Whitepapers are documents that are used as sales tools in business-to-business marketing. These authoritative reports use logical arguments and facts to build a favorable case in regards to promoting a product or service from a specific company. This form of content marketing (or inbound marketing) is often used to present research findings, provide answers to questions, present a solution to a problem, make a business case, generate leads for sales, establish thought leadership, inform people about a product or service, and persuade people to make use of that product or service.
As an important part of marketing, whitepapers can be used to great benefit for your business.
Here are five ways publishing whitepapers can help your company’s marketing efforts.
1. Whitepapers build your business’s brand and establish your expertise.
Although, whitepapers are primarily used to generate sales leads, they can also benefit the image of your company. Instead of using whitepapers as persuasive documents aimed at influencing people to buy your product or service, you can use them to provide a description of your company, show off your credentials and expertise, leaving readers with a positive impression and a body of knowledge about the possibilities of working with you. Although this type of whitepaper may not lead directly to sales leads, it can do so indirectly by establishing your company as an expert leader in your field, thus driving people to do business with you.
2. Whitepapers can help build mailing lists.
Building mailing lists usually consists of trying to convince people to sign up for your newsletter to receive your messages and updates. One of the ways you can motivate people to sign up for your newsletter is by giving them a gift in exchange, and a free whitepaper makes a great gift. You want to make sure that the whitepaper is about something relevant to you and to your audience so that they are motivated to subscribe. You also want to make sure it is of the highest quality and contains important, actionable information—information that provides value to your subscribers even without them having to do business with you.
3. Whitepapers generate sales leads.
This is undoubtedly the main reason companies use whitepapers as part of their marketing strategy. Whitepapers contain both educational content and material focused solely on marketing. This is why whitepapers have such high conversion rates compared to other marketing methods: they tell the reader why they should buy something and also gives them what they should buy. This combination of education and influencing makes whitepapers great marketing tools for generating reliable leads. (Also, if someone downloads and reads your entire whitepaper, there’s a much higher chance that they are farther along in the buyer’s journey than someone browsing your website, clicking on an ad, or watching a one-minute video.)
4. Whitepapers can be used to increase engagement.
On the internet, people are bombarded will all kinds of marketing trying to get their attention while demanding little action on the part of the potential customer. By making users perform an action—downloading your whitepaper—you are increasing engagement. The user has done something deliberately. Psychologically, that has caused them to make an investment already in your company.
5. Whitepapers can be used to get more likes on Facebook.
Social media is very important in marketing strategy, and you can tie your whitepaper promotional efforts into your social media strategy. By offering a whitepaper in exchange for a like on your Facebook page, you can increase and strengthen your standing on social media.
Want to see more of how whitepapers can benefit your marketing goals and strategies? Contact us today. Not only can OnlineWhitepapers.com produce a whitepaper, we can also help you market it through content syndication and a wide range of other effective, proven initiatives.
