the term ‘white paper’ but, in format, and in content, delivers a confusing mish-mash of data (rather than information)

So much so, that more and more people are tuning out of reading or even requesting white papers, goes the post.

(All partly true, by the way.)

And the proposed solution?

Well, I’ve gotta say it brings tears of joy to a copywriter’s digital heart.
Think, ‘topic micro site’.

Read that again – ‘topic micro site’. And if you don’t get it, then hop over to the Bloom Group’s very own site where you can see the concept in action.

Now, in this post, I’ll leave their e-book versus white paper positioning for another day.

But I will say that if you think what passes for white papers these days is a distorted mess, wait to you see what the majority of ‘topic micro sites’ devolve into over time. I’d be willing to wager that lots of them will distract and deflect their readers with links and unstructured trivia that are high on facts but fall way short on useful and structured information.

(For the record, I quite like the Bloom Group’s site but still reckon a well-crafted white paper, even an e-book / special report, can do the job just as well and with less confusion as to what to read next.)

In my opinion, the winning attribute of an excellent white paper is that it can be expertly crafted and written to ‘guide’ the reader to the key points in five to ten pages without introducing any distractions.

Whereas, by definition, topic niche sites have links just begging to be clicked; and many of these are links to other sites. Yikes! Come back dear reader, come back!
Of course, I write in jest, since B2B readers are smart enough to keep on target and not waste 20 mins reading time browsing the New York Times because a topic site link brought them there. Aren’t they? ;-

By the way, in case you’re wondering, I do have a horse or two in this ‘race’. By that, I mean the writing of technology white papers and other web content, including email autoresponder copy. Ultimately, it’s your visitors who will decide what they like to read and view on your site so you better be testing and tracking what does and doesn’t work. On that point, I’m an agnostic copywriter – just do what works!

However, until it’s proven otherwise, I believe that multi-million dollar technology sales funnels will continue to have expertly-written (and designed!) white papers for the C-level folks to sink their teeth into.

And I see ‘topic niche sites’ playing a supportive and broader role to their more direct white paper brethren because I don’t think the decision makers will have the time or inclination to surf and nibble on niche topic sites and come to specific conclusions.

They don’t’ want to work that hard and will ‘reward’ (with attention) marketers who make it e-a-s-i-e-r to get their problems solved and questions answered.

What say you?

- Mark McClure

PS – Paul, if you’re reading this, please have a look in your spam(!) folder for the two comments I made to your post over the last week. They’re in some kind of net purgatory zone, it seems. Maybe this is Karma for not getting to grips with Avaya’s IP Phones when I had the chance

If your white paper skills* could do with a shot in the arm from one of the top white paper copywriters in the US today, then check out this online master class from Jonathan Kantor.

TITLE: “White Paper 101: A Step-by-Step Approach to Creating Highly Engaging White Papers.”

WHERE: GoToWebinar.com

WHEN: 3 One-Hour Sessions: June 15th, 16th, and 17th. Noon Pacific/2pm Central/3pm Eastern

WHAT: When you attend the White Paper 101 course, you receive three full hours of training (taught by Jonathan Kantor), a copy of his eBook: Crafting White Paper 2.0, transcripts from past presentations, and an additional assortment of freebies worth over $497.

HOW: Registration is limited so act now! (The class is priced at $297 but will increase to $397 after June 11th, or when the first 100 places are gone. Yep, this is “time to take action” marketing in action; aka the early bird gets the worm.)

Having seen Jonathan’s webinar at Michael Stelzner’s White paper Success summit earlier this year, and attended his recent free white paper mistakes webinar , I was very impressed with the professional nature of the webinar format. They use GoToMeeting and I was able to watch and listen via the Internet – no travel or international call charges (not even Skype!) required.

A downloadable pdf version of the slides and a Quicktime video of the webinar were available after the events. This is great because I usually get a lot more value from listening to a class one or more times while commuting.

There are a number of bonuses available with the webinar offer – not least is Jonathan’s ebook, “Crafting White Paper 2.0: Designing Information for Today’s Time and Attention Challenged Business Reader”. This has been on my buy list for some time but I held off because I was still working through the Stelzner success summit course materials!

However, the bonus that’s really got me interested is the “1/2 hour phone consultation with Jonathan to review your completed white paper project.” This would cost a pretty penny ($200 of them, in fact), if you were to request it from him as a separate service.

So, what are you waiting for! Check out the sign up page for Jonathan’s course right here: http://bit.ly/90Q9pe

- Mark McClure

PS – White Paper skills* – the online course will cover the entire process from idea to research, outlining, interviewing, writing, marketing and lead generation. This is as much a course for business owners and corporate marketing folks, as it is for aspiring white paper writers.

PPS – Disclosure: I’m an affiliate for this course and recommend Jonathan’s teaching based on what I’ve experienced so far. Your mileage may vary but note that if you don’t think the course is for you by the end of the first day, just drop him an email and you’ll get your money back – the “24-Hour Sample It” Guarantee.
That sign up link again: http://bit.ly/90Q9pe

The outstanding tasks from my samuraiwriter Google Profile post of a few months back finally got some attention.

Although it’s still a work in progress I’m happy with the updated version for these reasons:

• People googling for me as ‘samuraiwriter’ will get some useful info in the ‘About Me’ section.
• My Twitter Feed is easily seen under the ‘Buzz’ tab. (I’m still in two minds about Google’s new Buzz thingymajig… just trialing it out.)
• Samuraiwriter’s Flickr photos display prominently at the top of the profile. (Is that a good or a bad thing? I’m assuming it helps show who and what I am – though probably video would be even more effective.)
• Visitors interested in knowing more can also click on links to my blogs, twitter page, LinkedIn page and FaceBook ‘Fan’ page. (I’m not planning to open up my private FaceBook page to all comers at this stage. The separation between personal and professional seems clearly marked with FaceBook – especially for a mainly b2b technology marketing copywriter.)

Here’s a photo of the revised Google profile page which is presently showing at #8 on page 1 of the Google page for the search term ‘samuraiwriter’. Interestingly, it’s nowhere in the first twenty pages for the term, ‘mark mcclure’.

All constructive opinions welcome on this profile.

Can you work out what I do and who I do it for?

Is there anything you would add, edit or delete?

- Mark ‘samuraiwriter’ McClure
Freelance Technology Marketing Copywriter