White Paper – A document used for ad­vert­ising with facts

The term white paper refers to a text style that has its his­tor­ic­al origin in the UK. Ori­gin­ally, white papers were used in British gov­ern­ment policy during the 1920s. At that time, a dis­tinc­tion was made between gov­ern­ment­al papers with white envelopes and longer legal texts with blue envelopes. The documents purpose was to explain political situ­ations to the gov­ern­ment, with its’ content being limited to facts and arguments. Even­tu­ally, the term “white paper” has been adapted to commerce and industry, where it is used to explain theories about new tech­no­lo­gies or products.

The first com­mer­cial use of white papers took place in the tech­no­logy sector. They have been used in the modern computer industry since the 1980s. Meanwhile, the term “white paper” is also used in com­mer­cial marketing, mostly in the tech­no­logy sector. As a rule, white paper provides in­form­a­tion and media to convince decision makers of a technical solution and to make an in­vest­ment. The language style is clearly different from tra­di­tion­al marketing or ad­vert­ising, as the investors need to be convinced using neutral arguments and collected facts.

Ideally, white papers have a positive impact on the image of a company, as an extensive white paper is the guarantor of sci­entif­ic cred­ib­il­ity. The documents can also be used well for PR purposes. For search engine marketing, the extensive documents often also bring ad­vant­ages. For example, Google evaluates long, spe­cial­ised texts better than con­cen­trated, short ad­vert­ising messages. Thus, white papers published online have a positive effect on the ranking of your company website.

In marketing, a white paper is therefore conceived as an al­tern­at­ive ad­vert­ising format, which does not use the con­ven­tion­al, rhet­or­ic­al, stylistic means of ad­vert­ising. Unlike con­ven­tion­al ad­vert­ising, a white paper does not want to appeal to a mass market and stimulate pur­chas­ing, but as a rule seeks to influence in­di­vidu­al decision makers in their actions.

Marketing must be target oriented – this generally ap­plic­able rule is also valid for white papers in the com­mer­cial sector. The most effective white papers are carefully designed in terms of formula and content, for a very specific group of ad­dress­ees. Before you begin creating a concept and re­search­ing surveys, you should consider three different types of white papers. Then you should decide on the type of white paper that best suits your needs and design the document ac­cord­ingly.

Technical white papers

In this version of a white paper, you should focus on detailed technical in­form­a­tion. The close target group comprises engineers and technical staff. In terms of content, you should not simply be dealing with the basics, but you should present new in­form­a­tion on current research topics in detail. If you are not well versed in the topic, ask an expert. You can also get pro­fes­sion­al PR staff when creating a white paper.

Solution oriented white papers

This type of white paper is directly aimed at a concrete facts or improving a real situation. In op­pos­i­tion to a tech­nic­ally, detail-oriented white paper, this form of white paper is often about present­ing solutions to the boardroom of a company. The target group are decision-makers – i.e., members of senior man­age­ment, middle managers and project managers.

The purpose of this kind of white paper is to influence decision making. In addition to con­vin­cing facts, you should also integrate visual material like relevant stat­ist­ics into the text to create a more appealing flow. This kind of white paper is growing more and more popular.

Strategic white papers

Strategic white papers also aim to change a status quo within a par­tic­u­lar area, but have a different target group. Strategic white papers are addressed to larger groups such as parties and interest groups, politi­cians, or more general public bodies. In this form of the white papers, you can formulate your concerns ex­tens­ively so that the ad­dress­ees can get a com­pre­hens­ive picture of the situation and your solution strategy.

White papers are syn­onym­ous with expertise and quality. As the author of a con­vin­cing white paper, you can expect to be perceived as an expert in the relevant field, as you let the facts speak for them­selves – this show trust in your product and makes you par­tic­u­larly credible.

White papers can be used in many ways: whether for specific surveys or PR com­mu­nic­a­tion – they should always be build on a factual basis. Relevant in­form­a­tion from a white paper is often shared, which increases the level of name re­cog­ni­tion for the author or the company. It is therefore advisable to draw up a white paper template for future projects after com­plet­ing the first document.

How do you write a white paper? The following section will outline what you need to consider when you create a white paper. The basic pre­requis­ite is having done com­pre­hens­ive research in order to obtain a well-founded overview of the topic. If you are not already well-versed in the subject, invest time to read lit­er­at­ure, journals and blogs as well as con­sult­ing an expert on the topic. While this can be expensive, it is essential in creating a con­vin­cing white paper.

The pre­par­a­tion of ap­pro­pri­ate content is important for the success of your white paper. If you want to convince ex­per­i­enced experts, then your content must be for­mu­lated and com­pre­hens­ible down to the last technical detail. If you are trying to convince a member of the man­age­ment board then a shorter, more concise structure is re­com­men­ded. As a starting point, all types of white paper deal with a specific problem that has a specific solution. This also makes it possible to precisely address the needs of the ad­dress­ees. It is important to conduct previous analysis in order to address these spe­cific­a­tions.

The structure of your white paper should look as follows:

1. Cover sheet with title
2. Summary of content/abstract
3. Present­a­tion of a problem to solve it, or a thesis that must either be solved or refuted
4. Further ex­plan­a­tion of the problem/present­a­tion of the case
5. Solving the problem with the in­volve­ment of your own product where possible, otherwise proof or re­fut­a­tion of the thesis.
6. Con­clu­sion/outlook
7. Appendix (company de­scrip­tion, contact options)

You should present the problem concisely and ob­ject­ively. At the beginning, you can also refer to why you are qualified to solve or improve the actual situation – without drifting into ad­vert­ising, of course. To sub­stan­ti­ate the self-promotion, content from other studies, surveys, blog entries and testi­mo­ni­als are helpful.

You should pay attention to the demon­strab­il­ity of your content. All arguments must be based on facts which are cor­rel­ated to a cor­res­pond­ing sources. Form and writing style should cor­res­pond to the sci­entif­ic guidelines of the par­tic­u­lar subject area. A pro­fes­sion­al ap­pear­ance is just as important to a white paper as well-prepared content. You should format the document in ac­cord­ance with the corporate design of your company, and provide it in PDF format. Ap­prox­im­ately 10 to 30 pages are re­com­men­ded in length.

The finished white paper should be available for free download on the homepage as a PDF. This way, anyone can benefit from your expertise, and you can generate ad­di­tion­al traffic for your site. Depending on the target group, you can also share the document via social media channels and news­let­ters.

The pro­duc­tion and dis­tri­bu­tion costs for white papers are low, but the design, planning and im­ple­ment­a­tion can take a lot of time and effort. Un­for­tu­nately, the success of a white paper – as with various other PR and marketing measures – is not im­me­di­ately quan­ti­fi­able. However, a dis­tinc­tion should be made between regular ad­vert­ising ex­pendit­ure and the com­pil­a­tion of a white paper, as a sub­stan­ti­ated document creates long-term value for the company, who can then benefit from it in several ways.

In general, white papers are more effective than con­ven­tion­al ad­vert­ising messages. The combined facts and arguments they provide mean that in­ter­ested parties can consult these documents for a long time. Graphic elements can also be in­teg­rated into related subject articles and used for internal present­a­tions.

After you have finished the white paper and set up your homepage, you should start the process of content seeding. This way, you can dis­trib­ute relevant in­form­a­tion about your document in order to gain attention for your solution or product. To be able to achieve this, it is important to research them­at­ic­ally relevant blogs, forums and other websites that are focused on related topics. Their goal is to create links with the right online presence. Be sure to in mind that website operators get many similar queries. It is therefore advisable to have an in­di­vidu­al argument as to why your white paper is the most relevant to their site.

You can also use cross-marketing strategies. In doing so, you can use them­at­ic­ally related content to create awareness of your white paper. Likewise, you can dis­creetly point out other offers your company provides that are similar to the document in terms of content.