Convert your white paper into leads and sales

Going down the white paper route is a fantastic marketing opportunity. The concept is simple - develop a short publication which explores issues relevant to your prospects (and is linked to something you can sell them). But, once completed, white papers won't generate pipeline revenue by sitting on your shared drive. Here's our guide to getting White Papers into propsects' offices, hearts and minds.

Generating business from companies who contributed to the white paper

  1. Hold a round table - invite any contributor/interviewees, existing clients and warm prospects. Limit the numbers to 20 to ensure the event is exclusive and discussion focused. Request the full Onefish Twofish Guide to Running a Round Table.
  2. Contact all contributors and ask to share the findings in an in-person meeting. If the contributor has already attended the round table, suggest you come in to discuss the implications of the research for their business and brainstorm options and ideas.
  3. Take the same approach with existing prospects. A white paper is a great reason to go in and meet with a prospect you are trying to move along the pipeline.
  4. Offer to present the findings in full to a team (e.g. Marketing, HR, OD etc). Sometimes this offer is hard for recipients to take up - they are effectively endorsing you internally and asking their colleagues to give up precious time to hear the presentation. In our experience, this works best in three scenarios where there is:
    • a high trust relationship - you have great rapport with at least one individual in the team
    • a specific business need - the subject of your research is a key area of focus for the business and all team members are keen to glean information. Position your presentation as a short cut.
    • a low trust relationship - a cold-ish prospect may not unbend and invite you in as peer to discuss their business challenges - but they might accept a one-way presentation from you, viewing it as part freebie and part test of your capability. They are effectively permitting 'receive' but not 'send' - for now....!
  5. Any meeting or presentation focused on the white paper should be carefully choreographed to make sure that the prospect leaves knowing what you can do and how great you are - without detecting a hint of sales patter. Possible ways to engineer this result include:
    • using your own case studies to illustrate points and showcase your work in a round about way
    • sitting the white paper firmly in context: "The reason why we chose this topic is because our clients tell us that.../we have deep expertise in.../our niche focus is...
  6. Build a contact strategy for every contributor or round table delegate. This means identifying how you will continue to build the relationship going forward. It may take a long time for the relationship to swing from interviewer/interviewee to buyer/vendor, so you need a number of tactics up your sleeve to bridge the gap. Communication might include sending a relevant book or interesting articles, inviting them to join you at an external event and adding them to a (relevant) in house newsletter distribution list.
  7. Build a web of contact between contributors by setting up follow up discussions between individuals (include yourself in these meetings) and referring contributors to existing clients with shared interests.


Using the white paper to build new relationships

  1. Link to the white paper from your email signature e.g. "Find out how to... click here".
  2. Put the white paper on your website, behind a simple registration form (name and email address is plenty).
  3. Focus your cold calling and cold email efforts on breaking the ice using the white paper. Explain that you are offering a complimentary copy to people in X role in Y type of organisation because of its high relevance.
  4. List and leverage the contributor list at every opportunity. Use their brand profiles to boost your own.
  5. Start a Google Ad campaign, offering a complimentary copy of the white paper. The competition for key words is likely to be far lower than for related sales pitches.
  6. Lurk on online forums relevant to the white paper subject matter. When the opportunity arises, explain that (by coincidence!) you have just conducted some research in that area and are happy to share the results.