White Paper Mistakes: The Only Place For A Call to Action
As you’ve heard me mention before, you must know the purpose of your white paper before you ever write the first word. And for corporate white papers, that purpose is almost always lead generation. Your most-wanted response is for your prospect to be interested enough in the product or service you’re writing about to request more information. Information you’ll be happy to give them in exchange for their contact information.
That being the case, there’s only one place in your paper for a call to action…
The only effective place in your white paper for a call to action is at the end. Everything that came before your call to action was for the purpose of setting the stage and channeling your prospect’s thoughts.
Your executive summary tells your prospect what you plan to share with her. Your recap of market factors frames the background for your solution. Your problem discussion warns your prospect of the implications of doing nothing. Then you share a picture of what the ideal solution looks like…a solution that looks a lot like the product or service you happen to be promoting in your white paper.
Only after you have accomplished all these things, should you give your call to action. You must specifically ask your prospect to give you the action you want, along with the appropriate methods for the prospect give you your most-wanted response. If you can get your prospect to follow this thought pattern, there’s no reason she shouldn’t when she finally arrives at your call to action.
However, many customers I write for ask me to violate this rule. Some have an entire suite of products (or product lines) in addition to the one they’ve asked me to promote in a white paper. As a result, they ask for revisions in the form of calls to action - for their other products salt-and-peppered throughout the paper.
Bad idea.
Your white paper should take your reader’s thoughts down the path you want them to go. It should act as a ‘greased slide’ from start to finish with no sidings or detours along the way to confuse them. This is the only way to maximize the number of leads your white paper will generate.
If your customer gives you such a comment in a revision request, gently share with them the implications of making such a mistake: lost leads, resulting in a lower response.
It takes a strong white paper writer to channel the reader’s thoughts down this path. Such writers are rare. That’s why most B2B copywriters stay so busy with the same customers. And the best white paper writers keep their calls to action in the one place where they can do the most good: at the end.
Tags: Lead Generation, White Papers
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