If you are working for an organization that is looking to establish its brand identity, then it is great to start with a white paper. When you write a white paper, it is usually a bit longer than a blog and more in-depth than an e-book. This will allow you to give more information to the world in a catchy manner. This way, you will get to establish the brand identity in a more in-depth manner. In this article, we will be discussing the way to write a white paper and how it serves as a year-long content startegy. So, keep reading the article till the end!
What is a White Paper?
Folks, if you are someone who has not written a white paper yet, then you need to read this section of the article for that. As mentioned earlier, when you write a white paper, it is basically longer than a typical blog and usually more in-depth than your e-book. It is a well-researched document that allows you to disseminate information to the public about a specific topic and showcase your brand’s expertise in that field. These are the great pieces of resources that marketers use, and often, they attach them with email forms these reports are of great value as they help in supporting goals like lead generation and sales.
However, if you are someone who write a white paper on a regular basis, then you would know that these pieces of document do more than just capture the leads. It can help to motivate an entire year’s content and support teams across sales, customer success, and even design. From developing social media content to webinars to workshops, there are a number of ways you can extend the life of your white paper.
Now that you have a good understanding of how to write a white paper, Head to the next section of the article to learn about the ways you can strategize to write one.
Ways to Plan A White Paper
Folks, if you are looking to write a white paper, this section of the article will help you do the same. Here are the ways you can plan to write a white paper:
Planning for Success
This is primarily the first phase, starting with writing a white paper. In this phase, you will first need to know the goals as well as the objectives that you are looking to achieve with the white paper instead of jumping to the topic ideation. You can include goals in your white paper like raising brand awareness or fueling new business acquisitions by generating leads.
Once you are done with the goals and objectives, you need to understand the key performance indicators that you need to use to check the progress towards your goals, such as new users and content downloads. From there, you will need to develop a project that will map out the clear expectations around the responsibilities as well as the due dates. Such as when can you expect to get its first draft or the design assets for social promotion
Write a White Paper from Beginning to End
Once you have ideated on the goals and objectives that your white paper will be focussing on, it is now time to conduct your research and start to develop the structure of your whitepaper. You can use surveys to collect data and form more data-driven strong research that will not just help in lead generation but also in nurturing the leads.
You can use platforms that allow you to conduct surveys online, and these platforms are quite helpful as they allow you to ask many questions that can prove to be beneficial for the research. If you have not used this type of online survey, then you can use the Google Doc format or a spreadsheet to house your key findings. This data will be organized by question number, and you can review the data that you have collected to gain a better understanding of where you lack or where you can include more data.
One key thing to note here is that you will not be required to use every single data point in your way to write a white paper; all you need is the relevant data to back up your statements when you are discussing something factual. You can use the unused data as a future piece of content; that way, the research done will not go to waste.
Use Creative to Make the Data Vibrant
If you are wondering that a white paper is all about data and research and not creative, then you might be wrong. When you write a white paper, you include factual data and research that is supported by creative inorder to make it look catchy and not mundane. You can use graphic assets as well as charts to use in the content. Additionally, you can ask your team to give a quick review of the graphics to determine which of the graphs will be getting more attention and which will be helping to get more attention; these stats will be helpful when they are backed by creative attention.
When you are developing a unique design system as well as a color palette for each of the white papers, it will help you to create a consistent visual quality so that every asset looks like it belongs to the campaign that you are looking to create with this white paper. Not only that, but the designers will also have the flexibility to create new assets like GIFs throughout the entire year because they have a wide range of colors and motifs to pull from.
Give your White Paper Longevity
Once you have published the white paper, your work does not end there; you can create a short teaser to help give longevity to your white paper and make it more sustainable and creative. This is one of the most crucial steps, and you can easily develop a social media post to promote the teaser for your white paper.
Why are White Papers Valuable?
If you are wondering why these research-based articles are valuable, then let me tell you these are not just marketing resources, but they are one of the most important ways to gain attention from potential leads and nurture them as well. With a nicely written white paper, you will be getting a lot of exposure in the niche market as well and the target audience will be getting an in-depth understanding of your organization’s line of expertise.
Conclusion
When you write a white paper, make sure to follow the above steps inorder to get a good understanding of the basics fo writing one as well as repurposing it to get content ideas for an entire year. That’s all, folks. I hope the article will help you to get all the information you need.
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