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Direct MarketingHome | About TechBranders | Contact Us | Articles | Planning | Services | Case Studies | Our Team | Testimonials | How-To's | Links It’s no secret that one of the hottest B2B lead generation methods going today is whitepaper marketing, a new component of direct marketing. Done right, creating and submitting direct marketing technical whitepapers to selected industry websites in your target market can attract some very interested prospects by direct marketing …buyers who may not respond to traditional marketing. This past summer, ITtoolbox (www.iittoolbox.com) discovered through a research study that 70% of U.S. IT professionals rely heavily on white papers to make purchasing decisions. Other industry groups have also concluded that direct marketing white papers are the most valuable resource for buyers at the research stage of the buying cycle, even more popular than free trials, analyst reports, webinars and others.1. The Approach – Put your sales pitch on hold for a moment. Your whitepaper must be issue-oriented, never product oriented, if you really want it to appeal to prospects with the genuine pain that your product or service can relieve. Start by asking yourself ‘how can I help my target audience solve a common industry problem, or take advantage of a big opportunity looming on the horizon?’ Focus your approach on the issues, rather than your product. You can discuss your product, but save the features for later, much later. 2. The Structure – Most successful direct marketing whitepapers follow a fairly common outline, particularly if it’s a direct marketing technical whitepaper. Business and technology people have certain expectations of what a direct marketing whitepaper will look like and sound like, and if yours smacks of a product pitch, your prospect will dismiss it without reading the second page. Stick to this structure and you can’t go wrong. 3. The Killer Headline – Your headline is perhaps the most important element of your direct marketing whitepaper. Before you distribute it, make absolutely sure your title connects with your target audience, and demonstrates to them in no uncertain terms that this whitepaper will help them. If your headline doesn’t grab them by the shirt collar, your direct marketing whitepaper marketing efforts could right down the tubes. 4. The Opening Paragraph – If your headline has intrigued your reader, your opening paragraph has to immediately and convince the reader that you understand his/her pain and have an appropriate solution. To really connect with your reader, state the problem as concisely as possible, but make sure to include the most compelling facts or scenarios keep the reader involved (In 2002, over 2.5 billion man hours were lost due to network downtime..).5. The Marketing – Now that your direct marketing paper is complete, it’s time to distribute it. Start by contacting direct marketing web sites in your market. You could also consider paying a service provider to place your white paper across a network of vertically oriented sites targeted at your ideal prospect. There are literally hundreds of direct marketing websites that accept whitepapers absolutely free.
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