Posted: October 30th, 2020

answer questions essay

White
Paper Writing Guide
ow to
achieve
marketing
goals by
explaining
technical
ideas
Al Kemp
39
PHASE 6: WRITE
In Phase 6, you write the content of the white
paper. This phase often occurs at the same time as
Phase 7: Illustrate. As you develop your material,
you identify opportunities for illustration.
The output of Phase 6 is a review draft.
The advice for this phase involves both content
and writing style. The discussion of writing style
applies to all white papers and technical marketing
publications. Some content suggestions may not be
relevant to your technical marketing project. Make
your content selections based on your strategies to
achieve your goals. Don’t assume that certain types
of content are appropriate only for certain audiences. For example, executives often prefer benefits
analyses, case studies, and demonstrations of
return on investment, while technical specialists
often prefer analyses of architecture and design. To
achieve your goals with executives, however, you
may need to help them understand the importance
of architecture and design. To achieve your goals
with technical specialists, you may need to demonstrate business value. Don’t make arbitrary content
decisions! Your goals and your strategies to achieve
them must drive your content decisions.
Start with the Storyboard
Write the first draft by telling the story you
sketched on the white paper’s storyboard. Keep
your goals, audience analysis, and strategies in
mind at all times. Consult your content outline
and concept map for points to make as you write.
Define your basic concepts.
Use content suggestions given in this phase (such
as “Explain Ideas that your Audience Must Understand,” “Provide Examples that Reinforce Explanations,” “Show Important Processes,” “Quantify
Benefits,” and “Prepare Case Studies”) to make the
story clear and compelling to your readers. Most of
the content suggestions include examples. More
examples are in “Appendix C: Seven Excellent
White Papers” on page 73.
Write Iteratively
Writing is an iterative process. After you write and
review each draft, you conduct more interviews,
you analyze and organize the new information, you
write and illustrate the new material, and you submit another draft for review. The more difficult the
white paper’s goals are to achieve, the more iterations will be required.
Using an iterative writing process helps build the
relationships between ideas in your white paper. If
you start at the beginning of the white paper and
write polished copy straight through to the end,
either you will rewrite a substantial amount of the
material at the beginning based on how you handle
the material that follows it or you will miss opportunities to optimize the discussion of the initial
ideas based on the discussion of the ideas that follow them.
When you write iteratively, you are less likely to get
stuck on a specific topic. You can put notes on the
problematic topic in your draft and expand the
notes on the next iteration. You are not under any
pressure to write comprehensive material on a
topic before you start the next topic. When writers
have trouble writing about an idea (see “Writer’s
Block” on page 40), they may need to write about
a second idea to fully understand the first idea.
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Educate your Audience
A white paper written to achieve marketing goals
should primarily educate its audience. Persuasion is
involved, but it is persuasion through education.
You persuade by making important concepts clear;
showing the audience how key technologies, products, and services work; and demonstrating business value. You persuade through logical and wellsupported reasoning, not unsupported assertions.
Writer’s Block
We’ve all heard about writer’s block: the psychological
inhibition that stops writers from writing. I don’t
believe professional writers experience writer’s block.
To me, writer’s block is just as nonsensical as “quarterback’s block” in a football game. If quarterbacks run a
passing play but don’t throw the ball to a receiver, the
quarterbacks do not have a psychological inhibition
that stops them from throwing the football. The quarterbacks don’t have any open receivers or they don’t see
a receiver who is open or they are running from a
300-pound defensive lineman. Quarterbacks can
always throw the ball. They may throw it well or they
may throw it poorly, but they can always throw it.
Writers may write well or they may write poorly, but
they can always write. If writers can’t write, they don’t
have the information they need to write.
If you are experiencing writer’s block on a white
paper, ask yourself whether what you are writing contributes to your goals and strategies. Examine how you
organized the content based on your goals and strategies. Do you have ideas that don’t belong together? Do
you need to make changes to the organization? Do you
need to work on information in another section of the
white paper so you can better understand what to put
in the section that you are having trouble writing? As
soon as you understand the source of your difficulty,
you will be able to write.
Don’t Market
Blatant marketing tactics have no place in a white
paper. They damage credibility and work against
achieving your goals. Many readers are skeptical
about content when writing has a pronounced
marketing style. You may discuss products and services at length, but don’t make unsubstantiated
claims or resort to marketing hyperbole.
Don’t market the organization promoting a technology, product, or service. Keep the organization
in the background or mention it under a separate
heading at the end of the white paper or on the
back cover. Here is an example:
The Acme Company develops and distributes
ElectroWorkFlow and other office automation
products for intermediate and large businesses
worldwide. For more information, contact….
If you need to discuss the organization’s contributions to the development of a technology, the
invention of a product, or the initiation of a service, discuss the contribution in the same way you
would discuss the contribution of a third party.
Use a Clear and Direct Writing Style
Keep your writing style clear, factual, and direct.
Avoid long, complicated sentences that readers
must think through clause by clause to understand.
Use short paragraphs. Bulleted lists make items
easy to see at a glance. You don’t want your white
paper to read like a slide presentation, but you do
want it to make its points clearly and forcefully.
A clear, direct writing style is critical when a white
paper will be viewed on a computer screen. Text on
a computer screen is much harder to read than
printed text. Avoid long, intimidating paragraphs.
PHASE 6: WRITE
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Concentrate on Strong Content not Writing Style
Writing the first draft is a process of discovery.
Concentrate on organizing and explaining ideas
effectively, not on writing elegantly. As you work
on the early drafts, you may improve the organization and explanations. When you make those
improvements, you must change the text. If a brilliant sentence pops into your head, add it to the
draft. But don’t spend a great deal of time polishing the words before the ideas settle down.
On the first draft, clearly explain the major ideas in
the white paper. If an idea is unclear, don’t present
it in an elegant and entertaining way. Analyze why
the idea is unclear and then clarify it.
On the first draft, present data that supports the
claims you make about business value. If you don’t
have any data, ask your subject matter experts for
suggestions. Supporting your claims may involve
extensive research. The people who provide you
with input may not have done this critical work. If
they have, you’re lucky!
Sometimes ideas that appear well-organized in an
outline turn out to be poorly organized in the
white paper. A good way to tell whether ideas
belong together is the transition test. If your ideas
are well organized, you won’t need elaborate transition passages to connect them. The reason why one
idea follows another will be clear to readers with
little explanation. On the other hand, if you have a
poorly organized white paper, you may spend a
great deal of time writing transition passages to
hide organizational weaknesses.
If two ideas don’t belong next to each other, don’t
write a transition passage to connect them. Instead,
examine the organization. A key concept may be
missing, or you may need to change the order in
which you present the ideas. After you identify the
problem, reorganize the white paper. Each idea
should lead clearly and logically to the next idea.
Here are two ideas that don’t belong together and a
transition sentence that hides the problem:
Without a strategic plan for scaling the infrastructure, companies with exponentially increasing service needs may experience system-wide failures.
As executive decision-makers evaluate the risk of
system-wide failures, they cannot help but feel the
need for service from a single vendor. The desire
for service from a single vendor is understandable, but decision-makers must evaluate all
options before choosing this approach.
If readers aren’t paying close attention, the repetition of “system-wide failures” and “service from a
single vendor” in the transition sentence will fool
them into thinking that the two paragraphs are
related. They’re not. Take away the transition sentence, and here is what you have:
Without a strategic plan for scaling the infrastructure, companies with exponentially increasing service needs may experience system-wide failures.
The desire for service from a single-vendor is
understandable, but decision-makers must evaluate all options before choosing this approach.
There is no connection between these two ideas, as
you can easily see now that I have removed the
transition sentence. I took these two sentences
from two different sections of a white paper. There
is another section between them. Yet how easily I
made them flow together with one 22-word sentence. Don’t write deceptive transitions! Writing
skill is no substitute for good organization.
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Explain Concepts Clearly
Explaining concepts clearly is the most important
part of any educational white paper. To persuade
your audience through education, they must
understand the subject matter.
To educate your audience about technical ideas,
you must:
Write to your audience’s knowledge level
Define each concept with one definition
Write a page paper – Describe each concept with the same terms
Spell out all but the most common acronyms
Explain ideas that your audience must
understand
Provide examples that reinforce explanations
Show important processes
Use analogies when appropriate
Write to your Audience’s Knowledge Level
Most intelligent people can be better influenced
by persuasive, well-written text that neither baffles
by its apparent complexity nor insults the reader’s
intelligence by its overly simplistic approach.1
To educate your audience, you must understand
what your audience knows about the subject matter, what concepts you must communicate to
them, and how you must communicate the concepts so that they can understand them. You
should have captured this information when you
performed your audience analysis (see page 9).
If your audience knows more than you do about
the white paper’s subject matter, you must “write
up” to their knowledge level. If the audience knows
less, you must “write down” to them. “Writing up”
is especially difficult. Ask your subject matter
experts to help you understand what your audience
knows and what you should explain to them.
Sometimes writers feel the need to explain material
that they didn’t understand at the start of the
project, even when they know that the audience
already understands it. If you find yourself in that
situation, explain the material in a separate document for your own use.
Don’t assume that your readers know nothing
about the white paper’s subject matter unless that
is the conclusion of your audience analysis. Don’t
tell your audience what it already knows. They
may decide that the information in the white paper
is trivial and stop reading before you have an
opportunity to achieve your goals. For example, if
you are writing a white paper exclusively for programmers on a new programming language, you
should not explain the meaning of global variable,
source code, object code, compiler, and debugger. Programmers know those terms.
Define Each Concept with One Definition
Choose one definition for each major concept in
your white paper and use that definition exclusively. This is a fundamental point; I cannot stress
it too strongly. Consult technical dictionaries. Use
a Web-based search engine. Confer with your subject matter experts. You will have great difficulty
explaining how a concept works if you cannot
define it. New technologies, products, and services
are concepts; you must define them.
Far too many technical documents use multiple
definitions for the same concept. This confuses
both the reader and the author. Here are four dif1. James P. Cavanagh, Writing White Papers For the ferent definitions for the same product:
US IT Market (The Consultant Registry, Atlanta,
2003), p. 6.
PHASE 6: WRITE
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ElectroWorkFlow is a file management and security system that represents a complete solution for
the reduction of electronic office paperwork.
ElectroWorkFlow is fundamentally a tool. A hallmark of this tool is the ability for customers to
adjust and control the filing and security elements
independently, without requiring technical knowledge beyond that of a typical office worker.
Acme Company has created a tool with significant capability.
ElectroWorkFlow is a modular product.
The first example contains two definitions. ElectroWorkFlow is 1) a file management and security
system and 2) an electronic paperwork reduction
solution. In the next two definitions, ElectroWorkFlow is a tool. In the last definition, it’s a product.
The first definition is best: “ElectroWorkFlow is a
file management and security system.”
Along with the definition, you may also want a
purpose statement. This statement explains the purpose of a technology, product, or service in easy-tounderstand words. For example:
ElectroWorkFlow enables a typical office worker
to manage shared files and control the security of
confidential information.
Use important information that you did not
include in the definition and purpose statement to
elaborate on the concept. In the example above,
reducing office paperwork is an important benefit.
Add it in a separate sentence: “ElectroWorkFlow
reduces office paperwork.”
The concept of modularity is important, too.
Introduce it without creating another definition:
“ElectroWorkFlow contains two modules: file
management and file security.”
If you have multiple definitions for the same concept and if you are having trouble choosing the
best definition, talk with your subject matter
experts. If necessary, start with a provisional definition and revise it on a later draft. Don’t leave multiple definitions in your first draft hoping that they
will magically coalesce into a single definition by
the end of the project. They won’t.
Tip! When you are working with your research and
analysis, use the “is” test to see if you have multiple
definitions. For example, if you are writing a white
paper about office automation, look for multiple
occurrences of the words “office automation is” followed by a definition. The definition should always
be the same.
Write a page paper – Describe Each Concept with the Same Terms
Audiences understand complicated technical
explanations much more easily when the same
terms refer to the same concepts.
If you are discussing a file security module, don’t
switch your terminology and call it a “confidentiality guard” in one place, an “unauthorized file
duplication monitor” in another place, and a
“security manager” somewhere else. Choose one
term and use it exclusively. Although you know
that “security manager” is another term for the file
security module, your readers – who are learning
about the file security module for the first time –
are likely to think that you are using different
terms to distinguish between different concepts.
If you decide on a later draft that another term is
better, use your writing tool’s search and replace
feature to update all the occurrences of the original
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term. For example, if you decide on the second
draft that “security manager” is a better term than
“file security module,” change all the occurrences
of “file security module” to “security manager.” It’s
all right to change your terms. It’s not all right to
leave the earlier versions of the terms scattered
throughout the white paper.
Elegant variation is the stylistic device of calling the
same thing by different names to avoid repetition.
In most writing, elegant variation is a strength. In
writing about a technical subject, however, elegant
variation is a serious liability.
Spell Out Acronyms
In most instances, spell out acronyms and abbreviations when you use them the first time, even if
your audience knows them. If you are writing for
programmers, they know that API stands for application programming interface, but they won’t be
offended if the first use of API is “application programming interface (API).” Avoid clusters of acronyms: “TQM was a major factor in GUI and API
development.” Text with too many acronyms
degenerates into meaningless jargon.
Explain Ideas that your Audience Must Understand
Your technical explanations will make or break
your white paper. Often subject matter experts
assume a level of understanding that non-experts
don’t have. When subject matter experts make
these assumptions, they forget to explain important concepts. If you start with good definitions
and thoroughly explain ideas that your audience
must understand, you will have a solid foundation
for achieving your goals.
As a general rule, explain all important concepts –
including technologies, products, and services and
their major components – that you are introducing
to your audience. Your explanations should be at a
level that the audience understands.
The definition and purpose statement for ElectroWorkFlow on page 43 introduce important ideas
that require explanation. The definition states that
ElectroWorkFlow is a file management and security system. We must explain how the file management and file security modules work. Here are
sample explanations:
The file management module stores users’ files in
a database on a central computer and places a
shortcut icon on a user’s computer. When a user
clicks the icon, it automatically accesses the file
from the central computer. The file management
module solves the problem of redundant files on
multiple users’ computers while giving users
instant access to the files. They don’t need to track
them down on the corporate computer network.
The file security module monitors all outgoing
employee e-mail messages for attached files containing confidential information. The security
administrator assigns each employee a confidentiality clearance level. If an employee with clearance to confidential files attempts to send a
confidential file to a recipient outside the company or to an employee without clearance, the file
security module intercepts the message and
returns it to the sender. The module reports all
attempted violations of the company’s confidentiality policy to the security administrator.
The purpose statement asserts that a typical office
worker can manage shared files and control the
security of confidential information. To support
the assertion, we must explain how a typical office
worker can manage files in the database on the central computer and serve as security administrator.
PHASE 6: WRITE
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We will then build our discussion of ElectroWorkFlow’s capabilities and business value on the foundation provided by our explanations.
Provide Examples that Reinforce Explanations
One of the best ways to explain ideas is to provide
examples. In the previous section, we explained
how ElectroWorkFlow’s file management module
works. The example below reinforces the explanation by examining what happens when an administrative assistant creates a departmental phone list.
For example, an administrative assistant creates a
spreadsheet with the names and phone numbers
of all the employees in the department. When the
assistant saves the spreadsheet, ElectroWorkFlow
stores the spreadsheet file in the database on the
central computer and places a shortcut icon on
the assistant’s computer. The icon resembles the
icon for a spreadsheet file. The assistant then
attaches the shortcut icon (not the actual spreadsheet file) to an e-mail message and distributes it
throughout the department. When recipients
“save the spreadsheet file” on their computers,
they are saving the shortcut icon to the spreadsheet file. The spreadsheet itself stays in the database on the central computer.
Tip! Don’t be reluctant to create examples for your
own use. Even if you don’t include them in the
white paper, working through them may help you
write clearer explanations.
While clarifying how a technology, product, or service works at one level, an example may raise questions about how the technology, product, or
service works at another level. Answering those
questions will help you understand how to explain
how the technology, product, or service works in
greater detail.
The example above states that employees work
with the same spreadsheet file in the database on
the central computer. That raises two questions:
how does the file management module 1) control
which employees are authorized to make changes
and 2) prevent authorized employees from overwriting each other’s changes? The sample explanation and example below answer those questions.
How the File Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage ment Module
Controls Changes
Administrators control authorization to change
files. They can assign authorization to:
The person who created the file
All employees in the creator’s work group
Any combination of users and groups
When an employee changes a file, all employees
who are displaying the contents of the file receive
notification of the change along with an option to
update the display of the file.
If multiple employees are authorized to change a
file, the file management module asks each
employee with authorization whether they want to
display the file or update it. If they select the
update option, the module either lets them change
the file or – if another employee is currently
changing the file – puts them in a file-change
queue. When the employee who is changing the
file releases it, the first employee in the queue is
allowed to change the file, and the other employees in the queue move up one position.
For example, Juan and Mary both have authorization to change a spreadsheet file. Juan clicks the
shortcut icon to the spreadsheet file and a dialog
box appears: “Do you want to update the file?”
Juan selects “Yes,” and the system allows him to
update the file. A few minutes later Mary clicks
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her shortcut icon to the spreadsheet file, and the
dialog box appears. When she selects “Yes,” she
receives the message: “Juan is updating the file.
The system will notify you when Juan is finished.”
Show Important Processes
During Phase 3: Acquire Information, you may have
identified important processes to include in the
white paper. If you didn’t identify any processes at
that time, you may find some while you are working on your explanations and examples. Showing a
process in an illustration makes the process easy to
grasp and adds visual interest to the discussion. For
more information, see “Use Flow Charts to Show
Processes” on page 57.
I recommend that you introduce the process in the
text. You may also want to describe the process in
the text to help the audience understand the illustration. Regardless of whether you describe the
process, always put a reference to the illustration in
the text. For example: “Figure 4 shows the security
approval process.” Never include a process diagram
without a comment. The audience may not understand the relationship of the illustration to the text.
Use Analogies when Appropriate
When a concept is difficult for your audience to
understand, an analogy may work better than a
complicated technical explanation. An effective
analogy clarifies or emphasizes certain characteristics of the subject.
A common analogy for telecommunications bandwidth is the size of a pipe. The larger the diameter
of the pipe, the more fluid can flow though it in a
given amount of time. The larger the bandwidth of
a telecommunications channel, the more data it
can transmit in a given amount of time. This analogy helps nontechnical readers understand what
bandwidth is. The analogy is not appropriate for
telecommunications professionals. They understand the concept of bandwidth.
The following analogy compares software design to
architecture. The author’s goal is to show that good
software requires both software engineers and software designers, just as good buildings require both
construction engineers and architects.
When you go to design a house you talk to an
architect first, not an engineer. Why is this?
Because the criteria for what makes a good building fall substantially outside the domain of what
engineering deals with. You want the bedrooms
where it will be quiet so people can sleep, and
you want the dining room to be near the
kitchen….
Similarly, in computer programs, the selection of
the various components and elements of the application must be driven by an appreciation of the
overall conditions of use and user needs through
a process of intelligent and conscious design.
How is this to be done? By software designers.1
The analogy between software design and architecture does not help readers understand what software design is and how it works (the audience
already knows that). Instead, it helps readers
understand why software design is important.
Don’t use an analogy when you can make your
point by explaining the concept clearly. When you
don’t need an analogy, using one introduces a level
of complexity that may confuse your readers.
1. Mitchell Kapor, “A Software Design Manifesto,” in
Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd (New York: ACM Press, 1996), p. 4.
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Demonstrate Business Value
To achieve your goals, you often must demonstrate
that a technology, product, or service delivers business value. Here are six techniques:
Analyze the benefits
Show how capabilities enable benefits
Quantify the benefits
Support your statements about business value
Show the return on investment
Prepare case studies
Analyze Benefits
Benefits provide three basic types of business value:
Reduced costs
Increased revenue
Strategic advantage over competitors
If a benefit does not do one of these three things, it
is not a benefit.
Here are five examples of benefits. Each example
states whether the benefit reduces costs, increases
revenue, or provides strategic advantage.
Faster time to market increases revenue
Higher quality increases sales, which increases
revenue
Improved productivity reduces costs
Identifying problems earlier in the development process reduces costs
Better information for management decisionmaking provides strategic advantage
Marketing professionals sometimes talk about the
unique selling proposition: the benefit that distinguishes the product or service from the competition in the target market. If you know the unique
selling proposition, highlight that benefit in the
white paper. But don’t skip the benefits analysis.
The product or service may have other benefits
that together with the unique selling proposition
will influence whether a prospective customer
decides to take the action that achieves your goals.
Tip! I read a business case that separated benefits
into two categories: Business Benefits and Technical Benefits. Don’t make this mistake! If a technical
benefit is not a business benefit, it is not a benefit.
Show How Capabilities Enable Benefits
When you discuss capabilities or “features,” show
how they provide benefits. When subject matter
experts provide input for white papers, sometimes
they list the capabilities of a technology, product,
or service without discussing benefits, and sometimes they confuse capabilities with benefits. A system architect discussing a new application
development environment might state that coding
software applications in an object-oriented programming language is a benefit. It’s not; it’s a capability. To demonstrate that the capability provides
benefits, you must explain how using the objectoriented programming language reduces costs,
increases revenue, or provides strategic advantage.
For example, the object-oriented programming
language might allow an application’s developers to
reuse the source code. This reuse would reduce the
cost to develop and update the application.
Watch out for statements that assert benefits without explanations or supporting data. Here is an
example: “The product gives customers all the benefits of permission-based file access.” A better
approach includes an explanation: “ElectroWorkFlow’s permission-based file access prevents one
person from overwriting another person’s changes
to shared files. This in turn eliminates the labor
required to reenter data lost when the files were
overwritten and improves the accuracy of the
information contained in the shared files.”
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Don’t make unsupported assertions of business
value. Don’t assert that a product is “best of breed.”
Explain how the product’s capabilities deliver business value, and document that business value.
Don’t assert that a product protects companies
from premature obsolescence. Explain how the
design of the product minimizes the risk of premature obsolescence.
If you are writing exclusively for a technical audience, you may not need to explain the benefits of a
technical capability like permission-based file
access. But if part of your audience is not knowledgeable about the capability, provide a clear explanation. A brief reference to benefits may not hurt
an audience of technical specialists, either. They
occasionally overlook the benefits that make technical capabilities valuable.
To present benefits to a mixed audience of technical novices and specialists, you can give the benefits
discussion a heading like “Permission-based File
Access Eliminates Data Errors from Overwriting
Files.” Technical specialists who understand the
benefits of permission-based file access can skip the
topic, while technical novices can read it to learn
about the benefits.
When you explain how a capability provides benefits, don’t stop short of the ultimate benefit. Here’s
an example from an actual white paper. I have
made the example generic to protect the guilty.
The product enables different views of the data for
specific employees, allowing them to focus on the
areas of their responsibility.
The capability is “different views of the data for
specific employees.” The benefit allows them “to
focus on the areas of their responsibility.” How is
this a benefit? Does it reduce costs, increase revenue, or provide strategic advantage? The example is
not clear. By focusing on “the areas of their responsibility,” do employees perform their jobs faster?
Do they deliver higher quality work? Showing how
benefits reduce costs, increase revenue, or provide
strategic advantage clarifies the benefits’ value.
Quantify Benefits
One of the most powerful ways to describe a benefit is to quantify it: to provide data that shows how
the benefit reduces costs, increases revenue, or provides strategic advantage.
While discussing how capabilities enable benefits, I
suggested that allowing employees “to focus on the
areas of their responsibility” might allow them to
perform their jobs faster. If that is true, then the
writer should document how much time is saved.
If allowing employees “to focus on the areas of
their responsibility” enables them to deliver higher
quality work, then the writer should document
how many errors are eliminated.
Providing strategic advantage can be difficult to
quantify. Look for data that supports the strategic
advantage. If better information for management
decision-making provides strategic advantage, then
look for data that shows how much better the
information is. The better information might cover
100% of a customer service database instead of
only 20%.
Here is an example of a benefit that has not been
quantified:
The product minimizes lost productivity by preventing service outages.
The example explains the benefit. If you don’t have
any data, that’s all you can do. But you will make
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49
your point far more effectively if you quantify the
benefit. Ask your subject matter experts or conduct
research to answer questions like these:
How many service outages does a typical company have?
How long do the outages last?
How much do the outages cost the company
in terms of down time, lost sales revenue, and
so on?
If you substantiate your claims with compelling
data, you will grab your readers’ attention. No
matter how much you polish the writing style of
the “minimizes lost productivity” sentence, it won’t
grab your readers’ attention like this one will:
The product prevents service outages that cost a
typical company $100,000 per year.
You might want to highlight a statement like that.
(See “Highlight Key Points” on page 51.)
Support your Statements about Business Value
Quantifying benefits is one way to support your
statements about business value. Other types of
support include:
Test results
Product, service, or technology reviews
Industry research reports
Customer testimonials
During your research, you may find statements by
experts in industry and academia that support the
main points in the white paper. You may also find
testimonials from customers. Put these quotations
in your white paper. If they make compelling
points, give them a prominent position by turning
them into pull-quotes (see page 37).
Show the Return on Investment
For white papers that emphasize business value,
showing prospective customers the potential return
on investment (ROI) in a new technology, product, or service is often a compelling argument. You
may need to work with financial management to
develop a formal return-on-investment analysis.
Unsubstantiated assertions have no place in a discussion of return on investment. Here is an example from an actual white paper. I have made the
example generic to protect the guilty.
The company gained a significant return on
investment through deployment of the product in
their office.
The return on investment is “significant,” but no
value is given. If the author cannot make a rough
estimate of the ROI, the author has no right to say
that it was “significant.”
If customers can achieve a 200% return on their
investment within two years, say so. And support
your assertion. Document the source of the data.
Show them how you computed the 200% figure.
If you analyze the return on investment and discover that customers can achieve only a 110%
return on investment in ten years, you will be better off giving them another reason why they should
purchase the product.
When you analyze the return on investment, thoroughly examine all costs and savings. For example,
a product might cost $5,000 and return 110% in
ten years by replacing more expensive or more
erratic leased hardware, which costs $550 per year.
But does the product enable labor savings? If the
product saves five hours a week of administrative
WHITE PAPER WRITING GUIDE
50
time, compute the value of the administrative time
including wages, benefits, and overhead. If the
administrative time is worth $30 per hour, then
the product saves $150 per week in labor, which
comes out to $7,800 per year. Take the $550 per
year hardware savings and add to it the $7,800 per
year labor savings. The total is $8,350 per year.
Now we have a 167% return on investment in the
first year alone ($8,350 is 167% of $5,000).
When you give an ROI figure, consider explaining
the calculation in the white paper. For an example,
see the case study on this page. Your readers may
not believe the ROI figure unless you show them
the calculation. It’s easy to shrug off “significant
return on investment” as wishful thinking. It’s
almost as easy to shrug off “167% return on investment” as wishful thinking. If you show your audience how you calculated the return on investment,
they are more likely to feel that it is realistic. They
may even compute a return-on-investment scenario for their organization. When they do that,
you are on the way to achieving your goals.
Tip: If you don’t want to include the calculation
along with the ROI figure, put the calculation and
supporting data in an appendix. ROI calculations
with supporting data make compelling arguments
even when the audience just glances at them.
Prepare Case Studies
One of the most effective ways to present a
detailed benefits analysis is to prepare a case study
or “success story.” The case study shows how a
technology, product, or service was successfully
implemented at an example company. In some situations, you may want to discuss the implementation in detail, explain procedural improvements,
and so on. The example case study on this page
analyzes a return-on-investment calculation.
Case Study: ElectroWorkFlow Generates
334% Return on Investment in Two Years
at ABC Company
ABC Company used ElectroWorkFlow to automate the operations at its headquarters office.
ElectroWorkFlow cost $5,000, and it replaced
leased office automation equipment that cost
$550 a year.
ElectroWorkFlow saved five hours a week of
administrative time required to operate the leased
equipment. Three hours of time savings resulted
from automatic distribution and updating of
shared files. One hour resulted from elimination of
errors caused by overwriting the current version of
a file with a previous version. The file security
module eliminated one hour per week of time
required to manually monitor users’ hard drives
for files containing confidential information.
The total cost per hour (including overhead) for an
administrative assistant at the ABC company is
$30. At this cost per hour, ElectroWorkFlow is
saving the ABC Company $7,800 per year
($150 per week x 52).
Cost of Investment: $5,000
ElectroWorkFlow purchase price: $4,500
ElectroWorkFlow installation fee: $500
Annual Savings: $8,350
Leased equipment: $550
Labor: $7,800
Return on Investment
One year: 167%
Two year: 334%
Five year: 835%
PHASE 6: WRITE
51
Highlight Key Points
When you write the white paper, I recommend
working in the page layout from Phase 5: Design
the Look & Feel. You can take maximum advantage
of the design elements to highlight key points, and
you can add visual interest to long stretches of text.
If the layout gets in the way while you are creating
the text, do your writing in a word processor and
insert the text into your desktop publishing program as soon as you have written it. Add illustrations as you receive them from the illustrator. You
now have immediate feedback on how the text and
illustrations look in your page layout. If you wait
until the end of the project to put the text and
illustrations in the page layout, you will have much
less time – and possibly much less inclination – to
improve the white paper’s visual communication.
Make sure the words you highlight with your
design elements make a strong statement. For
example, don’t use a headline like “Case Study:
Deploying Office Automation.” Instead, grab your
readers’ attention by summarizing the underlying
message: “Case Study: Deploying Office Automation at ABC Company Doubles Productivity.”
Use the captions to your illustrations to highlight
information. Don’t label an illustration with just a
number. Write a page paper – Describe what the illustration is showing.
For example: “Figure 7. How the file security module
works.” If the illustration makes a critical point, use
the caption to emphasize the point: “Figure 7. The
file security module keeps proprietary information
secure.”
Put Supplementary Material at the End
If you need them, include appendixes, a glossary,
and a bibliography.
An appendix is a good place to put supplementary
material such as specifications, worksheets, and
tables of data. You might put detailed data supporting your benefits analyses in an appendix. Your
audience can check the data for any benefits that
they question. Even if they don’t check the data,
they will be reassured by the presence of the data.
You can use a glossary to define terms that all
members of your audience need to know, or you
can define terms that some members of your audience know but others don’t know.
A bibliography adds authority to a white paper.
You can include suggestions for additional reading
as well as sources you consulted while writing the
white paper. References to sources that support
major points can be especially persuasive.
Put any information that doesn’t belong in the
body of the white paper at the end of the white
paper after the appendixes, glossary, and bibliography. For example, you might include a brief introduction to the organization that is sponsoring the
white paper or brief biographical information
about the author and subject matter experts.
Summarize the Content
Don’t summarize your content until you have written the first draft. At that point:
Write a strong conclusion
Choose a title that highlights value
Write a compelling overview
Write an abstract if you need one
Write a Strong Conclusion
In the last section of your white paper, restate your
main points. If the white paper is part of a sales
process, tell your readers about the next step in the
WHITE PAPER WRITING GUIDE
52
process – the call to action – and remind them why
they want to take that step. For information about
the call to action, see “Identify Sales Processes &
Related Marketing Publications” on page 13.
Choose a Title that Highlights Value
The first thing that potential readers see is the title;
they may decide whether to read the white paper
based on its title. A strong title that highlights the
value of the white paper’s subject will increase your
readership. Productivity Gains through Office Automation is a better title than Office Automation.
Review your goals; a strong title reinforces them.
The best time to choose a title for the white paper
is after you have finished the first draft. At that
point, you should be ready to select a compelling
title that supports your goals. Until you think of a
strong title, use a simple working title like White
Paper on Office Automation.
Some white papers have both a title and subtitle.
The subtitle lets you make a second important
point. For example, a white paper with the title
Productivity Gains through Office Automation might
be subtitled How ElectroWorkFlow Solves Office
Automation Problems.
Write a Compelling Overview
Don’t write the overview until after you have written the detailed text. Writing the overview first is a
surefire recipe for writer’s block, a weak introduction, or both. Writers introduce ideas most effectively after they have worked with them in detail.
The overview should state the purpose of the white
paper, which is related to your goals. The overview
should also clearly and forcefully convey the main
points you are making in the white paper.
If your analysis of the audience indicates that they
may be reluctant to read the entire white paper, the
overview is critical. A compelling overview with
well-written and persuasive text, clear explanations, powerful facts and figures, and attentiongrabbing graphics will encourage a reluctant audience to read the detailed content.
Review your needs assessment while you work on
the overview. The needs assessment is especially
helpful if you have trouble choosing which ideas to
put in the overview. Choose ideas that contribute
the most to achieving your goals. Many overviews
highlight solutions to problems. Overviews for
executives often highlight business value.
The length of the overview depends on the length
of the white paper. As a general rule, write no more
than one page of overview for every eight pages of
detailed text (not including appendixes).
Whether you call the overview an Executive Summary depends on your audience analysis. If your
audience includes executives and managers or if
you are writing a business-to-business white paper,
use Executive Summary.
Write an Abstract if You Need One
If the white paper will be posted on the Web in a
white-paper repository that displays abstracts along
with titles, write an abstract. Look at examples in
the repository, especially abstracts on topics related
to your white paper. A good abstract usually
includes the white paper’s purpose statement and
one or two key points. The key points may need to
include key words that readers are likely to search
for. White-paper repositories often put titles and
abstracts into a database that users can search.
Repositories also use titles and abstracts to classify
white papers into groups.