PRO Article
10 Best-Practices for Writing a Whitepaper That Gets Results
1. Don't make the whitepaper too long (or too short)
A four-page document may be easy to read, but it usually fails to provide sufficient information to aid in effective decision-making. At the other end of the spectrum, long whitepapers (15-20 pages) can challenge the attention span of readers.
A happy medium of 8-10 pages (about 3,000 words), including illustrations, provides sufficient space to cover a complex subject area in a readable length. (A notable exception to this recommendation: Some highly technical audiences demand even more information, justifying a longer paper.)
2. Use the third person in the whitepaper
Though the pronouns "I" and "we" (first person) or "you" and "your" (second person) may seem friendly in a whitepaper at first blush, they may actually alienate the reader. Most whitepaper readers expect to gain useful, credible information in a professional business context. The casual tone of the first or second person is inconsistent with this expectation.
Use of the third person is almost always a better choice for professional business writing.
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Steve Hoffman is president of Hoffman Marketing Communications, Inc., (www.hoffmanmarcom.com), which specializes in writing whitepapers for technology companies around the world.
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Comments
very basic information here, nothing new or innovative, and seems that the author's cheif aim in this article is to promote his comapny, which writes white papers...
Mr Hoffman violates his own advice, albeit this article is not a whitepaper. Item 3 (Refrain from including marketing information about your product or service throughout the whitepaper) and item 5 (Stick with the facts; avoid posing strong opinions or specifying required courses of action in a whitepaper) are contradicted by number 9 (Consider hiring an agency, rather than a freelancer, to write your whitepapers), since Hoffman runs an agency.
The author should have stopped at #7 for best practices...#8-10 are too strong of a sales pitch for a best practices list.
I disagree on several of the points. As a whitepaper author, I know that my audience often want to see a course of action. If they are hoping to improve on something and don't know where to begin, it can provide an outline of concepts that they can utilize. We've received a lot of positive feedback on that aspect. Also, outsourcing doesn't make a lot of sense if the author doesn't have a relationship with the subject matter. Being good at writing doesn't qualify you to be knowledgeable on the subject.
I echo the sentiments of other comments. This is thinly veiled, self-serving stuff with a few legitimate, albeit elementary, bits of information.
Dudes, this is NOT a white paper, it's an article ABOUT writing white papers, written by a guy who clearly states that he owns a company that wrties whitepapers. I'm not sure what everyone is complaining about.
I found it helpful.
Some good basic points. However, unless a company is really pumping whitepapers into the pipeline, it's been my experience that in-house writers , authors and freelancers (especially those with subject expertise) can get the job done equally well --and quickly-- as an agency,
I found this useful. You would be AMAZED at how many people in our organization think a white paper is a sales pitch. Any information (like this article) is helpful--and actually this even helps sell my point that we need an outside writer.