How do your co-workers view Marketing? Do they understand what you do, and why it isn’t Sales? Show them some science.
Leon Sterling of Compelling Concepts wrote last week about the blurred (or missing) distinction between Marketing and Sales in the minds of most people in a given organization.
True, Marketing is strategy and Sales is execution, but even that nuance is lost on, say, a draftsman or a QA lead or the bloke who runs the warehouse. Many of these people think that the main difference between Marketing and Sales is that Marketing lies and Sales lies even more.
I spend a lot of time with software engineers, and my rapport with them is important.
- Why? Because I need to get information out of their heads and into marketing content.
- Do they care what it’s for? No.
- Why not? Because they don’t realize that I need to feed the strategy (Marketing) beast so that the company can have some execution (Sales).
- Would it be better if they cared? Yes, I think so.
- Why? It’s possible to show these people that their contributions to Marketing can help move the Sales needle. That will resonate with some of them, and they will participate more actively.
- What should we do? I’m glad you asked.
Show them the marketing science
Consider that the reason that your co-workers don’t honor your work is that they don’t see the science in it.
You’re a marketing manager; do you feel the science in what you do? Is your organization helping you to promote that science?
You know what I mean by “science”: the data you collect that helps you justify your marketing spend.
Try starting conversations with your co-workers and subject matter experts with sentences like these:
- “81 percent of physicians online visit sites with content expressly for health care professionals. These physicians are our target market, and that’s why I need your expertise to help me develop the pieces we’re going to place there.” (Marketing metrics)
- “We get about 12 percent conversion based on the keyword ‘IT service management’ and over 22 percent conversion based on ‘service catalog.’ That’s why I want to interview you on customer requirements for the catalog.” (Web analytics)
- “In April we posted once a week to our blog. In May and June we posted two or three times a week, and three new analysts started following us. These people are influential, and I need you to help me keep blogging good content so we can ride and support that influence.” (Content frequency)
You know the data are there. If they weren’t, you wouldn’t have a job. Savvy marketing managers realize that they can turn the data not only outward, to help the sales effort, but also inward, to evangelize their co-workers.
They have solid marketing data and they’re not afraid to use it.
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”
photo credit: Rob Ireton
Many of them think that Marketing lies and Sales lies even more.
Case studies and customer success stories are the dessert of The Content Buffet because of the credibility they lend you. But when you can’t drop names, try these tips.
“It’s a solid case study,” said Dan. “Too bad we can’t use it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“I sent it to the customer last week, but they said we can’t publish it due to pending litigation.”
That seemed silly to me, but I’m not the lawyer. I guess that a deep freeze on publishing anything is a company’s way of circling the wagons when the arrows begin flying.
Dan had paid a lot in time, money and face to get the case study written, and it grieved both of us marketers not to be able to use it.
“Can we run it and not mention the customer’s name or any particulars?” I asked.
“Maybe. Wouldn’t it lose a lot of its value, though?”
“It would lose some value,” I answered, “but it would be better than not using it at all.”
Anonymous case studies
True enough, some of the value in a case study or customer success story is tied up in brand equity (usually somebody else’s brand). When your sprinkler heads are keeping the greens at Pebble Beach verdant, or your encoding algorithms make Vimeo work, you want to be able to drop customer names.
But any marketing manager knows that, the bigger the name, the harder the approval process. Press releases and case studies have to run marketing and legal gauntlets in large companies, and sometimes even the most fantastic case studies die a long, painful death of terminal inbox.
Of course, you can try to strip particulars out of the piece to get your point across without using names. Here are three tips for doing this:
- Remove or replace details that would allow an outsider to figure out the phantom customer. This may include rewriting bits of it to change geography, gender, application and more. Get as far away from your customer as possible while still describing the success.
- Turn the study into a “caselet;” here’s an example in a life sciences context. These focus almost entirely on the problem you’ve solved, and the customer fades into the background. The marketing communications writer must emphasize the story and even add conflict to distract the reader from wondering who the customer is. Caselets are business-focused, and their audience is the decision-maker.
- Turn it into a technical use case by focusing on the how-did-they-do-it. Include specifications, schematics, dimensions, quantitative data and programming code. There is still a role for persuasion in this, but you’re trying to persuade the technical people who will influence the decision-maker. You want them to say, “If they can do that for those guys, let’s find out whether they can do what we need done.”
Once you’ve played one of these cards, you’re in the clear – strictly speaking – and may do with the piece as you please. Still, in the interest of a good relationship with your customer, you should grant them a courtesy review of the neutered product. You should also run it by your own company’s counsel.
Doesn’t always work
Sometimes the named endorsement in a case study is omnipotent, and anonymizing is pointless. A business development manager for one of my Asian telecom clients told me:
There are only about 15 companies in the world who can use our technology. We have two of them so far, and the decision-makers in both cases asked to see a success story, then asked for the phone number of the person named in it.
But for a typical B2B sale, the anonymous case study still likely has value. After all, a good story is a terrible thing to waste.
How have you dealt with case studies when you couldn’t name the customer?
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”
photo credit: Ben Schumin
Marketing managers looking for a new content vehicle should create an eBook, halfway between the brochure and the white paper. Here are 3 tips on creating an eBook.
Have you created eBooks as part of your content marketing mix? It’s a relatively new category, still evolving.
eBooks are the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down. A good marketing communications writer can put the couple thousand words into them that might otherwise go into a white paper, while maintaining the visual appeal of a brochure. You can combine depth and even some technical detail with design elements that might not fit in the white paper format.
In fact, a recent Hubspot post by Emily Haahr argued that eBooks are better than white papers. I don’t systematically agree with that, but I agree with a Shaun Pinney post describing an eBook as a good way of generating leads with content you already have.
Creating your eBook
I gave this format a try last month, to repackage and improve on text I had previously put into a MS Word document called, “How to Buy a Writer (Or at Least Rent One).” Some of the copy was getting long in the tooth, and I had been looking for a good excuse to improve the original and show it off better.
First, I studied a few examples:
I referred to these pieces frequently as I wrote, drawing inspiration from things I liked and discarding bits I didn’t like.
The process of writing the eBook is less arduous than that for other formats. It lends itself to discrete blocks of text like FAQ, Q&A, one-page explanations and 10-step lists in which readers turn to a new page for each subsequent chunk.
All told, I spent between 16 and 24 hours on the project, about one-third of which I probably will not have to repeat the next time I write one.
I’ve posted a link to the eBook in the upper right-hand corner of my blog and at the bottom of this post.
3 eBook tips
There are probably 85 or 90 tips you could collect on putting together an eBook, but these days I favor short list-posts, so here are my top three:
- Use landscape layout. This is the most impressive way of pointing out to your readers that you understand and are actively taking advantage of the difference between traditional content and an eBook. It also has the inestimable advantage of displaying each page properly and entirely on screen, without the need to page-up and page-down. Note, however, that if your writing gets too lax, your eBook may start to feel like a comic book, and landscape layout will only magnify that, so maintain control.
- Use color. Your goal is to emphasize interesting content with a judicious use of color. Be careful how many colors and background elements you use, though; otherwise, your eBook will look like just another noisy slide presentation.
- Use light writing. “Light writing” is somewhere between “whimsy” and “humor” and it’s a knife edge you must tread carefully. The alternative format of an eBook will support light writing better than a traditional format (like a white paper) will, and it will render the writing more conspicuous and more effective. The goal of the paper is not to show off your skills in light writing, but to use that style of writing to make your point.
I hate telling people what not to do, but…
…here’s a big don’t:
- Don’t just reformat boring copy in landscape and call it an eBook. This goes for your brochures, your Web content, the slide presentation your sales managers trot out on customer visits and, above all, your press releases.
Why is this important? eBooks are still uncommon, so you can take advantage of your readers’ curiosity by telling your story effectively in this format. But if your readers open your eBook and don’t find valuable, relevant content, then you’ve lost a chance to build a relationship with them.
So are you ready to create your eBook? Have you created some already? What works for you?
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his eBook, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”
photo credit: Djenan
Not exactly a banner summer for some of the marketers around me. Have a read, then send us all some encouragement.
Have you taken your vacation yet? Maybe you’d better think twice this year.
Exhibit A: The Case of the Disappearing Marketing Budget
“Here’s how I want to do this,” said the director of marketing for a Silicon Valley company I had cold-called a couple of weeks before. “I’ll hire you to write the paper we’ve discussed. If you finish by the end of August and we work together well, I’ll have more work for you this fall. Send me your contract and let’s get started.”
Sounded good to me. My project-pipeline was nearly empty, and I’d been aching for the thrill that comes from landing a new client. This director and I had exchanged e-mail over several days in early July, and I was pleased that she phoned me spontaneously to close the deal on the Friday morning before my vacation. It was a good note on which to leave things, and something I’d be glad to pick up after a few days away. I pushed her all the requisite paperwork, then went on holiday.
Imagine my surprise when, upon my return, she wrote that the project was on indefinite hold in Finance.
Chalk it up to the risks marketers run when they take vacation in 2010…
Exhibit B: The Case of the Disappearing Marketing Department
A marketing manager in the Asian subsidiary of one of my biggest clients called me a couple of weeks later.
“Remember that paper you did last year for us, focused on wireless operators?” Naturally, I did. It was the best paper I wrote for anybody all year. “We’d like you to do a new one focused on application developers.”
More good news. He had done an excellent job of explaining where he wanted the paper to go, and of providing me reference material, so the structure was almost automatic. I looked forward to more of the same on this paper.
“You know what, though? I wrote that paper for you at way below market rate,” I told him. “I need to charge you a lot more for this one. Also, I’m away with my family next week, so we can start on this the following week.”
“OK,” he said, “send me your proposal and I’ll get the ball rolling in Purchasing. I should have the purchase order by the time you return.”
Once again, it was nice having that in my back pocket as I read books, watched movies and practiced slacklining with my kids for five days.
Imagine my surprise when, upon my return, there’s no purchase order and LinkedIn shows that the marketing manager is connecting to people left, right and center – never a good sign. Connecting the dots, I phoned his cell.
“Ah, yes, Mr. White. I’ve got some bad news for both of us, really. The company has shut down marketing across several offices here. I don’t think the future holds much for that paper we were going to work on.”
Chalk it up to the risks marketers run when they take vacation in 2010…
Exhibit C: The Case of the Disappearing Business Unit
I had a business partner a few years ago, and we did marketing consulting for a couple dozen companies over eleven years. I can’t count the number of times we’d be noodling some potential business problem or contingency and I’d say, “Wait a minute. Are you worried about this?”
“Yes,” he’d answer. “I am.”
“Good,” I’d reply, “because I’ve never seen you accurately worry about anything that came to pass. Worry all you want.”
You get that way after eleven years in business together.
One of our clients made him an offer too good to pass up in 2006, and he hired on as their VP of marketing. In 2007, the company was acquired, and he has successfully navigated the corporate rapids as a marketing director ever since, trotting the globe and making his bosses’ bosses happy. We have coffee and he tells me how treacherous things are, and how he isn’t sure about his job from quarter to quarter, and I ask whether he’s worried about it, and he says he is, and I tell him to keep on worrying so that nothing averse will happen.
Imagine my surprise when he phoned me last week to say that, while on vacation in Australia with his family, his intranet access had been disabled and he’d received a layoff notice via e-mail. The work in his business unit was moved to Pune, India.
“The exception that proves the rule,” I told him. “You finally figured out how to worry about something that actually took place.”
Chalk it up to the risks marketers run when they take vacation in 2010…
Exhibits C through ZZ
These are just the three cases that occur to me this evening as I’m posting. I’m sure I could come up with more, and I encourage you to chime in with your own in the comments below.
I do believe that there is still plenty of marketing spend out there. In fact, I know there is, because I was busier and made more money than ever in 2009. Things dried up for a quarter, then became frantically busy for a quarter, and are back to a dull hum again.
I can put up with that, figuring that the recession has caught up with even the most nimble of businesses. The thing I don’t get is the whip-saw characteristic of this economy: the periods of normal respiration to keep things going, punctuated by frenzied gasps to keep up with the workload. (I don’t really know what “whip-saw” means, but I think I heard it in a Chuck Norris movie, and sometimes it feels as though the economy is following one of his scripts.)
So, fellow marketers, I don’t want to put a damper on your summer vacation, because we certainly all deserve one. But are you seeing similar oddness as you market your way through the ides of August?
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his e-book, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”
photo credit: karindalziel
Content marketing is an exercise in keeping plates spinning. Not only do you need to keep your readers’ attention, but you also need to feed their appetite for content.
Josh Shipp, the motivational speaker behind HeyJosh.com, freely describes his rough upbringing as a foster child. Realizing that he was adept at grabbing his classmates’ attention and making them laugh, he plied that talent in ways that disrupted class and got him into trouble at school.
One day, a discerning teacher asked him,
Good job, Josh. Now that you have their attention, what are you going to tell them?
This question helped to turn his mischievous side into a constructive one, and he has spent much of his life bringing parents and teens together.
As a marketing manager focused on content marketing, you need to keep that same question in front of you.
Now that you have their attention…
Social media, blogs, video and networking sites are this year’s vehicles for getting attention and building an audience. Here’s a story of how I got a little attention a couple of weeks ago.
Last spring I figured something out about social media and how I fit (or don’t fit) into it. I hammered out a pretty good blog post on the topic, but realized I could put it to better use as a guest-post on a social media-oriented blog. So I spent about three months watching blogs like Copyblogger, Duct Tape Marketing, Convince and Convert, Marketing Pilgrim, Social Media Explorer, Social Media Examiner, Brass Tack Thinking, Techipedia, Louis Gray, Brian Solis, Problogger, Chris Garrett and Junta 42 – trying to find a post with good traffic that would accept content from guests.
(This was an education in itself, and frankly not as easy as some would have you believe. I hope to post on it in greater detail one of these days.)
Finally, I submitted it to Mark Schaefer of Businesses {grow} who liked it and thought it would be a good fit. He ran it on July 29 as “This is why you’re a social media loser.” I had created a signature with a link to my own blog and site, anticipating a bump in traffic.
I was pleasantly surprised by the number of tweets I received (69, though most were duplicates) and the number and tone of comments that Mark’s community wrote. Even Mark himself parachuted into the comment stream and gave me a tip of the hat.
Well, now that I had their attention…
…what are you going to tell them?
What, indeed?
The morning the guest-post ran, I was waist-deep in an e-book I’d been planning as incentive content for the visitors from the guest-post. I designed the e-book for marketing managers who need to – but don’t really know how to – hire writers, Unfortunately, I didn’t finish it in time to catch this wave of traffic, so I need to chase the wave on Twitter and hope to catch up to it.
Of course, this is just one loop around the cycle. For most of us, the nature of content marketing is to launch one attention-getter after another, then tell or sell one new thing after another to the ever-growing audience.
If you’re in content marketing, your job is to keep the plates spinning. No wonder Jay Baer says,
Every company is its own TV station, magazine, and newspaper.
Plan to keep the hits and headlines coming. And always be ready with the next thing you’re going to tell them.
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. Download his e-book, “10 Questions to Ask When Hiring Your Marketing Communications Writer.”
photo credit: lissalou66
Part 6 in a series of white paper outlines, each with a different structure and focus. Here, the outline for a white paper on your company’s complete transformation.
Have you been with an organization long enough to remember:
- when things were a mess, and what everybody had to go through to make things run as smoothly as they do now?
- how you used to be known for your parts, and how your customers came to know you as partners?
- when the market associated you with low price, and how you got it to associate you with high quality?
These represent Transformations, seismic shifts in the organization that set a new course. Almost every organization goes through these sooner or later, some more painfully than others.
Maybe you’re the last buggy whip company, and the sun is setting on your addressable market. Or maybe a management consultant has your CEO’s ear and puts in place a new direction and policy. Maybe you get hip to the fact that in five years nobody is going to pay you to do what you’re doing today.
Once you’re through the tunnel, you’re ready to tell the world about the crucible you’ve been through, and how much stronger you are as a result. You’re ready for a white paper outline that explains How We Rescued Ourselves.
Title and Summary
A Transformation white paper is a different kind of content.
You need to make readers feel as if they’re getting a peek in the kitchen at the best restaurant in town. If you pull this off, you’ll have a paper that makes for excellent social media content. Readers see past the façade of ordinary marketing and have the chance for a deeper conversation with you. Tip them off to this in the title and summary; for example:
- What Goes Down Can Come Up – Amalgamated Fuzz Transforms Its Sales Process
- How Acme Paper Took ISO 9001′s Benefits from Production to the C-Suite and Back
- Customer Input Takes Over, and Skater Industries is the Better for It
The Landscape
Count on a varied audience for this paper: customers, prospects, investors, journalists, and certainly competitors will read it, so devote a few paragraphs to the state of the industry and the problems faced by most organizations in your position.
- Tell this as a story, not as a datasheet or a newspaper article. Use conflict-driven business writing to draw readers in, and get to the conflict as soon as practical.
- Avoid using terms like “challenges” and “pain points.” Everybody knows you’re talking about business problems, so call them as much.
- Charts, diagrams, images and even quotations work well as complements to the main body of text.
Precipitating Event or Watershed
Who or what introduced the plan for changing things? Did somebody become fed up? Did somebody raise Cain at a shareholder meeting?
It’s important to describe this as economically yet smoothly as possible, because it’s the pivotal point in the story. Remember, your readers want to know what’s happening backstage, so give them what they want. (It may require some dancing to get this past your execs, but it really is important. Besides, any embarrassment is in the past, and you can anonymize anything too uncomfortable.)
How We Rescued Ourselves – The Transformation Process
How did you get this all done? What did it take? What processes did the organization put in place? Who had to be accommodated? What compromises were needed?
You spend this section telling readers, “Here’s how we did it. It wasn’t easy, but we got through it.” You may even give them enough information so that they too can do it.
Stay in story-telling mode.
Other End of the Tunnel
Here’s the point of the Transformation – indeed, of the entire paper: Yours is a new and improved organization now. List the reasons why.
Using as much subtlety as possible, you want readers to understand that you’re now a better company with which to do business. You’ve done the hard, internal work to purge inefficiencies and the things that separated you from your customers. You itemize the data points that support this:
- 28% fewer customer support calls
- 93% on-time arrivals
- 7% annual growth for the last three years
- a stock price that outperforms competitors by 4%
- Malcolm Baldrige awards
Conclusion and Follow Us
Still resisting the temptation to pat yourself on the back, draw some conclusions about what comes next: More Transformation? Additional phases? New business units?
You’ve taken them through the kitchen in our restaurant. It’s easy to blow it here and efface your good story with nonsense about how great your organization is; keep in mind that nobody cares about your company or products, because they’re preoccupied with their business problems and how you can help solve them. Your well-told Transformation story leaves them no doubt.
Be sure to invite readers to follow your blog, newsletter, video and webinars. If you’ve done a good job, readers will want to keep an eye on you for more insight.
The result is a first-pass white paper outline you can circulate. Your reviewers will be able to see where you’re taking the readers of your Transformation white paper. Once you have their feedback, you can start on the draft.
Next, the Kitchen-Sink Outline.
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.
photo credit: Richard Moross CC2.0
Part 5 in a series of white paper outlines, each with a different structure and focus. Here, the outline for a white paper that rationalizes a big change in direction.
Do you remember:
- when Nixon went to China?
- when the Supreme Court ruled that separate was not equal?
- when AOL started allowing unsolicited e-mail?
- when Feedblitz was free?
- when Google started including paid advertising alongside search results?
These represent big changes in behavior – changes that many people welcomed and that left many people out in the cold. Behind all of these changes was an entire landscape of forces that brought them about.
Most organizations, wary of alienating the people left out in the cold, try to explain those forces in order to control potential damage to their reputation and try to keep losers in the fold.
The Why-We-Did-This white paper serves this purpose. It doesn’t always work, but it’s a good consolation prize.
If you need to build this kind of paper to deliver your message of rationalization, consider the Customers-Industry-Us white paper outline.
Title and Summary
You can refine your title and summary once you’ve finished the paper, but I recommend that you smith working versions early on and use them to guide you while you write. Couch them in weighty terms without sounding bombastic, for example:
Naturally, those affected adversely by your decision will look at the title and summary (and the entire paper) and grumble, “whattaloadabull,” which is their prerogative. If you write with them alone in mind, your paper will come off as defensive rationalization instead of the positive explanation you want to convey.
Introduction
Describe, as clinically as possible, the forces behind your decision. Consider these two categories:
- Opportunities Too Good to Pass Up
- Threats Too Ominous to Ignore
Mind you, if you exaggerate, you’ll lose your ideal readers; nevertheless, stress the highly compelling elements in each of these groups.
What This Means for Customers/Constituents
Everybody understands actions motivated by customer preference, so this is the first line of rationalization. You’re not hiding behind the things your buying public asked you to do, but they’re the ones who keep the industry afloat, so taking action in their interest is just common sense.
What This Means for the Industry
You’re not alone in the industry, of course, so here you explain what these forces mean for your entire industry: longer shelf life, less pollution, lower health care costs, better ROI.
Your point in this section is that yours is not the only organization in your field that is subject to these forces, so even if your big decision is unpopular, your competitors will probably soon be acting similarly.
How We Are Responding
Given the combination of these forces and your own peculiar advantages (technology, market access, friends in high places), you declare without apology or reservation
Why We Did This
with undertones of
What Else Could We Do?
You want to elicit from your ideal readers the response
Yes, well, in that case, the change makes sense.
Mention your new direction and how it will manifest itself in your products and services, but resist the temptation to use brochure-type language, which will only annoy readers.
Conclusion and Follow Us
Populate your conclusion with the big concepts you’ve floated throughout the paper, especially important terms. Restate the forces and the flow of your argument through customers, the industry and your own organization.
Be sure to invite readers to follow your blog, newsletter, video and webinars. If you’ve done a good job rationalizing your change in direction, readers will want to keep an eye on you for more insight.
The result is a first-pass white paper outline you can circulate. Your reviewers will be able to see where you’re taking the readers of your Why-We-Did-This white paper. Once you have their feedback, you can start on the draft.
Next, the Transformation White Paper and the We-Rescued-Ourselves Outline
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.
photo credit: USDI Bureau of Land Management CC3.0
Part 4 in a series of white paper outlines, each with a different structure and focus. Here, an outline for a buckshot-in-the-air white paper that scares readers toward innovation.
What do you think about scaring your prospects and customers a little bit?
How do you feel about getting them off the dime to buy your products by prodding them or making them feel uneasy? Can your marketing communications writer pull that off in a white paper?
There are subtle ways in which to do that, and the innovation white paper outline shows you how to nudge readers out of their comfort zone and into action.
You just need to put a little Buckshot in the Air.
Title
Use a title that conveys urgency:
- Don’t Look Now… – Engineering Managers and the Coming Wave of Environmental Compliance
- What’s Spam Got to Do with It? Network Administrators Fight This Year’s Threats with Last Year’s Technology
The paper will embody some tension and conflict (see David Meerman Scott on conflict-driven business writing), and the title has to set the stage for it.
Summary
You’re probably going to describe your own innovative remedy for the problem, so do the right thing and prepare readers for that in your summary.
Being honest about it is better than pretending that it’s an independent, authoritative resource, and then stealthily injecting advertorial late in the game. Readers don’t like that.
Introduction
Keep your goals modest as you introduce the body of the paper.
- Your product will not overcome global warming; it will improve scrubber technology.
- It will not make malware evaporate; it will strengthen security at e-mail gateways.
- Your service will not fix the Great Recession; it will help cautious employers screen middle-manager candidates.
Don’t bother discussing the overarching topics of global warming or malware or the economic crisis, because your readers already know about them. Devote a couple of precious, introductory paragraphs to the subset of the problem that your product addresses.
The Buckshot in the Air
Your readers are comfortable with their understanding of the problem and their approach to it, so you need to describe the danger they face in relying on that old-think.
Two uncontrollable forces make up the Buckshot in the Air (as in, “something or somebody pursuing and shooting at you”): competitors and changes in the industry.
Your readers are afraid of these forces because they cannot predict them. You cannot predict them, either, but you have a new way of staying one step ahead of them. That is why people are willing to read your white paper.
Consider a personalization technology that helps people discover interesting mobile content without hours of fruitless searching on the phone. The ideal readers are wireless carriers, who already enjoy a tight billing relationship with users. The Buckshot in the Air might look like this:
- You don’t own all the data on your users. There are intermediate parties providing good content to your users, and they own very valuable information about your users’ preferences.
- A new category of competitor is arising, populated by last year’s strategic partners.
- You can try to direct your users to interesting content, but if they don’t find it relevant, you’re doing them – and yourself – more harm than good.
Does that feel as through you’re pushing the envelope? Are you afraid that your readers will think you’re bawling them out? Are you wary of sticking your nose into their business?
You are pushing it, you may be bawling them out and your nose is in their business.
This is what it looks like when you stop croaking about your products and start focusing on the problems you solve for your customers.
The Innovation
Here you describe the innovation toward which you’ve scared your readers:
- how it differs from other approaches
- how it will give readers a leg up on the competition and help them stay ahead of industry developments
- why it is important to find out more about the innovation as soon as possible
Of course, most companies want the paper to describe their own innovation, and this is where they begin naming their own name. If you prefer, you can keep this section anonymous, then drop your name in the last paragraph of the conclusion.
(In the pure sense of a white paper, they should refrain from naming their products, using the paper instead to build their own authority quietly. In practice, though, few can justify the time and expense involved in producing a good paper without talking about themselves and their products. Good marketing communications writers can balance the tasks of naming names and focusing on the customer’s problems.)
List a few technical details in a subsection (e.g., “How Does [the Innovation] Work?) – just enough to add some depth to the paper and to whet the reader’s appetite for more.
Conclusion and Follow Us
Recap the threats and the new-think for dealing with them. If you’ve left your innovation nameless up to now, mention it in passing in the conclusion.
Be sure to invite readers to follow your blog, newsletter, podcasts and webinars. If they like the way you look at their business problems in the paper, they’ll want to keep an eye on you for more insight.
The result is a first-pass white paper outline you can circulate. Your reviewers will be able to see where you’re taking the readers of your innovation white paper. Once you have their feedback, you can start on the draft.
Next, the Why-We-Did-This White Paper: Customers-Industry-Us Outline
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.
photo credit: Major Nelson (CC 2.0)
Part 3 in a series of white paper outlines, each with a different structure and focus. Here, an outline for a white paper when you need to set the record straight.
Sometimes you’ve just got to tell them that they’re wrong and you’re right. With the right structure, you can vindicate yourself in a well-crafted white paper.
Are you doing something that your competitors are positioning as controversial or, worse yet, wrong? Has your brand sustained “collateral damage” from one of your partners, customers or vendors? Is somebody calling you names and saying bad things about you on the playground?
When you sit down with the team and begin talking about damage control and ways to salvage your reputation, think in terms of seven myths that you’d like to refute. If you don’t have seven, pick four or five. These form the backbone of a solid white paper outline.
Title
Your title – or at least your subtitle – should mention the number of myths and the subject matter; e.g.:
- The Seven Myths of Highly Effective Plaintiffs’ Lawyers
- 10 Myths about Network Video
- The Five Myths of Generic Competition
(Search results suggest that 10/ten is the most popular number of myths to debunk, but you may not have that many.)
Summary
Keep your summary brief. Your readers know that the myths are just ahead, so don’t slow them down unnecessarily.
Background
Whether it’s ping-pong diplomacy, deep-water drilling or winning Middle Eastern hearts and minds, keep in mind that part of your audience needs a bit of education first.
Set the stage by describing what you do and how you came to do it. Include a section on measurable progress and results.
The Myths
State each myth, then refute it. Your goal is to refute the myths with statements that are memorable and defensible.
If your childhood literacy program affected 125,000 students – and you can prove it – emphasize that with a comparison to the population of Topeka. Or if 15,000 commuters are using your alternative-energy vehicles in a year, describe it in terms of sparing the country’s dependence on foreign oil for two entire days.
If applicable, refer to your detractors by citing articles or presentations in which they’ve cast doubts on your work. Take the high road in mentioning them, even if they’ve been less than honorable when they’ve mentioned you.
Conclusion and Follow Us
Recap the common thread among the myths and among your counterarguments. Be sure to invite readers to follow your blog, newsletter, podcasts and webinars; if they’ve moved closer to accepting your side of the story, you want to build relationships with them as well.
The result is a first-pass white paper outline you can circulate. Your reviewers will be able to see where you’re taking the readers of your seven myths white paper and add or modify myths. Once you have their feedback, you can start on the draft.
Next, The Innovation White Paper: the Buckshot-in-the-Air Outline
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.
photo credit: believekevin
Part 2 in a continuing series of white paper outlines, each with a different structure and focus. Here, an outline for white papers that guide readers through revolutionary change.
This white paper outline is about The Revolution that your new ideas and technologies ignite in your customers’ organization.
Suppose you want your prospects to:
- replace a zillion spreadsheets with a customer relationship management (CRM) package
- move from a central headquarters to a virtual structure
- switch from Microsoft Office to Google Docs
- change from a traditional phone system to one based on the Internet (VoIP)
When your product or service causes a seismic shift in how your buyers do something as business-integral as place a phone call, you should create a story around it that tells them what they’re in for. A revolutionary change is going to affect People, Process and Technology, and this is the structure on which you’ll base your white paper.
Title
Summary
The same things that apply to the white paper outline for the educational white paper apply here. Establish the people-process-technology theme in the summary and maintain it in your structure throughout the paper.
IMPORTANT: Avoid talking about your product or service by name. This white paper outline is about The Revolution that you occasion, but it’s not specifically about your features and functionality. Leave those for your brochures.
Then dive in. Assume your readers already know what has their hair on fire, are familiar with The Revolution, and want to know how it is going to affect their…
People
First talk about people. Describe how to sell the revolution to different groups in the organization, because if this doesn’t happen smoothly, then process and technology won’t matter very much.
Use a series of quotations – real and imagined – to give a voice to objections, warnings, praises, recommendations and water-cooler talk about The Revolution:
- “We don’t need agile development because our release cycles are so long.”
- “Our QA staff is stretched too thin as it is. The added workload of migration would break us.”
- “We want to spend less on trade shows but aren’t sure that social media is where we should put those dollars.”
- “We’ve already switched to authoring in DITA/XML tools, but our team is still doing things pretty much the same as before, only more slowly.”
- “We need to get our overseas offices on board with buying postage off the Web.”
You’ll build the People section around these quotations, ending with a brief segue into…
Process
The Revolution will introduce new vocabulary and new workflow to your readers’ organization. In this section, define that vocabulary in your own terms (this is stealth branding) and outline that workflow as you’ve seen it play out with your other customers.
For example, client Service-now.com reinforces the message that the most successful implementations of its IT service management platform rely on putting processes in place first. Outline these processes in this section as a series of easy-to-read steps.
Technology
Assuming The Revolution has a technology component, it comes last in the white paper outline. Now that you’ve addressed the People’s fears and the novelty of Processes, describe the software, hardware, machinery, materials and capital expansion required:
- cooling towers
- data center equipment
- earth-moving equipment
- gas turbines
- rubber bands and staplers
- Linux servers
If The Revolution is a service, explain the steps for implementing it:
- 30-minute interviews with executive staff
- recorded depositions
- subterranean termite inspections
This isn’t the place for the bill of materials, but you should list anything required to get The Revolution going successfully in terms that make both business and technical sense.
What Can We Expect from The Revolution?
List some of the business and technical benefits customers have experienced. Use pull-quotes. Refer and hyperlink to case studies and success stories, but soft-pedal mention of your product or service, because the essence of the paper is still The Revolution. Don’t worry: your readers know where to find you.
Conclusion and Follow Us
Use these sections to briefly tie up the white paper outline and invite readers to follow you. Your “Follow Us” section should be boilerplate, with the usual pointers: social media, phone, Web, e-mail.
Again, let other marketing pieces specifically describe your product or service. The goal of this white paper is to convince readers that nobody knows more about The Revolution than you do.
How about that? The result is a white paper outline you can circulate. Your reviewers will be able to see the path down which you intend to take the readers of your revolutionary white paper. Once you have their feedback, you can start on the draft.
Next: The Vindication White Paper: Seven Myths Outline
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it. He also publishes a newsletter with more tips on working with your writers.
