Gordon Graham

Nothing undermines a good white paper faster than poor design. No matter how compelling and persuasive the text may be, if people can’t read it because of a poor design, they’ll quickly move on. Then all your effort and expense are for nothing.Here are ten down-to-earth tips for anyone designing a white paper.

White papers are the “king of content” that can help any B2B company build mindshare, generate leads, engage prospects, and undercut competitors. But to get powerful results, you need to use white papers effectively. Make sure to provide useful information that can help a business person understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision.

Here comes perhaps the most fundamental question of all: Why bother with writing a white paper? When done well, white papers are effective instruments for boosting sales and getting through to your target audience. Why do companies publish white papers? In general, vendors publish white papers for three key reasons: to generate leads, to nurture prospects, or to help close sales.

Many white papers are started, but not all are finished, for many reasons — priorities change, new products emerge, people come and go, executives lose interest. Explaining a product in detail can turn up flaws that nobody wants to admit or conflicting opinions that can’t be resolved. How can you dodge these potential problems?

Most companies don’t have researchers available to help out white paper writers. Some independent writers do hire researchers to do the grunt work of finding the perfect quotes, stats, and factoids to sprinkle through a white paper. And probably more writers should give this a try. This arrangement can be a marriage made in heaven or the exact opposite.

Tomorrow’s white papers will likely incorporate new media beyond text and graphics; they may even move beyond the paradigm of a fixed document into a flexible cluster of information accessed via the web or a mobile app. No one can predict the exact timetable for this evolution. It will probably occur in fits and starts, with most companies making cautious forays into new territory, while a few plunge ahead to break new ground.

Modern technology certainly isn’t foolproof. One morning, your computer may refuse to boot. Or as you’re cleaning up your hard drive, you mistakenly delete the wrong files. And here it comes, that sickening feeling that you’ve just lost hours or even days of hard work. You need to protect yourself against that.

Any real writer can work with paper and pencil, if he has to, or scrawl words on the wall with the end of a shoelace dipped in soot. But everyone uses computers now. So if you ever wonder, “What software should I use for writing? Graphics? Publishing?” the short answer is that you can’t go too far wrong with Microsoft Word.

Use the right type of white paper for the right challenge: either a backgrounder, a numbered list, or a problem/solution. The following table outlines the features of each type of white paper and gives you an idea of when to use each one. Characteristic Backgrounder Numbered List Problem/Solution Definition A