Steve Hoffman’s Rules of the Whitepaper Road

Over on Marketing Profs, Steve Hoffman has some well-thought through best practices on writing white papers. As someone who writes and reads a lot of whitepapers in the course of a year, almost all of them are spot-on - 9 our of 10, in my book.

His first rule is keep the white paper to 8-10 pages, or about 3,000 words, and I think that this is a pretty good rule of thumb. He also suggests using the third person, largely because it sets the more formal tone that you’re going to be getting information that’s “useful [and] credible.” I think I’ve been guilty on occasion of using the second person “you”, but on reflection, I think that Steve is right here.

He cautions against threading too much marketing info in the body. No marketing-speak ever, but Steve’s okay with “factual product descriptions”, towards the end of the paper. I think most of us whitepaper writers do a fairly good job here, but once in a while I pick up a so-called whitepaper that’s a thinly veiled sales and marketing pitch. Yuck! If it walks like a brochure….

Steve’s in favor of separate whitepapers for business and technical audiences, noting that trying to get by with a hybrid ends up being less effective for both audiences. He’s right, but we all have to acknowledge that sometimes a company only has the budget for one paper, and needs to take the hybrid approach. Hybrids always end up working out better for the business audience, I think, because if you have to water down the tech-talk the techies will start yawning.

Just the facts, ma’am is Steve’s preferred approach, because:

most business and technical decision-makers (the primary audiences of whitepapers) are independent thinkers. They usually do not respond well to unsubstantiated opinions or instructions that they “must” implement a product or they “must” adopt a strategy.

His sixth rule: avoid F.U.D. (fear, uncertainty, and doubt).

Whitepaper readers usually prefer factual statements of the possible repercussions of various courses of action to aid them in their evaluations and decisions.

Where possible, Steve recommends using third party information, and not just the old (expensive) stand-by, the analyst firm. He suggests “industry associations, regulatory bodies, government agencies, nonprofit entities” as well.

While I like his Rule #8 - “Consider the option of outsourcing whitepaper development” - it’s obviously self-serving, as both Steve and I write whitepapers. Steve has his reason, and to me the most compelling reason is that, if you rely on in-house resources, it’s always hard for them to find the time. Amen.

Of course, Steve doesn’t think you should hire a freelancer like me to write your whitepaper. He’s plumping for an agency like his for “mitigating risk” and “offering faster response times when business conditions call for quick action”. Well, Steve, I get the F.U.D., but I’d say that depends on the freelancer and the agency.

Steve’s 10th rule is that you don’t need a subject-matter expert; you need a good writer with who can synthesize information and talk to (and translate for) the experts.

The full article by Steve is definitely worth a read for anyone who writes whitepapers. As I noted, the rules are good, although I obviously don’t agree with the point about agencies.

I will end with a small, personal whitepaper anecdote.

A year ago, I wrote a whitepaper, for a former colleague’s company, on a topic I knew absolutely nothing about until I started to write the whitepaper - par for the course for us whitepaper writers. A few weeks after the whitepaper was accepted, I ran into another former colleague and mentioned that I’d just done a project for “Joe.”

“Oh,” my buddy asked, “What does Joe’s company do?”

I drew a complete blank. Two weeks after I’d been a pro-tem “expert” of sort, it took me a couple of minutes to remember exactly what it was that Joe’s company did.

Ah, the life of a whitepaper writer…..

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