Sunday, December 27, 2009

Steps to writing good White Papers

Hey gang,

Here are 5 Steps to writing a good white paper :

1. Focus on the target reader, not the company. A white paper primarily presents the company's perspective on an issue or technology. Do not focus too much on the company, but the target audience who will read the paper. Present useful information that keeps the reader interested and meets their concerns. Does it solve a problem for the reader and how?

2. Make it clear, precise, and engaging. Keep it simple. Convey in the paper why the reader should be interested. Overly long sentences, convoluted syntax, and complex words can make the paper seem incoherent and academic. Write direct and simple, and you'll create a white paper that is engaging and understandable.

3. Do not load it up with technical jargon. Some marketers feel the paper will not be effective without the latest trendy and technical words. Too much jargon can be confusing, can miss the meaning of the topic and key message of the paper, and make it appear like another sales pitch, turning readers away.

4. Know your audience. Do not try to make one paper be all things to all people. Business executives have different concerns about a product purchase than the IT staff or end user. Sometimes, a separate white paper is needed to meet these audience's objectives and better support the sales process. Within the paper, use of subheads and sidebars can isolate and address the different audience's concerns.

5. Make it accurate and error free. Errors of facts or omissions can cause legal problems. The information must be accurate and have proof to back it up. Forgetting a statement, a feature, or making claims of a benefit without proper proof can be a costly mistake. Have the engineers, sales, and marketing departments check over the white paper thoroughly before distribution.

Try these steps and I bet your white papers will be good and well received.

Don't think so? Then let me know. Comments are welcomed.

Stop back by for more B2B Marketing Communications steps and tips. Thanks.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

White Papers in B2B

Hey Gang,

Businesses are using White Papers now more than ever.

White Papers are electronic books (e-books), technical reports, or large Subject Matter Expert (SME) articles that describe a product and service.

The use of technical white papers as a marketing tool has grown tremendously in the last few years—not only for selling information technology (IT) and other High Tech industry offerings, but also to promote a wide range of products and services beyond computer hardware, software, and high tech devices.

A company with a product in any high tech sector or business can take advantage of a white paper.

White papers are one of the leading sources of sales lead generation.

White papers require all information related to the product's description, performance, and purpose. For example:
  • What are the product's features and benefits?
  • How well did it perform under load?
  • What were the performance and benchmark numbers achieved?
  • What does the product do? What problems does it solve? What is its purpose in the industry market?, etc.
Basically what is the product all about, how well it functions, what it solves, and why? makes up a white paper.

Three categories of content that should be included in a white paper are:

1. Content that directly enhances the effectiveness of the white paper in achieving the marketing objective.

2. Useful tips or how-to information.

3. Content that compares the various options for solving the problem and steers the reader towards the product.

Do not add too much content to a white paper. If it is too large, the reader will put it aside. Leave out interesting but irrelevant information.

Effective white papers contain between 3,000 to 4,000 words. If the paper is less than 2,000 words, it may be best suited as an article, not a white paper.

White papers are generally written on non-glossy paper in a report type format and contain very few graphic images if any. They include the name of the product, the name of the company, its logo and contact information.

Businesses use copywriters to work with their technical and engineering departments to gather information for these white papers. They also work with the marketing and sales departments for input and distribution.

For more information including steps to writing effective White Papers, keep checking out my Blog or go to my websites.

Let me know what you think. Your Comments are welcomed.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

SEO in Business to Business (B2B)

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Business to Business is needed more and more as companies want their name, their products, and company web site to be found whenever an internet search is done using search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

Keywords, phrases, and name recognition embedded in the company web site content, found by search engines, make up the building of SEO projects. This is quickly becoming an industry in and of itself and marketers as well as copywriters can make a career earning 6 figures or more for this niche specialty.

Copywriters write web site content and embed keywords in the company web pages that show up in search engines. This allows the web site to be listed towards the top of the search list when the search engine is tasked to look for a particular word or phrase.

A successful search engine optimization campaign will contain:

  • Content, which is what drives the users to the website.
  • Simple Site Design, which makes it easy for them to find the content.
  • Well written Meta tags, which written with compelling keyword phrases and content will make the users click to the site from the search engine results.

Here are 5 Mistakes to avoid in Website Optimization:

1. Lack of targeted keywords. If a user goes to the search engine and types in a keyword or phrase, and these are not on the website copy, they will not find you.

2. Poorly written content. Content badly written, never updated, or not relevant, makes the site not search engine or user friendly. Users will quit going to the site.

3. Black Hat SEO techniques. Black Hat includes techniques that are unethical and frowned upon by search engine spiders, the text based computing process that travels the internet looking for a match to the search. Keyword stuffing, doorway pages, invisible text, etc. do raise the sites' search ranking, but search engine spiders recognize this as “Black Hat” and the search engine can ban the website.

4. Meta Tags not used or used improperly. These include title, keywords, and description tags. Make sure to include these on every site page and tab.

5. Poorly designed site. This includes lack of clear navigation, bad page frames, and large load-intensive graphics that will block search engine spiders from the site. If a user can't find what they want quickly on the site, they will move on.

A website can always be improved to increase traffic to the site, provide better customer satisfaction, and produce a higher search engine ranking.

There are many more items to discuss in this topic including the steps to creating a successful well optimized website using SEO. Check my blog soon for some of these steps.

Let me know what you think. Your comments are welcomed.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

7 Steps to Writing Effective Newsletters

7 Steps to Writing an Effective Newsletter in Business to Business (B2B):

1. Publish regularly. It is vital to keep the commitment to the readers. If the newsletter is distributed the first Tuesday of the month, then meet that date.

2. Provide catchy and descriptive headlines. The newsletter may feature a very interesting and well written article, but readers will skip over it if it is boring and non-descriptive. “CEO Expects Company to Double in Size within 5 Years”.

3. Use different size Headlines. If all the headlines were the same type size, none of them would stand out. Different size headlines help the readers prioritize the order in which they should read the articles, from most to least important.

4. Write strong lead sentences. After the headline, the first sentence, or lead, is the most important part of the article. Write the article so the most important information to the reader is listed first. “Blue Moon CEO Roy Jones unveiled plans on increasing the company size in 5 years at the annual shareholders meeting in Miami.”

5. Keep consistent type styles and fonts. Keep the newsletter uniformed. Use the same text style and fonts for all the articles. If the text is too long in an article, do not reduce the type size, cut some words out to make it fit the allowed space.

6. Lay out articles on the page one-column wide. Layout all the articles on the page in a one-column width section. This may consist of 3 columns per page; left, middle, right. For example, top of the page article covers all 3 columns across the page and halfway down. Another article covers 2 column sections in the bottom left, with a 3rd article in a 1 column space on the right bottom of the page. This makes the newsletter visually interesting.

7. Use photos. Photos are the best way to draw-in readers and make the newsletter visually exciting. If a computer system is involved in an article, show a picture of the system too.

The layout and format of the newsletter is like a newspaper article. It could range from upwards to 2000+ words. Newsletters are generally 1-3 pages long.

There you go. Try these steps and let me know how they worked for you. Your comments are welcomed.

Frank Eaton is CEO of Frank B2B Communications, a business to business marketing and consulting company CG4HBD5A4AE7