Are you leveraging the power of white papers? Today, they are one of the top lead generation vehicles. There have been tons of recent studies confirming this.

And now, media companies are turning to white papers—and that’s a big deal for all of us…

The cover story in the April edition of Media Business Online (a B to B Magazine supplemental) is entitled “Taking The Leads.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Economic downturns always place renewed emphasis on lead generation.  This time around, marketers have gravitated to the Internet and its ability to deliver extremely measurable return on investment.

“They’ve taken a hard right turn toward everything that can be seen as raising their ROI,” said Chuck Richard, VP-lead analyst at Outsell.  To meet the demands of their marketing clients, b-to-b media companies have reacted by beefing up their online lead-generation programs. “It’s webinars and white papers,” said Outsell’s Richard.

The Opportunity

Even though the above article talks about how publishers are turning to white papers, this is very important for all businesses.  Publishers are using white paper leads as a mechanism to generate revenue, yes.  However, this is also a very telling sign.

Readers, leads, people…  They still want white papers.  In fact, more now than before.   Why?  Because decisions must be researched MORE, before dollars are invested.  The natural response of decision makers is… get some white papers and get educated.

In fact, I can attest that the number of mainstream publishers who have been releasing studies and articles on white papers has surged in a way I have never seen before (just see the links at the top of this article).  These are all good signs for the rest of us.

For most businesses, you now have the opportunity to bypass the publishers and get exposure directly for your white papers.   For example, using tools like Twitter, you can gain mass exposure for your paper.  Alternatively, purchasing key words on Google also helps you find people looking to solve problems.

However, I do feel that social media does represent the best next place to get exposure for your white papers.  Regardless, this is very good news—white papers are still HOT.

What say you?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 at 8:16 am and is filed under 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.