What makes a white paper valuable?
We all have more forces seeking our attention than ever before. In the quest to get your attention, vendors produce content such as white papers, webinars, case studies, and reports.
One assumption marketers make is that HR departments do not have the budget to buy research (or outside thought leadership) and so HR professionals readily consume value-added content produced and distributed by vendors.
Is this assumption true?
How valuable are vendor white papers?
Would you like to see more of them? access them more readily? see which white papers are popular among industry peers?
Full disclosure: my company hopes to build the largest collection of HR vendor white papers (a directory of sorts) free to access for the HR community.
I appreciate any and all comments and discussion on this topic.
Good Answers (9)
Bertrand B
Experienced Consultant in SoC & IP Leading-Edge EDA Tools, Technologies, Methodologies & Data Management
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WikiPedia: "A white paper is a report or guide that often addresses problems and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions."
I agree with this definition. Writing a white paper usually is the analysis of the state-of-the-art to provide a solution to a given problem. Basically, no fresh ideas are presented.
Brand new technologies, ideas, processes are presented in scientific research papers reviewed by the community.
WikiPedia also says "the term white paper has also come to refer to documents used by businesses as a marketing or sales tool". Even though these documents are presented as white papers, they are not white papers, but simple basic sales leaflets...
Vendor white-papers are valuable as long as they present:
1. an abstract & keywords
2. a problem
3. the state-of-the-art
4. the process leading to the proposed solution involving existing technologies
5. the solution
6. comparative figures if applicable
7. references if applicable
If vendors want to present a leading-edge brand new technology, up to them to present it through real papers which will be reviewed by the research community. I think this should be a more valuable promotion of their technologies rather than a pure commercial "white-paper" leaflet out of interest. This tends to show that they may not have a so exciting technology as what they claim, don't they?
James W
Director of Business Development at The Enilon Group
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Well written white papers can be effective. Unfortunately the practice of white papers has become so saturated that is difficult to distinguish which ones are valuable. In other words, once you've invested time in reviewing worthless white papers you lose interest in reading any more.
Srinivas V
A clear thinker and strategist Heading SBU for Renewable energy, Green Initiatives, Green Lifestyle
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Jonathan,
James made a valid point. My experience with white papers is that it not necessarily white and transparent, but a clever way of building an arguement and case for a product or service that addresses a specific market need. The pros will be exaggerated and cons will be omitted. The bias never goes away in any white paper. Probably James has come across good white papers but I always feel that I am told half truth. I never decide anything based on white paper. I would prefer experience to drive my decision.
Robert C
Strategic Director/President, PlusROI Online Marketing Inc.
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White Papers are only valuable if they contain information that is otherwise very hard to find. Very specific in-depth information or a topic of specific "vertical" interest will always be well received.
The most critical part is to be proactive in getting them distributed. If they have great information in them, it's often possible to get significant coverage in news outlets (for instance, a white paper I wrote ended up getting edited and published as a feature article in a major industry trade publication).
Also, and possibly most importantly, if you write something great, people will pass it on to peers in the industry that otherwise might not know of the "sponsoring" company.
All that said, the site sounds like it would be of value to the HR industry, although I'd be curious to know how it will be "monetized."
Cheers,
Rob
White Papers are best when they provide insight into the solution to a problem and ideally when they describe a vision of a world in which the problem has been eliminated.
They provide the hard reasoning and facts behind a suggested solution for a reader who has been tantilised by a promise in the marketing Literature.
White Papers in podcast form are a great tool in my view.
I write White Papers for Samsung's Flash File System. There are very few vendors who offer solution. But the customer sometimes find difficult to decide which vendor is better. At such times it's important that whitepaper highlights the comparision chart in terms of performance.
Also, sometimes customer/prospect would like to know the advantage in buying Samsung file system. In such cases, I highlight the benefits in comparision to conventional file systems by explaining the problems and solutions.
I believe that, white paper should never be written just for the sake of writing but always for the sake of answering somebody's query or dilemma.
Sincerely,
Abeesh Thomas,
www.ThomasEcafe.co.kr
The value of vendor white papers to HR officials is inversely proportional to the amount of vendor promotion in the white paper. The more credible, third-party information in the white paper, the more valuable it is.
As subcontractors to BusinessWeek Research Services we've produced several co-branded HR related white papers. While I can't give out traffic data, i know that at least one of them created a lot of buzz and comment in the HR community. Check out the URLs below.
Other attributes of high value white papers:
1) brevity--if it is longer than 16 pages, readership will decline precipitously
2) the credibility quotient is greatly increased from customer comment, which is considered even more valuable than analysts/consultants/academics' comment.
For more insights on white paper success, check out our white paper on white papers. URL is below (the URl with the triangle- address)..
Links:
Ernesto V
Independent Human Resources Professional
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Vendor white papers are more than likely going to be biased towards a purchase from that vendor. I would suggest looking for third party research organizations that offer complimentary white papers or finding professional groups on different social networks that can serve as another resource to give you good information. Check out this site and join the HRWorld Expert Group here on Linkedin for any future HR questions....
Links:
Jonathan, thank you for posting this. My recommendation is simple: provide your target readership/buyers with "best practice" information that they can take today and apply to their organizations and their bottom lines - whether they're interested in purchasing your products or services or not. HR and executive leadership understand they're being marketed to ultimately, so take the high road and make the time to provide somewhat objective thought leadership - help solve their business problems and you may get their business.
More Answers (4)
James M. K
Registered Professional Architect
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Jonathan,
I like white paper for writing and using in my printer.
Jamie
The ink shows up better on white paper.