White Paper Marketing (Page 2 - Continued...)
10 Tips for Promoting B2B White Papers

Knowing how to promote a well written and relevant white paper is one of the best ways to generate highly qualified sales leads or educate and up sell existing customers. Here are some tips based on learnings we've experienced with our clients when promoting white papers.

6. Be sure to do the math
When using optin e-mail marketing to promote your white paper, you need to stay on top of your ROI. These days the best managed brand-name opt-in email lists for B2B web sites will get you in the neighborhood of a 10% to 25% open rate (March, 2009). From those opens, a click-through rate of 1% to 10% can be average for a clearly articulated offer, with decent creative and a call-to-action. So, for the typical B2B technology email list, a minimum mailing is 5,000 emails at a cost of around $400/M or $2,000. So, you can expect 25 to 50 pre qualified clicks. For a well optimized landing page, converting 25% to 40% of those qualified clicks (unique visitors) into leads or registrations should be your goal. With a free trial or relevant offer, we've seen as high at 50% conversion rates from click to registration. We always suggest using Google Analytics (free) to track all click and lead activity to stay on top of your cost per lead with your white paper promotions.

7. Hire an expert to write content
If you don't have an in-house writing department, then it's time to outsource your content. A professional writer will learn your business and write in a style that draws the reader in, and gets your white paper read from start to finish. Writing a paper should not generally exceed 10 to 20 pages of content, along with meaningful charts/graphs and having other visuals that complement the copy will keep readers intrigued. Case studies of detailed past client successes are like gold also, so keep them plentiful. A good case study acts like a reference letter for your business, building trust with the reader and demonstrating product benefits.

8. Optimize your registration page
Always send prospects to a form which sends them your white paper after completion. However, be careful that you don't collect too much information. On average, every extra data field that you require in your registration process will lose 5% of potential leads, so less is always more. Think about what you are actually going to do with the information - for example, name, company web site, email and phone # are often the critical points for a lead. Don't ask for any more than you absolutely have to. Be sure not to include too many outbound links which will distract/lose your visitors, and prevent sign-ups - keep them focused. If you must, be sure to have outbound links open in a new browser window, or pop-up without menu navigation, with a "Close" function. Be sure to valid each data field to ensure complete and correct, especially email and phone #s (ask your webmaster how to do this with JavaScript).

9. Test, test and test again
Test different white paper marketing techniques. Testing email subject lines is the biggest single lever for response for white paper promotions using email marketing. If you have a case study highlighting a Fortune 500 company, include their brand name in the subject line to grab attention and give your company credibility. Try using short and long copy in your email, change the FROM to a person at your company. Always use message personalization (Dear John). For email list rentals, an A/B split test of two offers/creatives is usually free, so take advantage of that! I'm now testing Facebook pay-per-click ads in addition to Google Adwords. Facebook ads allow you to target by interest using keywords, so using this new channel can allow you to focus your white paper promotions to users interested in niche B2B topics.

10. Remarket to white paper leads
Once you've promoted your white paper and gained a decent database of leads, remember to remarket to them regularly to keep these leads valid. I generally suggest contacting leads once a month starting with a follow-up phone call to thank them for downloading your white paper. This is a great opportunity to start a conversation, asking them how you can improve the content and information for them. You can get some great market research on your content by asking them what the best thing they got from your white paper, and the area where it could be improved the most. This kind of candid openess to improve information for clients builds trust, and helps you develop a relationship that will hopefully lead to business down the road. (Return to Page 1...).