“White paper” covers a multitude of formats, and it’s rare to find two people who take it to mean the same thing. Poisoned white papers harm the publisher more than the reader, but there are antidotes.
I’ve looked at a half-dozen documents called “white papers” in the last few days and marveled at the variety among them. It’s a maligned term, really, and I think it has come to represent a type of marketing communications content that:
- is long;
- is different from a brochure, a case study or an advertisement.
That covers a lot of ground. I’ll leave it to folks like Jonathan Kantor to describe what a white paper is and isn’t, but whatever you or your marketing communications writers have produced, you should make sure that you don’t poison it – let alone your readers or your reputation – with it.
4 Ways to Poison Your White Paper…
- Wall of text – This can more resemble a rant than a white paper. If you go on for more than a page or two with nothing but text, you’re probably poisoning your readers, no matter how engaging your content.
- Aimlessness – This is more like a blog post (and a poor, long one at that) than a white paper. It is usually a sign that the author is enthusiastic about the product but does not know how to tell a story about it.
- Leading the reader by the nose to your product – This is more like a brochure than a white paper, because the goal of a white paper is for readers to sense that they are drawing their own conclusions – at least, some of them. If you’re not leaving them with that feeling, then it’s a brochure.
- Hiding it under a bushel – This is more like a diary entry. White papers are the main course at The Content Buffet, and they should be prominently posted, tweeted, Facebooked, excerpted and blogged about. If you’re not thinking “Write once, use many,” you’re missing most of the social media wave.
…and 3 Antidotes
- Break up the text in your paper with diagrams, charts, callout boxes, photographs, quotations and anything else graphical that gives the reader’s eye a much deserved rest. It’s easy to go overboard on this, but if you can give your readers a vacation once per page, it will be easier for them to get through the entire paper, and they’ll remember you more fondly for it.
- Maintain a balance among sections. For example:
- 5% summary
- 25% introduction and presentation of problem
- 30% current approaches and why something new is needed
- 30% details and advantages of new solution (ours)
- 10% conclusion and follow-us.
This is the antidote for aimlessness because it gives readers a mental pace to keep.
- Focus on your ideal readers. If you really know them well enough to aim a white paper at them, you should be able to include miniature case studies that tie applications of your product back to real-world people and companies. This is a very powerful antidote because it introduces relevance.
So, whether you’ve produced a pure-land, bona fide white paper, or just something that is long and is not a brochure, take care to remove the poison from it before handing it on to your customers and prospects.
John White of venTAJA Marketing is a marketing communications writer for technology companies. He posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/-cavin-/ / CC BY 2.0
The first step in writing a white paper is an outline, which acts as a skeleton that you flesh out with evidence and persuasion.
My post last October, 4 Elements of a White Paper Outline, resulted in a large number of visits, so I’ll go into more detail in this post. As a matter of fact, I’ll give you an outline, right in this post.
It’s the outline for a technical benefits white paper I wrote some years ago; the client has given me permission to use it. You may go ahead and steal it. After all, I stole the title for this post from Abbie Hoffman’s famous Steal This Book, so it seems only fair.
Your company’s hardware acceleration technology relieves system bottlenecks by offloading compute-intensive algorithms from software running on host processors to dedicated hardware. The task is to create a paper that interests engineers in your technology and convinces them that your approach makes sense.
Summary
This is 1-3 paragraphs on what the paper covers. It answers the reader’s question, “Why should I bother reading this?”
Many marketing communications writers defer writing the summary until after the body of the paper is finished. I prefer to take a stab at one at the outline stage. It shows my reviewers what I understand they want to convey and gives them the opportunity to straighten me out if need be.
Since you plan to discuss your own technology in the paper, mention it in the summary. Don’t be coy and spring it on the reader at the end.
Acceleration Opportunity
The Market and Competitive Threat
The Application
The Algorithm
In this section and subsections, you describe the landscape and trends around acceleration technology: who’s buying it (citations of recent market data help to make this more credible), how they’re using it (e.g., for speeding up anti-virus scanning at enterprise e-mail gateways), and the mathematics behind the algorithm.
It’s a good idea to put some buckshot in the air and point out to readers the necessity of their doing something different. The essence of a white paper is persuasion, and the subtle suggestion that obsolescence awaits readers who do nothing, goes a long way toward convincing them to act.
Your Design
State of the Industry
Your Solution
You’ve led the reader to the point in the paper at which you describe your own approach to acceleration technology.
It’s useful to describe existing approaches to acceleration – e.g., sacrifice network throughput in the interest of security, throw more boxes at the problem, create a custom chip, rewrite the software more efficiently – but for the sake of balance, the reader needs to understand that there are downsides associated with each one. Each approach also meets several different factors with varying degrees of satisfaction: cost, time to market, maintainability, performance, standards-maturity, and so on.
Your acceleration technology is not the fastest hardware and not the fastest software, but it combines and optimizes the mix of the two for a new approach, and it most nearly satisfies all of the selection factors. You may also leave an out for the next generation of your accelerator, which will indeed satisfy all of today’s factors.
Case Studies/Use Cases
XML Processing
Network Security
Cryptography
If you’ve kept your readers this far, it’s a good idea to trot out instances where your acceleration technology is in use, preferably with statistics to demonstrate that it’s better, cheaper and faster than what was in place before.
Case studies within a white paper are a relief to a reader. “I’m interested only in cryptography, so I get to skip the other two. That will help me get through this paper faster.” Don’t try to make all of your case studies fascinating to all readers; just ensure that each one will resonate for its particular audience.
If you can drop names of customers, it’s a huge benefit.
Hardware Acceleration-Main Messages
Conclusion
Follow Us
Now, you tell them what you’ve told them. This is useful because some readers will cut right to the chase and read the end, then go back for the body of the paper only if the conclusion convinces them that they’ve missed something.
The main messages are a series of bullet points (preferably three) that skim the highlights of your paper’s argument. Again, these help the impatient reader qualify the paper as worthy of his/her time and effort.
Your conclusion picks up where the Summary left off, adding more detail about your technology and its real-world applications and savings.
“Follow Us” used to be “For More Information.” If your paper has accomplished its goal, readers don’t need more information from you. They want to go out to the Web and follow you to see what other information they can find about you. Sure, you give them a phone number and a landing page, but point them to your presence in social media and on blogs.
I hope this outline helps you. Did I leave out anything important? What’s in your white paper outlines?
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
A good marketing communications writer is versatile, but don’t push it. Everybody’s talent stops somewhere.
How thin can you spread your marcomm writer?
Can she do a good job on everything you need, like:
- white papers
- Web content
- technology overviews
- case studies
- press releases
- corporate backgrounders
- annual reports
- blog posts
- SEO copywriting (isn’t that redundant nowadays?)
Or, do you find you need multiple writers for the different stations along your Content Buffet?
Facts of Life about Writers
A man’s got to know his limitations.
-“Dirty Harry” Callahan
Doug Clarke of Hologram Publishing posts that “Good writers, like good singers or dancers, are versatile in numerous topics, formats and genres, and are not just one-trick ponies.” In fact, most marketing communications writers become drawn to other types of content by their clients. “You did an article for a local magazine; can you write our Web content?” Six months later, the writer is hanging out a new shingle.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but as a marketing manager, you have to be sensitive to where your writers’ limitations lie, and be careful not to push them past it, or it will blow up in your face.
4 Questions before Stretching a Marcomm Writer
Here are four questions it’s perfectly fair for you to ask before nudging your marketing communications writer one step closer to his limitations (especially if you’re not sure of what you yourself are getting into):
- “Can you describe a project in which the format was new to you, and you delivered content that made the customer happy?” Let’s face it – I need the content, and you know writing, but I’m trying to reduce my risk. Tell me a story about when you went through this before, and convince me that you’re up to it; otherwise, I don’t want to chance it.
- “Can you show me a sample from that project?” Slam dunk if he can, and still iffy if he cannot. He should be able to give you something to allay your concerns, or else point you to another writer.
- “What method will you follow in writing this?” (Not, “Do you have a method?”) This is part of how he should persuade you that he’s up to the task. If he has written all of your press releases, but never done a case study, ask him how he would plan to go about it.
- “What do you need from me to write this? Are you able to help drive the project, or do I need to do that?” How much support do you need as marketing manager to drive review loops, work with the designer, birddog subject matter experts or customers, and generally get things done on a project with which you’re not familiar? Somebody – either you or your writer – is going to have to run the project, so you’d better make sure that your expectations line up with those of your writer.
I recommend that you get satisfactory answers to these questions before you dive into the other important questions:
- How long will it take?
- How much will it cost?
If you’re not comfortable basing your business decision on the answers to the first few questions, then great answers to the last two questions won’t do you much good.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neilspicys/ / CC BY 2.0
Thousands of blogs are born each day, but it’s not all sweetness and light. A summary of the downside of blogging, whether for yourself or for your organization.
Even back in 2006, Technorati was estimating that 175,000 new blogs were born each day, or one every half-second. Even if only one-tenth of them made it past five posts, and even if many of those same keystrokes are now being pumped into other social networking platforms, a lot of people are still maintaining blogs and a lot of us are still reading them.
“What’s Wrong with Blogging?” ProBlogger Asks
In a recent post, A-class blogger Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net asks us, “What’s wrong with blogging?” Darren’s following is colossal, and he had over 120 comments within 24 hours, covering a gamut of complaints about blogging in general. A digest of some of what’s wrong with blogging:
- English is the dominant language in blogging (so far), and other cultures/languages are missing out on valuable content.
- Journalists deride blogging.
- Journalists thrive on blogging.
- Blogging has become a form of advertising.
- Many bloggers are reluctant to link to other blogs in the same niche.
- It’s hard to generate valuable content regularly that will get a blog noticed.
- Generally, the quality of writing is low on blogs.
- Too many posts are merely about content on other blogs (like this one, I presume).
- Only bloggers read blogs.
- The get-rich-quick crowd and affiliate marketing are polluting blogging.
- Upstart bloggers are displacing experts in their field.
- Desire for popularity trumps quality in content.
This is a cautionary tale for marketing communications writers working on corporate (and personal) blogs. It is tough work. It probably won’t pay off in the short run. You may not experience instant gratification or a huge following. So why do it?
To tell your story. Passionately.
Use Your Blog to Show Your Passion
Your organization is a going concern, which means that things are constantly changing in it. There’s a story in that, and your followers (newspeak for customers, vendors, friends, investors, journalists, competitors) want to know it.
And, if it’s a good story, you should be passionate about telling it.
Those press releases you publish a couple of times a month? Not much passion in those, is there?
Use your blog to tell people the why behind the news, in a way that shows what your organization is passionate about: child literacy, green power, military hegemony, helping people get rich. Readers won’t magically flock to it, but when they take a close look at you, they’ll see passion, and that’s where followers come from.
Change your objective from boosting blog readership to telling your organization’s story passionately, and you’ll subtract a lot of the stress from the process.
Blogging will still be tough, of course, but it will be much more bearable.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Set your marketing communications writers up to give you perfect content. Have them write about what they love (that you sell).
With Valentine’s Day still on our minds, it’s a good time to think about love, as in loving what you write about.
Tom Chandler of the Copywriter Underground posted recently on Tom Gaylord, an authority on airguns. Gaylord loves the subject of airguns so much that he could write all day and all night about them, and he does just that. Chandler writes:
The first words out of Gaylord’s mouth were: ‘Most important is to write about the things you love doing.
‘I see my role as more an educator than salesman,’ he said, and his straightforward style of writing reflects it. He’s been writing about airguns for almost two decades, and expects to ‘continue doing so until I drop.’
‘You should write about the things you love so much that you can’t wait to write the next post or article.’
Do you like that concept? What would you have to do to surround yourself with freelance writers who love writing about your products and services?
Getting Your Writer to Love Writing for You
In surveys of employees, education and training are often among the most valued perquisites. What if your freelance writer, on the other hand, values something completely different?
Like relationship.
Consider these ways to relate to your marketing communications writer:
- “Horses for courses” – Give your writer the kind of work you know that she likes and at which you know she excels, and keep bringing her back to it. When you first engaged her, you certainly asked, “What kind of writing have you done before?” Did it occur to you to ask, “What kind of writing do you like to do?”
- Treat her like an insider – “We have a marketing strategy meeting coming up next Monday afternoon, and I’d like you to join us.” How difficult is it for you to arrange that? The sooner you get beyond treating your writer like your auto mechanic, the sooner she can do more than check your fluids and change your oil. Don’t forget that your writer is halfway between you and your audience, and a professional writer will pick up valuable things you’ve overlooked.
- Personal rapport – How many kids does your writer have? Where is she going on vacation? What’s her favorite cuisine? How is her day going? A lot of people don’t have the personality to ask questions like this, but it’s how relationships are built. You know these details about some of the people in your life; why not about your writer? The writer who knows that her relationship to you is important, is the one who can love writing for you.
Of course, writers are in it for the money, but when that’s all they’re in it for, you can usually detect it in their work product. When you as a marketing manager engage your writer in a relationship, the writer is inclined to fill that work product with more of herself. You win, the writer wins and your content wins.
These are extensions of some of the ways you can help your writer over the hump. When she’s completely on your side and loves writing for you, you’ve got a big-time ally.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sis/ / CC BY 2.0
Even after you’ve hired the writer, writing projects don’t just happen. Somebody needs to move them along, and it’s usually your writer (if you’ve picked a good one).
Nothing works because you want it to. You have to make the damned thing work.
-Thomas Edison (I think)
I saw that several years ago in a quotation-of-the-day calendar, and it has always stuck with me.
It applies to writing, doesn’t it? Writers realize that good content doesn’t emerge from their pen or keyboard because they want it to; they have to make it come out.
On a larger scale, as a marketing manager you should know that few of the projects you commission – white papers, Web content, case studies, technical articles – happen because you want them to; you (or somebody) has to make them happen. Facts need checking, reviewers need reminding, editors need prodding, interviewees need birddogging, text needs proofreading, final versions need approving…
Who does most of this?
Would you believe your writer does?
There’s a lot more project management to business writing than most people – including writers – realize. There are also a lot of steps you take for granted inside the organization on the path from idea to a deliverable, and in a writing project, most of them end up in the writer’s purview because nobody else handles them in a timely manner otherwise.
Paul Lagasse posted recently on the diplomacy that freelance writers need to exercise when their management of a project pulls them into onsite client meetings. Most marketing managers value writers for the “bricks” of good content, while overlooking the “mortar” of good project management.
One more Edison quotation to wrap up:
I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work.
Your organization’s content is no accident either, and sometimes it’s your writer who contributes the extra work to make the content happen.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: wikimedia
Your marketing communications play a big role in earning your customers’ trust. Writers can help with this, but it’s not easy to get them to do so.
With its 2010 Trust Barometer, the public relations firm Edelman reports that 83% of U.S. consumers value
transparent and honest practices, and a company being a “company I can trust” as extremely important
and rate these their first and second priorities.
A company’s strong financial performance, which was consumers’ third priority in 2006, is their tenth priority now, far below treating employees well and pricing goods and services fairly.
So as a marketing manager, you’re thinking, “Hmm. We should do what we can to earn trust and convey trustworthiness in our communications, shouldn’t we?” Well, if you haven’t been doing it up to now, this would be a good time to start.
Does Your Writer Keep You Honest?
Who drafts all of those communications you put out, all of the vehicles on which your customers will evaluate your trustworthiness?
Your writers, of course.
Do you pay them to make you toe the line? When you engage them, do you say, “If you catch us trying to say something that sounds fishy or unreliable, let us know”? If they call you on a dodgy statistic, or doubt the veracity of your sources, do you thank them and agree to find more solid ones?
I thought not.
You could do that, but here are some reasons why it probably won’t happen:
- This kind of purity may pit you against others in your organization. “It holds 985 megabytes of data,” says your Engineering team. “Call it a gigabyte and be done with it.” Your writer points out that there are 1 billion bytes in a gigabyte, so you’re stuck in the middle between the writer and Engineering.
- You need to beat a deadline. Is your time more important than your customers’ trust? How much back-and-forth with the writer can you afford to boost the veracity of the piece?
- Your writer doesn’t want to antagonize you. A common bit of professional camouflage goes, “Well, Bill, you know your readers and customers a lot better than I do, so I’ll take your lead on leaving that detail in the paper.” The writer wants to get paid and get hired again, so probably won’t go to the mat with you on a disagreement over your facts.
- There is ALWAYS a fib somewhere, and the only way to avoid them completely is to say nothing to your customers. You may just find out this out if you empower your writer to grill you on your evidence. It’s a marketing piece, not a New York Times investigation.
Rude Questions from Your Writer
Jason Cohen, of A Smart Bear fame, posted recently on Rude Q&A. Pardon the unnecessarily rude first sentence of the post – bloggers often pride themselves on shock value – but Jason offers a valuable lesson in tough questions that come from investors, for which businesspeople should have ready, defensible answers.
If you hire professional, diplomatic writers, you should be able to go through at least some of Jason’s questions peacefully:
- What are the top three features your competitor has that you lack? How do you address that today, and what are you doing about it in the next six months?
- What are three tangible, undeniable ways in which your product/company saves more money than you cost, and saves more time than you consume?
- There are thousands of companies who make the same basic claims you make: high-quality, on-time, on-budget, good service, happy customers. What makes you any different?
You should already have gone through these questions internally before starting your project, and you should ask your writers whether they are up to posing them of you as well.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit:
emmma peel
What’s in your content: Marketing writing or corporate cheerleading? A parable for the marketing manager.
A dear friend who does a lot of business writing once remarked,
Compact, compelling copy that doesn’t fall into business jargon is tough. So much of it is fake words strung together with cheerleading.
I’ve mulled that over for a couple of years and can finally weave a parable around it.
In short, my response is:
You say “fake words” and “cheerleading” as if they were bad things.
Here’s why.
Sporting Event = Game + Cheerleading
I’ve taken to attending football and basketball games at my sons’ school of late. It didn’t take me very long to develop a deep appreciation for the role played by the top-flight cheerleading squad in these sporting events: they cheer, kick, jump, form pyramids, turn somersaults, sell raffle tickets and generally spice up the evening. They’re a show unto themselves, really, and I can easily forget about the game I’m supposed to be watching, for all the talent, energy and acrobatic skill they display.
Cheerleaders are unflappable. Regardless of the team’s plight or good fortune, their tone is upbeat, emotionally engaging and designed to make you feel good about being there. It’s a job they do well, and we spectators need them to do it for us. They don’t put points on the board, but it’s great performing nonetheless.
Meanwhile, on the field or the court, the game is in one of three states:
- It’s a wipeout, and we’re winning.
- It’s a wipeout, and we’re losing.
- It’s a close game, and it’s making us nervous.
The marvelous thing about cheerleaders is that, regardless of the state, they’re doing the same thing. Sure, maybe they’re doing the touchdown cheer less often in state 2, but they’re still cheering almost constantly, with smiles on their faces, pom-poms in their hands and high kicks in their legs.
Why?
Because their voice is an important part of the game, too. Other people have the job of scoring points; cheerleaders have a different job.
Writing and Cheerleading
As a marketing manager, you’re responsible for telling your organization’s story and starting the conversations that Sales will continue. But you can’t use the same voice or tone for every story and conversation. (If you do, you must be tired of it.)
What if “fluff” and cheerleading are an important part of your game, too?
Think of the marketing pieces you put out: white papers, press releases, case studies, technology overviews, market research, annual reports, corporate backgrounders, and all of the copy on your Website. Can you honestly look at all that content and say that it’s pure game, pure fact, pure attempts to persuade prospects with may-the-best-company-win objectivity?
Sure, you give your writers access to your executives, to industry analysts, to your internal data and research, and they give you back valuable content that Sales can use to persuade prospects and beat your competitors.
But fess up; you’ve also got some corporate cheerleading in there, haven’t you? A little rah-rah-sis-boom-bah-go-team-go that puts a sunny face on things, even if sales are tanking and your technology is under scrutiny by the European Union?
Can you be that honest with your marketing communications writers? Can you tell them, “That report you wrote last month was dead-on objective, but this needs to be an upbeat piece on how our product is making life better for soccer moms. Don’t mention our ongoing patent litigation; just paint a favorable picture. It’s what we need right now.”
More crucially, when your colleagues start making snide remarks about “fluff pieces,” can you take the heat?
Yes, you can. As a marketing manager you’ve done your job by providing both objective and “soft” content. Just tell the cynics the parable of the football game and the cheerleaders.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photo credit: avinashkunnath
Try to think of your ideal reader as a child. Have you ever met a child who preferred an explanation over a story?
Explaining makes for lousy marketing.
Dan Heath, Fast Company
Writing for a Child
As a marketing manager, have you ever thought of your ideal reader as a child?
We learn not to talk down to prospects, and we scold our marketing communications writers when they use terms that are too simple. But there’s an argument (which I’m about to make) for thinking of the ideal reader of our marketing pieces as a child. In short,
- They both like pictures.
- Neither one has much time to give you, so you have to take full advantage of a short attention span.
- Explanations bore both of them, but tell them a story and they’ll follow you anywhere.
Can you build a marcom credo around these points, and get your writers to follow it?
Mind you, this is not the same thing as treating your customers like children. If you underestimate their intelligence or their collective ability to wreak havoc with your company’s sales figures and reputation, you are treating them like children, and you’ll regret it.
Explanation or Story?
So, to return to the Dan Heath quote, telling a good story about your product or service is better than explaining it, particularly if it’s a short story that gets to the point quickly. Content like case studies, blog posts, podcasts and video can do this effectively when it’s well written, and even better when you think of your ideal reader as a child.
There are times, usually late in the sales cycle, at which you need to explain rather than to tell a story, and content like white papers, technical articles and application notes is better suited to this.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photocredit: Patrishe
White paper summaries or abstracts take time to write and to read. Are they worth it? They are if they help answer tough questions in a hurry.
Do you rely on an abstract at the beginning of a white paper to tell you what you’re about to read? Do you think the readers of your own papers rely on your own abstracts? Do you wonder whether it’s worth it to create them?
You can find a lively, ongoing debate on the topic in forums like whitepapersource.com, with experts contending that an “executive summary” (read the scorn I heap on that term elsewhere) takes away from the persuasive essence of a white paper. Other experts contend that the abstract is necessary for packaging, SEO, article submittal, etc.
They frame their debate in the context of a reader with a white paper in hand and ready to read, but a post from Mark McClure of SamuraiWriter.com zooms out for a much broader context.
Personally, I think that an abstract should answer 1 question very quickly:
- Is it worth my time to read this entire paper?
Mark takes a step back, recalling organizations in which “director-level decision makers were preparing a report or presentation for their bosses…where technology directors were in the hot seat over project ‘x’ with various C-level dignitaries.”
Mark points out that the goal of these meetings was to answer 3 questions about the project under discussion:
- Can we delay or cancel it?
- Can we get it cheaper or go elsewhere?
- What if it doesn’t work?
“White papers that helped middle managers address the concerns (nay, fears) of the budget-holders and influence-wielders in such meetings were deemed ‘worth reading’ in the preparation for the meeting.”
What if you could kill these 3 birds with 1 abstract in your white papers? Better yet, cut to the chase: Instead of opening with an “abstract,” call it your “Summary and Recommendation”. Catch your reader unaware by making your recommendation right off the bat:
“The translation/localization industry is not doing enough to help customers develop new pricing models.”
“CEOs should refrain from corporate blogging because it dulls rather than sharpens their influence.”
“Wireless carriers who resist offering personalization and discovery technology to subscribers will have their lunch eaten by new kids on the block.”
Think about it: Isn’t that the answer your readers are after? Give it to them early on, and use the body of the paper to support it. Now, that’s real value in your content.
John White of venTAJA Marketing posts about technology writing from the perspective of the marketing manager. It’s dirty work, but somebody has to do it.
photocredit: Marshall Astor
“White paper” covers a multitude of formats, and it’s rare to find two people who take it to mean the same thing. Poisoned white papers harm the publisher more than the reader, but there are antidotes.
