The true value of a whitepaper is how it reflects on the organisation (or whoever wrote it). Whitepapers add to company becoming a “thought leader” in the specific field. The golden rules of white paper are shown in the figure below.

Addressing the right topic is very essential, frequently lot of white paper address topic that are neither useful for sales people as well as for prospective buyers. So it is very important to select the right topic initially. If the white paper is intent to generate leads it is a good idea to involve sales people in the early stages of writing because they know what customers talk about think about the sales process questions etc.

The type of the white paper is another consideration, it can intend to generate leads, projecting organisation as a thought leader, strategy, market trends, industry overview etc. White papers vary in their structure, and the best type of white paper to accomplish goals and appeal to stakeholders should be carefully considered.

The white paper should write after understanding the customers. You should provide the right amount of information in the paper. Lengthy white papers sometimes not good to target the customers. Effective white papers information in a compelling way that helps potential customers understand both how and why the offering will benefit them.

Unsubstantiated claims about the service or offering may alienate the objective of the white paper and the customer may become more dubious about the problem or solutions which you offer. To improve credibility of white paper it is very important to cite third party research papers, articles, industry reports etc.

Finally but most importantly it is very effective if you choose a veteran writer to write the article, a white paper is doomed to failure if the writer lacks the exceptional writing skills, technical savvy, and marketing experience that these documents require.

How to market a white paper?

This is a very important consideration to market the paper. It is very important to choose the right channel for marketing. Sometimes if the white paper is a blatant info capturing tool, customers just skip over it. There are often different reason for this, customers may not want to spend time to fill the form or they are not ready to reveal the the personal details to the white paper providers.

Some of the mechanism, I normally use are:

1) Organic marketing through B2B social tools like LinkedIn, Xing etc.

2) Email marketing, which is very efficient to market white paper actually, Tools such as Jigsaw, Zoominfo, Pearlfinder, Hoovers are very useful to get email address of target customers.

3) Viral Twitter campaign using PaywithaTweet This is very effective mechanism to capture information and reach mass.

To elucidate, personal branding is the process of identifying your unique values & characteristics which you can bring into the team and also to the organization. After identifying your uniqueness, communicate it in a professionally memorable & consistent manner in all your thoughts and actions, present it online & offline to all your current and prospective stakeholders.

In fact, many are still unclear about the way to achieve personal brand.

4 Simple Steps

Personal branding can be done in may ways, from my point of view you should be more towards creating buzz about yourself both offline and online.

1) Create a personal blog and write about your unique strengths regularly. Suppose if you are good at “Strategy”, write your strategic points from your point of experience and perspective. It can a strategic advice to companies, governments etc.You can also write about different strategic and its related articles.

2) Create a good social network profile. I prefer LinkedIn as a good social network profile. There are certain tips which can be applied while creating  / updating your profile.

3) Get in touch with respective communities. This is very important, because this is the place where you can network. Try to attend all possible events organized by them. If you are introvert, try to network slowly, once you start proper networking you will be an extrovert.

4) Try to take seminars and presentations when ever you get a chance, try to present your own thoughts this will give you a better stand for you from others.