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What’s the biggest white paper mistake you’ve made?

April 6th, 2008, by Michael Stelzner

Chances are you’ve made a few mistakes along your path to creating and marketing white papers.

So here’s the question:

What is the biggest mistake you made when creating and/or marketing your white paper?

Let’s hear from you (and learn from you!).

P.S. As an extra incentive, I will be rewarding an autographed copy of my book to the most insightful commentator.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 6:54 am and is filed under Marketing, Writing White Papers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “What’s the biggest white paper mistake you’ve made?”

  1. Meredith Hamilton Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 10:57 am

    My biggest mistake was believing my client when they said they knew how to market it and would handle that end of it. Long story short - they didn’t know how to effectively market it and I came out looking bad because the white paper did not achieve the desired effect(s).

  2. Paul Dunay Says:
    April 6th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    I will give you 2 for the price of 1

    First - I hired a professional “voice” to record an entire 12 page white paper into a podcast. It was 20 minutes long and THE most boring thing I have ever heard. Despite the fact that I really wanted to like it since I paid for it!

    Followed rapidly by mistake #2

    I hired the same professional “voice” to record a “readers digest” version of the same white paper (750 words or so) into a podcast. It was good with a strong call to action at the front and the back - but just not very “social” (as social media goes)

    pd

  3. Rick Says:
    April 7th, 2008 at 10:29 am

    This isn’t a big mistake — more of a tactical misstep: Sending content to an SME for review without stating a specific date for a response. “As soon as possible” doesn’t work well. At least a specific date provides an excuse to bug them when the deadline arrives but the response hasn’t.

  4. Michael Stelzner Says:
    April 11th, 2008 at 6:21 am

    Rick - I can “totally” relate to your problem. Engineers often seem to get preoccupied with other stuff. The result can be progress totally stalls. - MIke

  5. Jacques Snyman Says:
    April 16th, 2008 at 1:25 am

    This one happens to us all the time….relying on customers to provide content that we can build on….have now refined the process to include a telephonic interview by a copywriter, because waiting for them to mail content just never happens.

  6. Micro Niche Says:
    July 7th, 2008 at 4:29 am

    That is totally true Rick. I never use the “ASAP” phrase because it never ends up being “ASAP”. I set a deadline, and they must reach that deadline.

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