White Paper Objections and Why They Don’t Make Sense

By: Victor1558

Good white papers don’t come cheap. Some vendors put them off indefinitely and others decide to let their internal staff take it on. However, a non-existent white paper will not bring you a single lead or help sell a single product. And your marketing staff and subject matter experts will take a lot of paid time to write a good paper – increasing the time it takes to create the paper, and putting off other projects they are responsible for.

Paying an outside writer to create your white paper is a smart alternative compared to tying up staff time, and the risk of not creating your white paper at all.

But What Do They DO?

Companies look askance at the thousands of dollars it takes to commission a white paper, especially with polls reporting that white paper popularity has fallen the last two years. But what the pollsters may or may not mention is that white papers are still one of the most popular lead generators in the industry.

But a loss of a few percentage points is not because other marketing tools are working better, but because the variety of tools is growing. Marketers are spreading their funds across a wider amount of techniques, but the white paper remains a favorite promotional tool because it works. A good white paper – attractive, factual, tells an effective challenge/solution story, focuses on the most promising readers – still increases lead gen and shortens sales cycles.

But It’s Expensive!

I’ve seen plenty of companies put on the brakes when they find out the price of a white paper. You should make sure that the cost of the paper will meet your needs, but here’s the thing: investing in a white paper is a fraction of its revenue potential.

Let’s say that you spend $10K on the white paper and it’s a good one. You spend staff time and some additional funds to promote it properly, so let’s say $15K overall. $15,000 may not be a lot for IBM but it’s not chicken feed to SMB and mid-sized vendor marketing budgets. But look at it this way – the product that the white paper promotes sells for $22K. You make 1 sale where the white paper brought in the lead; you nearly break even given sales rep time. Sell 2, even better. Sell 10, 15, 100 – and the $15K investment dwindles to a tiny percentage of revenue.

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