The power of white papers
Updated: Sep 3, 2020
There are so many great marketing tools even for small budgets and the white paper is definitely in my top 5.
A white paper is a piece of content that typically presents new, original research. This makes it a fantastic tool for thought leadership campaigns, brand building but also lead generation. Because a white paper offers new insights into a topic, readers are often less reluctant about leaving email addresses as, in return, they will receive valuable knowledge.
Enable Manufacturing, who specialises in Additive Manufacturing or 3D printing of moulds for casting, set out to create a white paper about the use of Additive Manufacturing. Over the last years, 3D printing has become really popular but its share as a manufacturing method is still very small and the team at Enable wanted to find out why. A primary objective of this campaign was to create new leads that could be followed-up with by the sales department.
The team chose to work together with me from createwerx to build all assets necessary over the course of the project, from an initial survey, to data evaluation and copywriting, the production of the actual white paper, the creation of a landing page for lead-capture and finally the promotion via newsletter and LinkedIn.
Step 1: Research
To get started with our research, we conducted an open survey on the Enable Manufacturing LinkedIn platform that we promoted for 3 weeks, both on LinkedIn and the Enable website & newsletters. At the end of this period, we had received 85 responses and we felt that we had enough data to start evaluating and writing the white paper.
Step 2: Creating the white paper
Armed with many new insights, we got to work and started writing the content for the white paper. As part of that, we created graphs and graphics to eventually end up with a document that is easy to read and engaging. The final product was an interactive PDF document that can be downloaded here.
Step 3: Promotion
To meet our campaign objective to generate new leads, we created a dedicated landing page that hosted the white paper. To download the assets, visitors were required to leave their email address, before downloading a free copy. Createwerx also provided graphics for the Enable LinkedIn page and website, promoting the white paper and linking to the landing page. And of course we created and distributed a dedicated newsletter to communicate the availability of the white paper to the Enable audience.
Step 4: The results
So far, the Enable Team has been very happy with the results of the white paper, both in terms of lead generation and visitors to the Enable website, the white paper micro-site and LinkedIn pages. All marketing assets that have been created can now be used for its promotion for weeks to come. And for me at createwerx, this was a really great project as it involved so many building blocks and careful planning over the three months we have worked on this. A great challenge and I am over the moon that it has been a success so far!
If this sounds like something you would like to try, please contact us.
