What are Business Whitepapers & How Can They Increase Sales?

When it comes to marketing a product or service, few approaches are as impactful as a business whitepaper. Because so many companies are unaware of what’s involved in business whitepapers, those that do understand their importance, are able to distinguish their product and service offerings from their competition.

Consider the document as the ultimate case study in a product’s effectiveness. These documents lead to business growth, and speak directly to customer concerns. Wondering what’s involved in these documents?

Take The Time to Read a Business Whitepaper

There are plenty of business whitepapers available to read, for free. Once you do read one, if it’s well done, you’ll begin to notice how well it documents the product’s success in the eyes of its customers. These documents show how products not only save money, but reduce costs, alleviate customer concerns and solve relevant business problems.

In addition, they concentrate on applicable benefits, and aren’t centered around selling on price, and price alone. These papers speak to customer concerns and show how alleviating a problem, is far more important that buying the cheapest available option.

Whitepapers Speak to a Product’s Features & Benefits

With a few exceptions, most businesses wants to sell their products and services on features and benefits, and not get into a price war where the cheapest option wins the day. However, a number of companies use pricing, and up-front discounts, to entice new customers to buy. While this may achieve some success, it certainly doesn’t help in terms of the gross profit per sale. However, white-papers focus the discussion on the product’s attributes, and not its price. Readers are more inclined to ask whether the product or service can do the same for them, than immediately thinking about how much it will cost.

For instance, let’s assume a whitepaper shows how a product can reduce assembly times in production by 15%, and shows what this 15% reduction means in dollar values to a typical manufacturing plant. Immediately, the customer is wondering whether this product can do the same for them, and is more interested in cost reduction, than initial price.

Whitepapers Help Businesses Locate Decision Makers

Having a hard time locating a company’s decision maker? Do you often find your business is stuck dealing with a purchasing agent, who is only concerned about price and can’t reconcile why your product is better? Well, whitepapers alleviate this problem by focusing on topics that are specific to the concerns of decision makers. These individuals are less concerned about sticker price, and far more concerned about the big picture. Their scope of influence extends beyond just discussing price, to discussing how to remove problems.

By putting together a whitepaper about your product and service’s strengths out to customers, decision makers will find it answers their most pressing concerns. Ideally, that document should show how a given product reduces the company's expenditures. It's about lowering costs without having to lower price and few approaches are as successful in doing just that than the business whitepaper.

Remember, take the time to read examples of whitepapers and get used to seeing what works, and what doesn’t. Write down all your product’s strengths and figure out a way to convey these strengths to customers. If your document speaks directly to a customer’s concerns, they will be enticed enough to inquire further.

In addition, whitepapers aim to answer all those questions customers have about what the company does, how it does it, and ultimately, what solutions it brings to the table. Your product may have some viable cost-per-use benefits that justify its price. Use these documents to support that price.