If you’ve been following along with my No More Boring White Papers! e-course, then you know how much time and thought goes into developing a compelling white paper. That’s why you want to make sure you get your white paper in front of as many qualified leads as possible. Unfortunately, waiting for customers to stumble upon your white paper’s landing page just won’t work.
Here are five ways you can promote and repurpose your white paper to reach a wider audience:
1. Build excitement in advance.
Many B2B marketers don’t promote their white paper until after it’s published. However, you can build more interest by doing pre-promotion. For example, talk about your upcoming white paper in your presentations, e-newsletters and social posts. You can also create a webinar that focuses on the same topic as your white paper and promote it via social media. After people sign up for the webinar, email them a link to the white paper.
2. Do some public relations.
Distributing an online press release whenever you publish a white paper can generate links to your landing page. In addition to issuing a press release, you should also reach out to bloggers who write about your industry. However, don’t send these bloggers a copy of your press release, as they will probably ignore it. Instead, send them a copy of the white paper, along with a personal email explaining why their readers will find it valuable. You can also offer to write a guest post for these blogs as a way to enhance your credibility and drive more people to your white paper’s landing page.
3. Drive leads from your blog.
When you publish a new white paper, you should write a series of related articles for your blog. Be sure to encourage opt-ins by running banner ads for your white paper throughout your blog. Some plugins even make it possible to display the ads on all your related blog posts. For example, if someone reads a blog post about improving their cloud security, they will see an ad for your white paper on the same topic.
4. Convert your white paper into different formats.
Not all your customers will want to download and read a white paper. That’s why it’s important to make your white paper available in other formats. For example:
- Include highlights from your white paper in a SlideShare presentation. You can even place a lead generation form in the presentation to connect with more potential customers.
- Record a podcast in which you discuss your white paper’s topic and mention where listeners can go to download the complete white paper.
- Produce a webinar that covers your white paper’s topic in greater detail. This can also be a great next step for people to take after they read the white paper.
- Create a video that covers the same topic as your white paper. Many customers would rather watch a video than spend the same amount of time reading a white paper.
5. Give your sales team a cheat sheet.
I recently created a two-page version of a white paper that one of my clients could give to their sales team. The purpose of the abbreviated version was to have something that would fit on a single sheet of paper, which makes it easier for salespeople to distribute and potential customers to read.
What about you? How do you like to promote your white papers? Please leave your comments below.
Do You Want to Know More About Writing Better White Papers?
This post is part of a series that outlines how to write white papers, as well as how to promote them to reach the widest possible audience. If you would like this series emailed to you for easy reference, please sign up for the No More Boring White Papers! e-course.