Setting a Price for Your White Paper Writing Service

Setting a Price for Your White Paper Writing Service:

The other day I was contacted by a former litigator that wants to market a white paper writing service to the legal community. One of the questions he asked is, “What should I charge for a white paper“?

This is a frequently asked and complex question to answer than you would expect.

Sure, the standard answer is “between $500 and $30K”, but that’s not really an answer, especially for someone first entering the white paper industry. Here are some thoughts I’ve put together which should provide a guide to establish a fair price for your whitepaper writing service:

1. Set Some Ground Rules – What is the minimum and maximum you would charge for your whitepaper writing service?  What is your ‘walk away’ criteria? In other words, are you willing to write a free white paper for a well-known client in order to build up your portfolio and generate leads, or are you only willing to do fee-paid work? Are there any business/government/academic categories or sectors you are unwilling to work for due to personal or philosophical reasons? Are there other firms that you would like to have as part of your white paper service clientele?

Just like a good business plan or blueprint, you will need to establish these parameters before you can determine an appropriate course of action for your white paper service pricing plan.

2. Differentiate Yourself via a Niche - I am an advocate of the old adage, “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”. I believe the path to success is the ability to focus on a niche and become an expert in that area. By establishing yourself, for example, as a legal white paper expert, you will be able to attract more attention, more lucrative business opportunities, leads that are a closer match to your target client, and ultimately a higher price for your whitepaper writing service.

A good way to accomplish this is via a blog, newsletter, or Social Media presence. You should also build up a portfolio of case studies, testimonials, and reference examples that showcase your white paper expertise to this audience.

3. Offer Choices and Options - If you were shopping for a car, how would you feel if the car only came in black? Maybe that worked for Henry Ford and the Model-T in the 1920′s, but today consumers like options. You shouldn’t offer only a basic text-only white paper and assume that it is what every client wants. Instead you should offer your client a range of white paper options (that add an additional charge) including a front cover or page layout design, the ability to create graphics in support of key content points, an intricate call to action Social Media plan, and additional content pages such as case studies, summaries, and ROI analysis.

A good example is creating stand alone presentations, and Statements of Direction (SODs) from core white paper content for an additional charge.

4. Establish Clear Value – What is value? To some it is the lowest price in town. To others its a vast level of knowledge in a vertical market or a previous experience writing white papers for the same industry, category, or business sector. In either case, you will need to determine what your client views as value and reiterate that value message over and over again. Become known in your customer’s eyes as the single and best white paper writing service for that value. Don’t veer from that plan or you will risk confusing your target audience.

One more point: If you choose to be known as the lowest price white paper service provider, expect challenges to that position. It’s easy to drop a price, but each year, the cost of doing business goes up, so you will eventually lose money by maintaining that lowest possible pricing level. When it does, what will happen to your customers that originally chose you based on your low price? At some point you will need to add value in order for your white paper writing service to survive.

5. Understand Your Competition - Every business sector has competition, the question is how will you address yours? You should know the range that your competition charges, and you will need to weigh your value message alongside your competition to determine if you can charge more, less, or the same as your competition. This along with your value-added message should be re-checked periodically, especially during slow economic cycles.

As you can see from these five factors, a white paper is not a commodity like buying pencils or copier paper. Each project is unique and tailored to the specific needs and desires of that audience. As a white paper writer or white paper marketer, you will need to know your value-added skill set and the needs of your customer to determine the most appropriate pricing structure that will achieve the highest level of success.

If you would like to learn more about white paper marketing strategies, I invite you to watch my FREE on demand webinar, “9 Common White Paper Lead Generation Mistakes“, by clicking on this link.