A white paper is an in-depth guide or reports to promote products or services. It is considered to be part of content marketing. It is used to inform and persuade customers by communicating the value proposition offered by the company. White papers are a powerful marketing tool for the amount of traffic you generate to your website and the number of leads your capture. Producing a white paper takes a lot of effort and time but at times it doesn’t reach the intended target audience. This is why you need to develop and execute a syndication plan. White papers are mostly available on company websites. Customers can fill out a form and download it from the website. A white paper marketing strategy using syndication is important because rather than waiting and hoping that the prospect will land on your website and download the white paper, there needs to a proactive approach to getting the white paper to a larger target audience.
What are The Benefits of White Paper Syndication?
Improves Lead Generation
White paper syndication is useful in promoting to a larger audience using a diverse set of marketing channels including websites, social media, blogs, newsletters, mass-email campaigns, and more. One of the primary goals of white paper syndication is to generate leads which then can be follow up by the sales team to convert the leads into sales. With a larger audience, the number of leads will improve but more importantly, the quality of leads will improve too. With a well-executed syndication strategy, the white paper will reach the intended target audience that is more likely to be a customer.
Enhances Visibility
With increased customer outreach through white paper syndication, the visibility of the brand and business offering increases. It can establish your company as the thought leader in the industry. With white paper syndication, your products or services are better aligned with your marketing message as a more targeted audience can be reached. This ensures that your value proposition reaches the type of prospects more likely to become your customers.
Boosts Website Traffic
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a must for any type of business. Potential customers are constantly using search engines to search for products and services. White paper syndication can boost organic traffic to your website by improving the SEO performance of the website.
Increases Productivity
Companies often fail to promote white papers to maximize their impact. The sales professionals don’t benefit from white paper if they don’t reach the right audience. With white paper syndication, your sales funnel will be filled with warm qualified prospects, which can dramatically improve the chances of your sales team converting a lead to a sale.
Effective White Paper Content Syndication Strategies:
Good Headline
The title of the white paper needs to be compelling. Whether you do it yourself or hire a specialist marketing company, the title must be relevant and engaging. It should entice people to want to download the white paper. In the modern world, the attention span of the prospects is decreasing. According to research studies, you have three seconds to convince a person to download the paper. A good headline has to precise and must show a promise that is of some value to the prospect. Numbers are a great way to attract attention and should be used in the title if they are relevant. Stick on plain conversational tone and not titles that try to sound like the title of a novel.
Define The Problem Clearly
At the core of any product or service is a solution that is being offered to a problem faced by the customer. The content of a white paper must clearly define the problem and the solution being offered. As times businesses are not aware of the depth of the problem. The white paper should be used to highlight what the problem is? What is it important to resolve? And how it can be resolved? Ideally, the introductory paragraph of the white paper should be used to define the problem. Another benefit of stating the problem is that it shows that you understand the main pain points of the business. That is a good starting point to build a relationship with the customer.
Make Sure The Users Know The Benefits
The prospect is not interested in the features of your product or services. They want to know how it benefits them. So rather than focusing on a long list of features, try to focus on how your business offering can add value to the customer. Not only will this increase the interest of the prospect but it will also increase the chance of converting the prospect into a customer. Try to add content that doesn’t make the entire white paper into a business promotion document. You want to try to solve a tactical problem or offer fascinating data in the document.
Website Optimization
The landing pages of your website must be optimized to welcome the visitors. That includes optimization of SEO, meta-content, images, videos, links, forms, and other detail. The website should be mobile phone friendly with mobile phone optimized screens. You should format your white paper so it can be read online or offline as some users prefer not to download content. The registration process should be quick and easy but it should capture all the basic profile information of the prospect. Try using syndication websites that have pre-populated forms. This ensures you will get the correct profile and contact information every time someone downloads the white paper.
Promote The White Paper
The white paper should be promoted through different marketing channels including social media, blog posts, and press releases. Make sure you include a CTO (Call to Action) at the end of each post. You can also promote third-party content syndication websites. The links of the white paper can be used to track conversion rates. The white paper images can be used on social media for promotion.
