Is The White Paper Dead for B2B Marketing?

I don’t think the medium matters; it really is the content, and also the content must be optimized for search. When I am researching something, I’ll type keywords into Google, and I’ll navigate to whatever matches my search–whether that’s a white paper, ebook, blog or microsite. I’m a little less likely to download something, and a lot less likely to fill out a form to get what I want. However, if the content is compelling, I will. As marketers, to create good content worthy of a longer form than a blog post, I think we need to stop relying on topics like “top 10 tips” and making 8 of those tips obvious truisms that everyone already knows. Creating a real “Best Practices” type of white paper or ebook takes a lot more work and research.

@Tracey – some good points in your comment – I have been put off recently by some of those top 10 blog post with some really obvious and nothing new trueisms – agreed the content still matters and your point is any rich content engine has to crank out quality not quantity content!

Provocative post, Paul (alliteration unintended). The big strike against packaging content as a “white paper” is that the label has assumed some negative connotation. Generalizing now:

- 30000-foot treatment of a topic
- Give us your contact info in exchange
- Brace yourself for follow-up direct marketing

Having the goods — relevant, authentically useful and well-intentioned content –can make up for a lot. But hard to imagine advising a client today to create a white paper.

With you and David on e-books. But presumably the same fate awaits that format if we fail to take lessons from what’s become of the white paper.

Hi folks. Great to see that Paul and our article have spawned a great discussion!

Sorry that this comment is long, but we have some followup comments that may be useful:

First, we agree with Jen that white papers have become stale – at least, those that don’t provide much useful information or are written poorly. But great whitepapers – highly informative and well-written – are still read. Only they are rare.

Tracey – we agree with you as well. At the end of the day, great content trumps all. The form it is in is less important. But what we’re advocating – topic microsites for (at the least) a firm’s most important white papers – is totally rethinking the delivery mechanism for white paper content (more on this below) so that a firm can provide great content on a topic, capture an audience, and continue providing new, great content while it has that audience’s attention.

Vince – we agree that white papers have taken on negative connotations because of poor content, forced registration, and foisting telemarketers on those readers. We can’t help but believe that today’s abundance of white papers are generating far less interest than the white papers of the past.

All the more reason the whole white paper marketing process is ripe to be reengineered. The way we think about it is this: Remember that the purpose of a white paper is to educate an audience on an issue and, by demonstrating mastery of that issue (and how to address it), get the audience to consider the company’s offering (service and/or product).

The advantage of a white paper is that it is a document that appears to be educational. But – assuming the content is strong – all white papers suffer two big disadvantages. First, they are ephemeral: once you send it out, the reader is onto the next thing, and so are you. It has a short life. The other problem is that it’s inflexible as a content delivery mechanism. If the audience is intrigued with the content it reads in the white paper, but not intrigued enough to be ready to hear from one of your salespeople, the white paper won’t help. You’re in a marketing standoff. They liked the white paper and want to read more, but they’re not ready to talk to a salesperson.

But white paper marketing no longer has to be this way. The marketing world has wonderful technology – the web, social media, and email – today that enables marketers to educate an audience in a far superior way (build a stronger bond, and generate more leads). But we’ve largely kept the white paper marketing process the same. Instead of printing a document, we PDF it. Instead of putting it in the mail, we email it (or post it on a Website). Essentially, we’ve automated the process. That certainly has saved us on printing and postage costs, which can be substantial. But it hasn’t solved the problem of white papers being ephemeral and inflexible marketing vehicles.

That’s why we advocate junking the white paper for what we call a topic microsite – a website devoted entirely to the subject of a white paper, a site that is purely educational and not promotional. Such a site allows us to build a highly flexible content delivery mechanism – a place to publish a white paper and a range of other content on the issue of that paper. If we put a blog on that site and get a number of people to subscribe to it, we can keep people coming back to the site. You wouldn’t do that with a printed or PDF white paper – keep sending it out to the same people. You can also engage the audience in the discussion of the topic with forums, which you can’t do with a white paper.

We agree with Paul that eBooks are better than most white papers – i.e., the white papers that are placed behind walls and require you to register for them. But white papers don’t have to be gated. (We advocate NOT forcing people to register for a white paper. Let the compelling ideas of your white paper lead them to contact you rather than you to contact them with registration information in hand. A much better initial sales discussion!). Ebooks can be quicker reads than white papers – a cross between a PowerPoint and a white paper. However, both eBooks and white papers are ephemeral and inflexible documents.

All to say it’s time to reinvent the white paper and find ways to a) create better content, b) create a variety of content, and c) keep the audience continually coming back for more content on an issue that is important to them.

Paul — Great topic, maybe you could start a topic micro-site on this topic (sorry, couldn’t resist!).

The discussion around the diminished impact of white papers goes back several years now. As a marketer who remembers the days before the Internet, I think two things happened to spark this downward spiral:
1.) White papers transitioned from technical/educational pieces into marketing-generated content (complete with over-adjectived, buzz-worded copy).
2.) The Internet created a vehicle where marketers could capture leads with white papers.

Both of these developments helped to create lightweight marketing copy devoid of education or thought-leadership with the primary purpose of leads, not leadership.

We’ve been developing eBooks and landing sites with additional content for several clients, which I suppose is pretty close to the micro-site definition you gave above. As others have said here, the quality of the content should be a key focus. The other focus, which the micro-site model can help spark, is dialogue. The more that businesses can engage their customers, prospects and markets in a discussion, the more that everyone benefits.

Hi Paul, I really like your idea of a topic micro-site. I do agree that a standalone white paper isn’t going to cut it anymore. And, remember, in B2B markets many of your customers want to be thought leaders too. Which means providing a platform where they can be more visible with their knowledge to the industry and their peers is very attractive. I recently worked for a small company in the legal electronic discovery industry. When we had initial calls with clients for a user group we could not believe the interest and energy they had from the get go on related topics. There is a lot of passion out in the B2B markets. Finding ways to harness and showcase that, while building closer connections to your customer, is extremely valuable.

I agree that what “white papers” used to mean (to me – weighty, scientific, proof-of-concept are some words and phrases that come to my mind) has been diluted, because people are slapping articles on their web site and calling them white papers. It’s kind of like people who write one paragraph and call it a blog entry or who publish 140 characters that offer little value so they can say they use Twitter.

But I believe there is a place for white papers, if they are written like a true white paper. My clients that have technical products to market still use white papers successfully. I follow Michael Stelzner’s process to write them and found it to be very helpful. If your audience includes engineers or technical people, white papers are still effective.

Paul and Bob,

I have to disagree with your assessment of eBooks as superior to white papers. White papers have served the test of time and are one of the few forms of business media that continually evolve and change to adapt to their changing audience. Countless surveys (Tech Target, Eccolo Media, Information Week) of business and technical decision makers consistently rank white papers at the top of their list among all major business communication vehicles including eBooks.

Over the years we have heard many claims about how new emerging communication mediums were going to replace white papers. Remember with the introduction of the iPod that the chatter was about how audio podcasts were going to revolutionize business marketing. What happened? They garnered a small fraction of the business base.

While eBooks may be attractive marketing pieces, I believe that they will not experience the same degree of longevity and the level of acceptance within the business community than white papers have provided for the past 15 years.

As both of you know, perception is reality in this industry. One of the failings of eBooks is the perception of being a digital version of a standard book. I can pick up an eBook on Romanian Cooking just as easily as I can one for understanding Micro Blogging.

When an enterprise business is going to distribute information about a multi-million dollar enterprise software strategy, they’re going to release a white paper, not an eBook. For this and other marketing reasons, the name “white paper” carries a lot more weight and clout than does the term “eBook”.

Finally, we live in a era of business readers with an increasingly limited amount of time and attention. The popularity of Social Media, and the ability to scan across hundreds of Tweets or FaceBook posts that are two or three lines with a hyperlink supports this change in online reading behavior.

A six to eight page white paper that is not only well written, but more importantly well designed with bottom line messaging techniques (such as pull quotes, concept graphics, and shaded text boxes) better supports today’s time and attention challenged reader than a 40+ paged eBook. Such an eBook reader would have to be highly motivated with the topic to spend the extensive amount to time to read such a tome in its entirety.

Face it. White papers are here to stay. Ten years from now we’ll be arguing about how that next great marketing vehicle is going to replace white papers.

Jonathan Kantor

Author: Crafting White Paper 2.0: Designing Information for Today’s Time and Attention Challenged Business Reader.

Paul –

Completely disagree. Different mediums have different purposes. Saying that white papers should go away is like saying blogs should go away because there are too many of them. The reality is that white paper still rank as the first or second most powerful sales tool available to marketers. They still represent a concise and portable argument on a particular topic and can be tremendous lead generators.

The issue at hand is that most white paper are rubbish. Most white papers have a paragraph of educational materials and 15 pages of propaganda. This presents a problem because peoples’ top turnoffs are white papers that have too much product bias. Because white papers have become so effective, many copywriters have attempted to get into the white paper writing business. It takes different DNA to write a white paper.

When I am selling to a senior executive, I don’t send him an email that says “Read these 142 blog posts….and make sure you read them in order, because I keep my arguments to 300-500 words.” I send he or she a white paper that introduces a new concept that is educational, shows empathy for their situation and presents a solution that logically makes sense. I think follow that with other white papers for different people in his or her organization at different points in the sales cycle – each addressing their concerns.

White papers can be incredibly powerful tools. I presented a case study at Mike Stelzner’s White Paper Success Summit how a single white paper generated an enormous amount of marketing reach:

- 2 speaking opportunities
- 2 byline articles
- 3x increase in leads
- 2x increase in lead quality
- a bunch of inbound links
- a few interviews with analysts

@Stelzner, @Jonathan – Amen.

BTW – if anyone is interested in learning how we got those results, you can download the white paper at:
http://www.smartbugmedia.com/7-tactics-to-boosting-white-paper-performance/

It seems really a good white paper marketing dead, people are believe in social media marketing than white paper.

Great, relevant content will always serve a purpose, whether it’s positioned as a white paper, one sheet, brochure, blog post, tweet, e-book, webinar, etc. There is such a dearth of useful, validated info. out there, that the good stuff actually stands out more today, because it will be promoted by folks you can depend on for relevant materials.

If “poor content” killed the vehicle – all forms of media would be dead by now.

Seems to me that the message here isn’t so much that the white paper is dead (whatever that would mean), but that people need to think about content as broadly and as diversely as possible. It’s not either a white paper OR a microsite but a white paper AND a microsite AND a podcast AND an ebook AND a deckon slideshare, etc.

Another thing I noticed in this discussion: the folks advocating most vocally for the white paper are folks who’ve built businesses around white paper production. I understand that you write for marketers, Paul, but it would be interesting to hear actual B2B buyers weigh in on this topic.

Paul, I have to respectfully disagree with you on “Killing the White Paper”. Tracey mentions a very good point “”I’m a little less likely to download something, and a lot less likely to fill out a form to get what I want. However, if the content is compelling, I will.”"
I am not going to add more pixels restating what has already been stated supporting my point-of-view above. As B2B marketer we need to understand the perspective of our target audience – How is this Whitepaper going to help me do my job better? – OR – What is the benefit to me in downloading this whitepaper?
Further I tend to believe that there is not much testing done with Whitepaper title and abstract copy. The Title and abstract of a white paper is usually what prospects see first. Titles and abstracts that don’t capture the value of the whitepaper will only ruin the performance of an informative and content rich whitepaper. Before we write-off the “White Paper” have we done due diligence in testing various title copy, abstract copy and combinations thereof?
BTW – there are now video whitepapers, which can be rich in content and engaging.

Paul,

Thanks for writing about this topic. I like the idea of breaking down white paper content into blogs or micro-blogs.

This way they are more digestable, more interactive, and easier to update as times and opinions change.

Interesting discussion and I’m with Tracey on content over format. There will be sectors and subjects that are inherently suited to a range of vehicles. To go down just one path won’t suit all.

And why ditch the white paper if it appropriate to the subject matter? Just because there was a lot of trashy books written doesn’t mean books are dead. Ditto white papers, although I will admit that they have lost much of the prestige they once carried.

I’m also with Jen re interesting the audience with interesting stories. That’s where the PR guys come in. They can do so much more than just write case studies: the best of them have a career lifetime of generating and pitching ideas to the biggest content gate-keepers of them all: editors of major media outlets. They have 100s of ways to interest the audience – just don’t force them to spoil it all with loaded marketingspeak!

Reading all of your comments really informative. My name is Love SEO of Mr. Marketology. I would like to invite you with an interview with Mr. Marketology. This is a good input. Just contact me at annie.love@mrmarketology.com.

Love SEO

Great discussion and kudos to Paul for raising such a valuable topic. As Jim pointed out our customers will vote with their mouses in terms of downloading or ignoring a white paper. Studies by Sirius Decisions for one have always shown the importance of white papers early in the buying decision process.

In my experience, what’s important is having different types of content to fit buyers’ needs as they move through the buying process. It’s also not an either/or situation. While some prospects might prefer a white paper, others will benefit from a video or ebook — and some may gobble up everything. Like any type of marketing, we need to start where the customer is — not where we’d like him/her to be.

From the perspective of a B2B lead generation vendor, one that is offer-agnostic and regularly markets a wide variety of client collateral, white papers continue to be the most popular collateral type provided by our clients. The reasons have already been stated by many of your blog respondents – versatility, concise, controlled messaging, convenience in posting and sharing, etc.

White papers and content marketing are evolving, and white papers are increasingly paired with complementary media. And well-written white papers clearly rise to the top (but there are great examples and mediocre examples of all collateral types). But emedia executes hundreds of B2B campaigns monthly, and if this serves as a representative sample, then at this point we empirically declare that white papers are still both popular and successful.

“Topic Micro-sites?” Sounds like a blog to me.

I still enjoy reading white papers but rarely find one worthy of registration. Eventually it will be public.

Dale

The “white paper” – actual usable technical content, given away for free – to be distinguished from advertising copy – is indeed dead. If it has value, you should be *selling* it, not giving it away – period.

@Philippe

I think that’s a great site you have put together, and a good example of what a topic microsite can be. I also think it can be done by a vendor.

If we look at white papers in the IT arena, for instance, more that 90% are shamelessly promotional. But something approaching 10% (according to an analysis we did last year) are unbiased and useful. If you look at the most downloaded at white paper syndication sites, they fall overwhelmingly into the latter category.

In other words, vendors can publish informative, unbiased material, just that most choose not to most of the time. Even though that’s what customers want.

The same applies to microsites. There are lots of biased ones, but also a few good ones. McKinsey’s site at http://tinyurl.com/cpthrc, or this at BCG, http://tinyurl.com/26qcpy4, are informative without being promotional.

I am increasingly convinced that online is a much more powerful medium for engaging an audience than a distributed white paper. But in any case, I think the issue of whether a vendor can publish useful, unbiased information is independent of the medium. And I think some – maybe a minority – can.

Great debate and wonderful to read all the responses. Critically one has to first consider one’s audience. If there is still traction with them for information in a white paper format why would you trash it?

Let’s get some perspective here, after all a white paper is merely one tactic in a array of tactics to get your thought leadership content to market. Things may have moved regarding how we can now deliver content to market but I wouldn’t be so quick to discount a good white paper because flashier more advanced ways of sharing information have come to the fore.

Research, ask your audience. Only then will you know whether you’re ready to trash your White Paper and substitute it with something else.

I guess it depends on the purpose of your whitepapers. As lead generation tools and for attracting traffic, I tend to agree that white papers are not as effective as they once were. But for value add to existing clients, they still offer a keen way to stay in touch with relevant information.

Upselling opportunities and developing industry though leadership will still be potential avenues for new revenue.

As for topic microsites, yes. A great way to develop niche expertise and profile.