Bringing New Color to the Gray World of Whitepapers

One of the most powerful ways B2B marketers can attract qualified leads is by offering expertise in exchange for contact information. Whether you call the resulting deliverable a "report," an "e-book," or a "whitepaper," the net effect is the same: You build credibility and trust by creating valuable content your prospects respect.

Whitepapers have been with us for a long time. But innovations in printing and distribution—and even in the way we conceive of whitepaper content—have dramatically changed the game. Let's take a look at the ways we can bring color to the whitepaper—and multiply the impact of our efforts.

It's no longer linear, but modular

Traditionally, the whitepaper obeyed a formal model that presented a thesis, an executive summary, a persuasive "argument," and a conclusion followed by appendices of research and data.

If my primary purpose were to impress my college expository-writing instructor, I might be tempted to comply. But my real goal is to attract and hold the attention of busy prospects with short attention spans and a single question burning in their minds: What's in it for me?

That's why I prefer a modular approach that favors scanning: It allows readers to pick and choose the sections relevant to them, and it packages the content in small, standalone sections that have meaning in themselves—without requiring readers to absorb the entire paper end-to-end.

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