COMMENTS
One thing I have noticed is, most of the websites ask for email addresses when you want to check out an ebook. From a marketing perspective, wouldn't it be a good idea to at least take the email address when you publish an ebook ?
I agree with Kumar. If you create a landing page, you can certainly track the success of your campaign, however, without collecting an email address, you don't generate any leads from this successful, compelling offer!
Thanks for bring this topic to the forefront. It seems to make its way around the Web every 6 months or so.
BTW, I read this and went to check something. I noticed that Hubspot still has all the registration pages up for things that include e-books. Coincidence? Just playin'...
Anyway...
You highlight two concerns in your article:
1) Engaging content
2) Registration pages
Here's the problem. There are countless studies in the market (Google, B2B Magazine, Eccolo Media, United Business Media, TechTarget) that show white papers as being the #1 or #2 most effective tool the influences sales. These studies are based on interviews with actual buyers, so surely they can't all be lying.
Based on their popularity, many traditional copywriters and even non-writers flooded the market to offering white paper services. Writing white papers takes a unique blend of writing, interviewing, business knowledge and the ability to translate often complex arguments into easily digesting text specific to a persona.
The put together a paragraph of educational content and then ten pages of company propaganda, and call it a white paper. It's given them a bad name.
E-books--at least the kind that are portrait formatted with little text and lots of pictures--can be more entertaining, but they often lack the persuasive power of white papers. The e-books that are basically 8-10 page papers with big print as nothing more than poorly-written white papers, because they lack no argument at all.
From a content perspective, they both have their place. E-books lay ground cover, white papers get read by senior executives and close business.
Re: registration. If you create a truly educational piece and you clearly articulate the value of that piece in your landing page, visitors will not hesitate to leave their information. Many companies make the mistake of wanting WAY too much info to get a paper. The form/no-form discussion comes up a lot, but visitors don't mind providing their information if (a) it is minimal (name and email); and (b) they demonstrate value upfront.
Let me share an example of how well-written white papers can work magic. We wrote a white paper for a client in the security space and put together the marketing campaign for it. As a result of a single white paper, they received the following:
- 3X increase in total leads QOQ
- 2X increase in lead quality (i.e. the number of director and higher leaders in their market)
- 2 byline articles in leading publications, resulting in 500,000 impressions across print and web
- 2 speaking engagements
- several editorial interviews
- 2 analyst interviews with previously non-interested analysts (translation: we were not clients of theirs)
The company sold enough product to put the ROI into the 1000s of percent.
Another great example is Mike Stelzner's
Social Media Marketing Industry Report. This white paper has been downloaded tens of thousands of times, retweeted 2923 times as of today and helped take Social Media Examiner to a leading position in the market for social media blogs. Not too shabby for a "boring" white paper.
All the best,
Ryan Malone
SmartBug Media
An
inbound marketing agency and Hubspot Partner
@RyanMalone
<em>Free reports:</em>
Elder Care Marketing Industry Report 7 Tactics to Boosting White Paper Performance
Agree 99.8%. However, a whitepaper is just a tool--as is an ebook. Whitepapers get a bad name just like PowerPoint does because people do them poorly. If you have a compelling message and present it in an engaging way, you can send smoke signals and people will read them. Having said that, whenever I used to do whitepapers, I never called them that. I called them "special reports" and they were always illustrated. It should be a marketing crime to bore your audience!
Emily,
I think overall your article is very informative, but I don't agree with not collecting any info on the eBook. How are you going to market to these people if you have no way to contact them. Even Hubspot captures information for their educational products, webinars, ebooks, etc... This is how they get their funnel full of leads.
I think your points on Whitepapers are a little dramatic. I don't think they are dated.. I think just like Ryan pointed out, there are still tons of people who will read a whitepaper to get their info. I think it depends on your audience.
eBooks may seem easy to write, but there is a little more thought put into them then a Whitepaper. Yes, research is done on both accounts, but a Whitepaper is literally giving you information. eBooks take more formatting because it is suppose to look like a book. So the preparation time in eBook would be a greater investment.
I don't believe Hubspot would agree that not capturing any data on a person wanting to download an eBook or Whitepaper is what they promote.
I agree with Michael on this one -- if you define "white paper" as "boring," then it's surely not as effective. The difference between eBook and white paper should be the format, not the value of the content, if we're going to make a serious comparison of the formats.
Happy to concede that Emily understands online marketing quite well. Still uncertain she understands writing as well.
What e-book software would you recommend?
@paige - Acrobat Pro is a good solution. You essentially need a way to create a PDF with active links from a Word Document.
@Kim - At HubSpot we are trying many approaches to using eBooks for lead generation. One of those is to have an eBook to be free and not behind a form. Instead we are testing putting calls-to-action within the eBooks. This way the eBook spread more and can generate more visibility and leads, then if they were strictly behind a form.
Thank you!
Kipp
"White papers are boring" is way to generalized. From my perspective, white papers are that piece of sales literature that comes after the brochure and generalized web copy and before user documentation. It should explore a topic in-depth, providing a prospect with information to make an informed buying decision.
In today's market, there's no difference between a white paper you print and one you email or download. That doesn't make it an eBook. Most white papers are under twenty pages, with the vast majority being under 10. Books, on the other hand, should be over 100 pages and closer to 300. If you want to call a white paper an eSomething, call it an ePamphlet.
@Kipp - Will be very curious to see what you find regarding calls to action within eBooks vs placing the eBook behind a form.
Is a lead more qualified before or after they've downloaded the eBook? Hope to hear more!
@kipp.. yes I would be interested in the lead question Sarah poses. I can see someone giving info at the beginning to download eBook to get it out of the way. But I can see if you have calls to action in the eBook that people may click. Are you just tracking the clicks or at that time would you have them fill out something to capture their info?
Hi Emily,
Provocative post! I'm looking forward to your response to some of the comments left here! The debate reminds me of the debate over which is more valuable in terms of revenue - 10% of 200 leads or 20% of 100?
I couldn't agree more with Ryan Malone. We distribute a lot of white papers for our customers and now some "ebooks" To me, the ebooks seem like a poorly written white papers for people with ADD. "Hey look pictures!" Ryan's comments are spot on.
Hi All,
If you think this post is a bit dramatic and provocative – you should’ve seen the original! Thank goodness for peer editing. Just kidding.
If nothing else, this e-Book vs. Whitepaper debate is certainly making everyone think!
There are some very valid points in these comments, and I’ll attempt to address the main ones…
@Kumar & @Sheryl – eBooks can bring in tons of leads. These leads may not be in the standard “fill out this form” format, but you may build more inbound links, get the attention of a blogger or reporter, and even gain new blog subscribers, Twitter followers and Facebook fans who may convert at a later date or tell their friends who might be further along in the funnel and ready to make a purchase and so on.
@Ryan Malone – Excellent data. Sounds like the whitepaper worked for them which is great! Hopefully they can continue hitting those numbers moving forward. Encourage your client to try an e-Book too – see what happens – I’d love to see those numbers. Anyone else have good whitepaper success stories to share?
@Michael Mallory – I think you hit the nail on the head! Whether you use e-Books or whitepaper, don’t bore your audience! We have a motto that we live by here: “If you aren’t having fun, you’re doing it wrong!” Have fun and your clients / potential clients / employees will too!
@Kim Kolb - Think about the types of people that would be downloading your whitepaper…they just want information. They’re trying to figure out how to solve their problem. They aren’t quite ready to talk to a sales rep or buy your product. So, if you collect their info for a whitepaper download and have a salesperson call the lead immediately, you might risk turning that person off of your product because they don’t want to be bothered with a sales pitch. Strong prospects will come back and convert when they’re further down the funnel if you have the right calls to action, they like what they read, and they think your product or service can solve their problem.
Also, it’s all about testing, testing, testing! I think that will be the subject of my next post!
@Randy Murray, you’re right. Not
all whitepapers are boring and they clearly work for some companies (shout out to @Ryan Malone). But, you’ll never know what really works unless you try! Test a whitepaper, test an e-Book with calls to action, test a webinar, etc.
Try it, track it and analyze it. Once you have the data, you’ll know what’s working and where to better focus your efforts. As Kipp mentioned, HubSpot uses a variety of approaches for lead generation. People shop differently today than they did yesterday and they will tomorrow. We need to constantly adapt our marketing to match the way people shop.
Thanks, Emily
There is really no substantial difference between ebooks and white papers.
There are plenty of boring ebooks, that make poor link bait and are forced on people.
I think you are just mixing up your words.
Not all ebooks are good and not all white papers are bad.
Yes whitepapers do have their place in the scheme of things but i doo\ agree with the author of this post that ebooks are a better promotional tool.