White Paper Pundit

According to Geoffrey James’ Sales Machine blog, brochures are a waste of paper and ink, not to mention time and resources, rightfully earning them the badge of BS. While he admits that that most marketing executives swear by the medium, he doesn’t think that many top sales professionals use them, particularly in B2B environments.

One of the many reasons that he identifies in his blog post is that brochures can quickly become out-of-date once they are produced.

But while brochures may be BS, white papers aren’t because of their depth of information and ability to be updated. As a result, white papers provide a greater marketing value for a much longer period of time. From his perspective:

“In most cases, the brochure is a subset of what’s available on the website. While I’m no fan of “brochure-ware” websites they do have the advantage of providing depth (like detailed case-studies, white papers, etc.) and they can be updated to reflect product changes, news stories and other information that timely. In today’s fast-moving world, a brochure, once printed, is generally out of date.”

From my experience, the shelf life of a typical white paper depends on its “elevation“. For example, a white paper that provides a high-level overview of a business philosophy, market vision, or strategic solution advantage correlates to a high elevation. A technical white paper that is focused on a specific niche market, solution subset, target audience, or the details with a specific piece of technology correlates to a low elevation.

Therefore, a white paper with a high elevation can last a year or more since strategic messages don’t change very often. On the other hand, a white paper at a low elevation might last only six months as the result of product development cycles, new markets, or the competitive landscape. Low level white papers need frequent changes to reflect changing solution attributes or audiences.

So, here’s the bottom line: White papers provide a greater ROI than brochures over a longer period of time . For a cost that is similar to a professionally designed brochure, a well-written and produced white paper will generate a greater, and more measurable return on that marketing investment.

In a day when businesses are yearning for greater ROI for their marketing dollars, white papers are certainly not BS in anyone’s book.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 2:11 pm and is filed under WP Opinions. 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.