White papers can be a highly effective way to educate your target audience about challenges they face and how your product or service can provide a solution. A carefully crafted white paper can be used to generate interest in a product early in the sales cycle or help cement a deal later in the process. It can also demonstrate to your target audience that you or your company has the expertise to solve their problems. 

In some cases, however, poorly written white papers fail to attract interest and provide a disappointing return on investment. When that happens, it's likely that one or more of the following mistakes was made:

1. Your white paper is a thinly veiled brochure. In their zeal to close the deal, marketers sometimes confuse white papers with sales brochures. So they put the name of their product in the title, jump right into a lengthy description of their product's features, or boast about their company in the opening paragraphs. This usually turns readers away rather than enticing them to read more.

Takeaway #1: Don't come on too strong. It's okay to mention your product or service, but only after you first set the table by providing a credible examination of trends within the industry, challenges, and how certain products or services (including yours) can solve them.

2. Your white paper doesn't break new ground or make a strong argument. The writer's job is to take what is often technical information and transform it into prose that non-experts can understand. But in most cases, the writer is not an expert on the subject at hand. He or she may have a high-level understanding of the topic, but not enough to reveal any interesting new insights. That's where the people who work in the trenches-the subject matter experts-can help. Depending on the topic, this could be a portfolio manager, analyst, software programmer or even a salesperson.

Takeaway #2: Leverage the brain power and knowledge of internal or external subject matter experts. Make sure these people are willing to give up some of their time to work with the writer. Keep them involved and have them review early drafts to ensure their thoughts were captured accurately and expressed clearly.

3. Your white paper's title does little or nothing to attract interest. It seems relatively simple to come up with a great title, but for some odd reason marketers often skimp on this critical step. It could be that by the time they get around to deciding on the title, they are eager to be done with the project and move on, so they slap on a mundane title and call it a day. You see the same phenomenon in email marketing, where an otherwise solid newsletter is introduced with a subject line that reads "Our December newsletter."

Takeaway #3. Create a provocative title that entices your target audience. Do a keyword search to see what information people in your industry are searching for, and if it makes sense, use those words in your title. Consider using the job titles of people you are targeting in the title, such as "portfolio managers" or "registered investment advisors." Use action verbs, keep the title short, offer a benefit, and consider using numbers, as I did in the title for this article.

This title clearly communicates benefits without coming on too strongly

4. Your white paper's design is not reader friendly. In today's media-saturated world, white papers have formidable competition for your readers' attention. With our multi-tasking work habits and short attention spans, a white paper might be the longest document some people read all year. But if your paper presents page upon page of dense copy with no visuals and no white space, it's unlikely anyone will ever hang in there long enough to get to your subtly positioned sales pitch.

Takeaway #4. Don't skimp on graphic design. Work with a designer who understands white papers and can create a visually compelling piece. Use lots of white space, wide margins, subheads, callouts, graphs and charts so that reading the paper doesn't feel like work.

5. There is no plan to market your white paper. You might follow the suggestions above and create a well- written and beautifully designed white paper that enlightens your target audience and presents your product or service as the most obvious solution to the challenge at hand. You then post it to your website and wait for the phone to start ringing, but nothing happens. Michael Stelzner, in his book Writing White Papers, calls this "build it and they will come" mentality "post and hope." 

Takeaway #5. Develop a plan to market your white paper and capture leads. This might include issuing a press release, creating a brief video that summarizes the key points, using a white paper syndication service, and printing up copies for trade shows. You should also decide whether interested readers will need to register to get a copy and how much information they will be required to provide. You might consider publishing the first page or two free and clear and then require visitors to register for the full copy. Assuming your paper was well crafted, readers will be hooked and won't object to registering.

Have you seen any great (or not-so-great) examples of white paper marketing? Share your thoughts on our blog.