New Study, White Papers Deliver for Professional Services Firms
March 6th, 2007, by Michael Stelzner
A new study by RainToday revealed that 74 percent of professional services companies ranked white papers as an excellent source of lead generation.
In addition, white papers are one of the top two marketing strategies businesses plan on implementing in the next two years.
I interviewed Andrea Rosal, one of the report authors.
Why do you think white papers are so high on the list of lead generation tactics planned in the next 2 years?
More people indicating they’ll be trying white papers may be a result of seeing peer / competitor companies launch their own. It is high on the list for the future because the marketing of services is growing up and smart firms are realizing that to succeed you have to publish content. It is as simple as that.
Why do you think companies with better known brand identities are adopting white papers more than others?
With the caveat that correlation does not equal “causation,†it may be because white papers have been one of the main ways they have become well-known. And once they became well-known they continued to publish white-papers.
Go the sites of the largest and best-known consulting firms and you will find mountains of content and white papers.
Writing them works – and it’s clearly a hallmark of being a major player in your market, in many cases.
Of course, as with anything, you have to have something to say and say it well. Volume without substance is just going to drive people away. But if you do put together quality content that offers true value to your prospective client base – and market it well so the right people know about it and can access it — you, too, can become well-known.
To find out more about the study click here.
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April 9th, 2007 at 6:02 am
A significant part of marketing is educating the consumer, and white papers are an excellent place to begin on this. Case example would be Gillette’s campaign to educate men to stop using strop razors and adopt their new, hand-held razors - because there was little mass media at that time, they had representatives all over the country demonstrating the product and teaching. White papers detail the benefits and application for a product and place its use in context of “what can this do for me”? It also serves as internal and external marketing to reinforce the goals and mission of the company. It is the potential to be the foundation for any product launch, and is vitally important. Julie Larson, www.research-resource.com
September 26th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
Interesting that white papers can be such a good source of marketing material I would never have taken into consideration, thanks for the read.
Regards, Don.