You have in your possession a well-researched, highly engaging white paper— now what? White papers are not intrinsically beneficial to your overall content marketing strategy if you do not promote and leverage them properly. When it comes to successfully using your white paper to generate leads and secure sales, there are three necessary steps you should follow:
Step 1: Create a Proper Landing Page
More often than not, a company’s white papers are deeply hidden within their website. To even reach the white paper, potential buyers are forced to navigate through several web pages. Once buyers find the white paper landing page, it is often lackluster: failing to provide any compelling reasons for downloading and reading the paper.
To maximize your content marketing strategy, it is important to dedicate a page to your white paper. This landing page should highlight the benefits of reading the white paper, assuring potential buyers that downloading and reading your insights is worth their time and energy.
An impactful and effective white paper landing page should have the following elements:
- Keywords – it is well-known that SEO optimization is key to drawing traffic to your website, . Begin by selecting the keyword of your company’s choice and ensuring that it is included multiple times on your website’s various pages. Once you have selected your relevant keyword, a rough guide for your white paper landing page is to aim for a keyword density of between 2-7%.
- Minimal text – The biggest bulk of text on your white paper landing page should be the introduction paragraph. This paragraph should include a catchy and attention-grabbing headline to draw the reader in, as well as a sentence or two outlining the contents of your white paper
- Emphasize benefits – All other text on your landing page, excluding your introduction paragraph, should be bulleted. Bullets provide readers with essential information in a quick, streamlined way. These bullets should focus on emphasizing the “what” of your white paper— what are the benefits of downloading and reading this paper? If you cannot convince visitors on your landing page that they will be better off having read your white paper, they will not bother to download it.
Step 2: Collect Information for Content Marketing
When it comes to granting access to your white paper, you have two options: a direct link or gating your content with a form. The smartest option for boosting your content marketing strategy is to offer your white paper in exchange for personal information.
Asking your visitors for information allows you to generate valuable leads. By gathering the names and e-mail addresses of your visitors, you can more easily convince them to opt-into your marketing efforts— your future emails, newsletters, and blog posts. Acquiring your visitors’ information and establishing a relationship with them through sharing your marketing content results in a greater likelihood of successfully incorporating them into your sales funnel.
It is tempting to ask potential buyers for as much personal information as possible— resist the urge. Asking visitors for too much information up front, risks alienating them. Since first time visitors to your company’s website have no personal connection with your company, they most likely wouldn’t want to spend too much time filling out forms.
To increase the prospect of collecting visitors’ information and connecting with them in the future, keep it simple— only ask for their name, company, and e-mail address.
Step 3: Bring Content Marketing to Social Media
As of 2018, there are over 3 billion active social media users worldwide— that’s nearly 40% of the global population. With such a large, easily accessible pool of potential leads, you would be remiss to not include social media in your white paper’s content marketing strategy.
Social media marketing is vastly important in gaining visibility and driving traffic to your website. 90% of marketers claim that white paper social media marketing has generated immense exposure for their company [i]. By posting engaging and informative content on social media, businesses are more likely to see click-throughs to their website. This increased visibility yields a greater number of leads generated and conversions, as over 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media usage [ii].
The best approach to promoting your white paper in addition to attracting attention to your business as a whole is through the adoption of social media into your content marketing strategy.