How to Boast About Your Solution in a White Paper

How to Boast About Your Solution in a White Paper:
from White Paper Pundit by Jonathan Kantor

According to an article entitled, “3 Reasons Why Your White Papers Might Fail to Bring in New Business“, author Winston Churchill feels that it is a bad thing for a company to boast about products in their white papers. In his words:

Too many white papers boast. They push product features. In a typical complex offering (like software, capital equipment or high-end services) there may be dozens to hundreds of features and capabilities.
What most white paper creators don’t realize is that there are usually two to five key capabilities that make the difference for most prospects. Continuing to blather on about all the other features is like listening to a life insurance salesperson give you a 75-slide pitch. No wonder prospects go back to reading their other email!

First of all, any white paper that goes into such depth as to list the number of product features on 75 PowerPoint slides is NOT a white paper. Such a document might instead be considered a technical primer, a product guide, or a user manual. Any marketer using such an approach does not fundamentally understand the basic formula of an effective B-to-B white paper.

On the other hand, discussing how specific solution features provide benefits that solve identified business challenges should be a component of every commercial white paper. But there is a limit. For most 6-8 page white papers, an author only has enough room to list about 4 or five attributes. More than that enters the realm of the “product guide”.

All too often, I see a certain level of “hyper-sensitivity” among B-to-B marketers regarding any aspect of “selling” or “boasting about” a solution in their white papers, for fear of being labeled “marketing fluff“. Their concept of a white paper is one where the author must keep the content at a high-level educational perspective by using generic terms without mentioning the product or solution by name.

While there are extremes in any circumstance, in general marketers make a major mistake with this approach. Customers with specific business problems are looking to solutions to solve them. If the presentation of a solution solves the identified business problems using validated information, then the next course of action will be for the reader to take the evaluate process to the next level, by making contact. This obviously fulfills the goal of any white paper, namely lead generation.

So don’t be afraid to “boast” about your solution in your white paper. Be sure to turn your boast into a detailed description of  how your strategy/solution attribute(s) solves identified business challenges. The greater the detail, the more valid your presentation will be, and the greater the chance that your white paper will generate leads.

You may find that your customer will actually appreciate such a boast!