White Paper Pundit

Well the single biggest football game of the year is now over, and sadly, my pick the Arizona Cardinals didn’t get to hold the Lombardi Trophy at the end. Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a great game.

The way that the Steelers performed durng the game also represents several marketing lessons that today’s businesses can learn in our current economic environment:

1. It’s Important to Get out Ahead Early – The Steelers got an early start which was partially responsible for ultimately winning the game. By getting your brand or solution strategy out into the marketplace early, you can build mindshare that will earn your organization the respect that can lead to leads and closed sales. This is the primary purpose behind the use of white papers.

2. Have a Strong Defense – The Steelers have the strongest Defense in the NFL, which prevented the Cardinals from adding points and launching a comeback. Businesses need to have a strong defense as well. In this case a strong defense translates into telling your customer base about the advantages with your solution, comparing those advantages to your competition, and constantly articulating the bottom line business results that customers can gain with your solution. Again, white papers are one of the leading ways to accomplish this goal.

3. Be Persistent – Even though the Steelers fell behind at one point, they were persistent and worked hard to score the final touchdown which ultimately clinched the win. Even though many businesses find themselves in a down market, with customers leery about spending money, businesses still need to be persistent about sending out value-added, solution-oriented messages. White papers that are designed to provide serious, bottom-line advantage messages, provide a unique way to get these critical messages out to your prospective audience.

4. Make the Big Push when Needed – While the Steelers were behind with only 2 minutes left in the fourth quarter, they didn’t give up, and made the final push for the end zone, which won the game. We see many businesses hurting today, closing shop, and laying off employees. But through this downsizing, the company must survive to see another business day. That big push can come from cost-effective marketing programs that articulate real value-laden messages that businesses will appreciate and understand.

So make white papers a part of your ‘big push’ marketing program so that your organization can reach your ‘end-zone’ goals.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 9:01 am and is filed under White Paper Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.