Downloadable premium content, also called white papers, have been used by business marketers for years to educate, impress and gather qualified leads in their marketplaces.
So, what exactly is a white paper? A white paper is an in-depth report that will often be heavily research-based and either explain a complex subject, identify a solution to a problem, or examine a new trend and the opportunities associated with it. So, if your business offers an innovative solution in the form of a service or product, a white paper is an excellent chance to highlight this service!
Here are four key benefits of writing and using a white paper in your content marketing strategy.
Lead Generation
This is probably the most popular benefit of using a white paper. Containing both content that educates through long form copy and direct marketing material in the form of a corporate brochure, premium content has a high conversion rate. The combination of targeted, high quality information followed by persuasion makes them one of the most powerful marketing tools available!
Build Brand Image and Spread Expertise
A white paper doesn’t have to be used for generating leads. It can also be used to showcase your expertise and establish you as a leader in the field. And as we all know, people like working with experts, and the fact that you have produced an in-depth, highly researched white paper suggests that you have a greater degree of knowledge on that subject than your competitors. This could be the determining factor for a potential client to pay for your services rather than those of a rival company.
Build a Mailing List
Typically, you will host the premium content on your website so that clients, potential clients and other interested parties can download it in exchange for providing their contact information. Not only is this a great way to build a sizable mailing list, it also gives you valuable insight into which area of your business the potential client is interested in.
If you want to get many people to subscribe by using this method, you need to make sure that the subject of your white paper is relevant and contains content relevant your audience. You also need to make sure it’s unique and includes quality, well researched information as people will be more likely to read it if they think they’ll learn something new and distinctive from it.
People usually know they’ll be added to a mailing list when they give over their information, so they will sometimes provide a fake email to avoid this. To ensure you get their correct email, you can send the white paper through it, rather than allowing them to download from your site. This allows you to confirm the address while thanking them for their interest. Since this sort of email sharing isn’t necessarily a request to be added to your mailing list, make sure and email them on a sensible basis to ensure they don’t immediately unsubscribe.
SEO
A captivating and insightful white paper is so much more than just an interesting PDF; it’s a doorway into another marketing channel. Because they are PDFs and PDFs can be indexed by search engines, your SEO efforts will benefit greatly. Having another way for search engines to know that you are an expert on a particular subject will boost your brand and overall authority throughout the web. So if you already have helpful guides, promotional brochures, tutorials or any other type of content on your website, these should be repurposed into a white paper! Having multiple points of reference on a subject can benefit both your readers and the search engines, but make sure to edit the content so you’re not treading into the duplicate content field.
The bottom line is: if you are an expert in your field then you need to be producing high-quality, effective white papers to showcase that expertise. Taking the time to create a couple of great white papers will in turn open up different avenues and ideas on how to repurpose that content for other areas of your website, newsletters, blogs and webinars.
Has your company seen other benefits when using white papers in its premium content marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments below!
