Just a quick note. I will be speaking at MarketingSherpa’s B2B Summit in Boston on Monday and again in San Francisco at the end of the month (29th).

My topic is of course related white papers! Here’s the blurb:

2:30-3:00 pm - Expert Session
How to Invent White Papers That Prospects Adore
Are your white paper titles compelling enough to attract the attention they deserve? Which white papers work best in syndication? Which do C-level execs prefer? Which topics tend to go “viral” within a prospect’s organization? Presented by: Michael Stelzner, Book Author, Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged

Be sure to come by and say hello if you plan on being at any of these events.

During lunch on Monday (at both events) they created a special table called “white papers” and I will be sitting there.

Hope to see you there!

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Can you leverage social media to generate leads with white papers?

Business intelligence company Information Builders did just that. A recent MarketingSherpa report reveals how they did it.

Here are the highlights:

Information Builders leveraged a B2B social networking site to distribute a series of white papers. But there’s more to this story.

Chris Boylan, Information Builders director of Internet marketing wanted to generate leads without making his company feel like an intruder on the site.

First, they spent an entire year sponsoring an email discussion group. They monitored the type of people involved in the discussions.

Then, they created a series of white papers that were high level educational pieces.

“There has to be a blend between thought pieces and other pieces that show we have the expertise to bring this in to deploy it at your site and make it successful,” Boylan says.

The company promoted the white papers using an RSS feed related to business intelligent, in the weekly email newsletters of the social networking site and on blogs and discussion groups.

The Results

The social network audience responded positively. Information Builders exceeded their lead generation goals by 42 percent and had a 750% return on investment.

The thought leadership papers brought in the most leads with titles such as “Establishing a Culture of Measurement: A Practical Guide to Business Intelligence.”

Boylan explained:

“With these high-level pieces, we’re being seen as a thought leader. So, when people come to point of identifying a short list of vendors for their own BI implementation, they’ll hopefully look at us as the ones who helped them come up with their whole project plan.”

What are your thoughts about this study?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Ok marketers… I know many of you frequent blogs. I am looking for your nomination for the BEST blogs for marketers.

As the executive editor of the 20,000 reader WhitePaperSource Newsletter, I have been tasked to seek nominations for the top marketing blogs.

Please make a single nomination by replying to this message and include why you like the blog (anonymous comments will be ignored). Be sure to include a link to the blog. To make the cut, a blog must be nominated more than once.

The winners will be announced here and also in the November edition of our newsletter.

Nominations must be received by Oct. 31st, 2007.

Click here for the winners!

Should a white paper be delivered to people who did not necessarily ask for it?

The answer is yes if you are looking to nurture prospects, at least according to a recent article in B2B Magazine’s E-mail Marketing Insight Guide.

The article explained how Jeanniey Mullen at Interactive agency OgilvyOne leveraged white papers:

Marketers that were looking to promote a white paper, for instance, might e-mail their list and encourage recipients to visit their website to download the white paper.

When recipients did so, they’d see a thank-you page on the website.

With e-nurturing, however, prospects would receive an e-mail delivering the white paper and then receive additional e-mails with appropriate content based on their stage in the sales cycle or the various actions they take.

The concept of nurturing is implies that not everyone is ready to buy. So rather than releasing all leads to the hounds of sales, help them grow into opportunities with relevant and rich content, such as white papers.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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Can you couple audio with white paper landing pages and improve online registrations?

Read on to find the answer.

I was recently hosting a teleclass with lead generation expert Brian Carroll. One of the attendees asked about marketing strategies with white papers.

Brian brought up an idea I had not heard and frankly I think it is brilliant. He said:

I interviewed Paul Dunnay, who’s senior director of marketing at BearingPoint and asked him how he uses white papers.

One of the cool things BearingPoint does is they have a little bit of an executive summary that’s done as recorded podcast.

What’s really cool is it gives people a preview and we find that there’s a bit of a buzz factor there.

So the idea is this: Create an audio abstract that readers can listen to.

Paul explained that by including the audio abstract he can increase the response of white paper registrations by 200 percent!

If you want to listen to the podcast with Brian and Paul, click here.

Take this one step further: You can also embed audio into your PDF files!! See http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/pdfsound/

What are your thoughts about audio introductions to white papers?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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It’s true that white papers sit as ‘king of the hill’ for collecting leads.However, you simply can’t post them on a site and expect magic.

• Fact #1: White papers are one of the most effective sources for helping readers make purchasing decisions, according to a new TechTarget and CMO Council study.
• Fact #2: Most businesses are NOT properly leveraging white papers to create opportunity.

Understanding how a white paper fits into a larger lead nurturing campaign is critical—especially if your company or your clients sell expensive or complex solutions.

Why? Because prospects do not make impulse decisions.

Rather, they mentally process solutions to their problems over time.

• Do you understand how to package white papers into a larger marketing campaign to ensure steady streams of opportunity?
• Do you sell a complex product and need a proven method to bring in leads?

To unpack how to generate leads for the complex sale, I am excited to be joined by lead generation expert Brian Carroll for a special teleclass THIS WEDNESDAY.

Brian is author of the bestselling book, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale.

Together, Brian and I will dig deep into proven strategies for generating steady streams of leads using white papers and other tools.

The class is called “Lead Generation for the Complex Sale (Practical Strategies for Generating Quality Leads).”

During the class, you will learn tactics that can be easily employed to ensure a qualified and continuous lead stream.

Make a resolution to expand your lead generation success. Click here to register for this class today. Seats are limited.

Want to know where most business-to-business marketing pro’s get their leads?

Surprise, surprise: From their own websites…

A recent study found that 80 percent of marketers use their website as the primary source for lead registration for items such as white papers.

The study examined 2700 business-to-business marketers and was sponsored by KnowledgeStorm and MarketingSherpa.

While this does NOT come as a surprise, this reveals a common problem.

I call it the “post and hope” syndrome.

Most marketing folks post the white paper on their corporate site and hope something will happen.

I point out the problems with this approach in a white paper I wrote called, Fishing for Leads With White Papers: Where to Drop Your White Paper Line.

If you want to further examine the study I mentioned above, it is called Putting It All Together — Driving Content Marketing Program Success.

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Many of you have asked for test results from my white paper landing page strategy.

The strategy: Simply stated, the strategy involves taking the first few pages of your white paper and formatting it like an article that extends below the bottom of the screen. Once the reader has scrolled down and been hooked by your content, you require registration to access the rest of the paper.

Here is the page that was tested.

The Results:

• Visitors: This page had 5000 visitors in 52 days
• Conversions: 849 people (17%) completed the form at the bottom of the page
• Newsletter registrants: 535 people (63% of those converting) opted into our newsletter
• Other actions: Another 939 people (19%) that did not complete the form, took another favorable action (like clicking on the book available for sale)
• Stickiness: 1215 people (24%) stayed on the page for one or more minutes

This study shows that by providing valuable content, you can achieve a very favorable lead generation strategy.

Your thoughts?

(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5)

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There’s an ongoing and interesting discussion going on at the WhitePaperSource Forum.

The discussion has to do with the use of registration forms for white papers.

As an aside, the WhitePaperSource Forum is a great place to post questions and interact with white paper writers and marketing pros.

Gordon Graham says regarding registration forms:

I think being asked your age, your sex, your postal address (why? you gonna mail me something?), your budget, your buying intentions, your buying timetable, the revenues of your company, the number of employees in your company… all those questions are really, really obnoxious. Leave them out for now.

It’s akin to going out for coffee with someone on a first kind-of-date and then asking if you can go through their purse or wallet. You just don’t have the right!? Leave those questions until way later in the relationship, when you have established some trust and agreed that you want to see each other again.

I can relate to what Gordon is talking about.

Anyone else have thoughts on the registration form? Is it often overdone?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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What makes the perfect ad?

When a message meets a prospect where they have a need, the result is often success.

Take a look at this ad:

My pal Howard Sewell recently wrote about this excellent advertisement.

What makes it great?

It pitches content, not the company.

Howard said it well:

Hoovers could have developed an edgy, multi-frame, animated ad and used it to sell you on the virtues of how you should use Hoovers to find names of target accounts.

But no. Instead, they asked the question: why do people need our product? And what is a prospective customer looking to improve that would betray a likely need for that product?

Answer: better cold-calling.

Solution: create a compelling offer (in this case, a white paper) that appeals to the very audience segment most likely to be potential customers for Hoovers - salespeople and their managers looking to improve the effectiveness of cold-calling.

What do you think about advertising the white paper, not the company?

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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