There are two aspects of white papers that I think deserve some comment, the first relates to why a vendor would ever invest in one and the second is about how they should be designed, written and produced. I’ll deal with this second aspect of white papers in another posting.

Commissioning

Let’s begin with the commissioning of a paper. Basically there are two possibilities:

1. Vendors will license the use of all or part of an existing analyst paper because they like what it says and because they feel that it fills a hole in their array of marketing materials.
2. Vendors want to be able to distribute a custom written paper that meets a perceived marketing need. And so the paper is commissioned by the vendor.

The first of these “white paper products” – the licensed extract – is untainted by the suggestion that the vendor has simply persuaded an analyst to write it “to order”. It is possible that the analyst company has produced a biased report of some kind knowing that a particular vendor will want to pay a license fee for it, but that’s unusual in my experience.

At Bloor Research we produced many product comparison reports and we never knew when writing them whether any vendor would be likely to pay a license for reprints. It’s actually quite difficult to know ahead of time what any vendor will think of your product. For that reason, primary research is rarely deliberately biased. (Bias usually stems from incompetence and is random.)

The situation with commissioned white papers is distinctly different. The analyst company and the vendor need to tread very carefully if they intend to produce a useful piece of marketing material that serves them both.

Types of Commissioned White Papers

In the main there are 4 types of commissioned papers, which I describe below:

1. The Puff Piece: Some vendors seem to think that getting an analyst company to write something highly complimentary is going to serve them well. The problem is that it won’t serve the analyst company well (unless it specifies in such work) and most readers will see it for what it is.
2. The Thought Leadership Piece: This is a white paper which focuses on describing a business problem that can be solved by a specific piece of technology, possibly also explaining the nature of such technology in detail. This need not mention any vendors or products and can simply be presented by the vendor in with other marketing collateral with the implication that their products and/or services offer the appropriate solution.
3. The Thought Leadership Piece with Product/Service: This is essentially the same as the above with the added nuance that the vendors product or service is used as an example of a solution. This could be interpreted as a puff piece by the reader, but will not be if the product/service is just accurately described rather than extolled.
4. Case Studies and Best Practice: Papers which are essentially case studies have the benefit that the reader can read the details of how a particular technology was used and the kind of “best practices” that need to be employed in implementing it. Such papers can be very effective because they tell a story of how a problem was solved and hence help the reader to conceive of how a solution will work, in terms of effort, methodology and time.

Naturally there is a wide variety of structures that can fit in around this. Hurwitz & Associates (whom I work for in US) does “green papers” which involve a number of interviews with customers using a specific technology that is then turned into a paper. It has a number of brief case studies but also includes the some statistics on which particular business resulted from the use of a particular technology. This may include a few explanatory pages about the technology. Sometimes a single brief case study may be added to a thought leadership piece to provide illustration

White Paper Usage

Usually white papers are available as downloads from the vendor web site (in exchange for potential customer details), may be handed out as part of a webinar and will normally be printed and distributed at trade shows. Additionally they will form part of the sales rep’s sales pack and should be available internally within the company as they can also help with staff education. I can think of three examples where papers I’ve written have been distributed internally for education purposes. They all involved the launch of relatively new products, so staff needed to know what the company was up to.

In summary, the targets of a white paper are; buyers, influencers, partners/channel and internal staff, and there is no reason why the same white paper would not hit all targets. However the prime target is the prospect. The goal is simply to bring the prospect closer to engaging with the vendor by:

• Positioning both the company and technology – showing where it fits in.
• Indicating which business problems the technology solves. (Technology either cures pain or creates opportunity and may do both).
• Providing explanations of how the technology works and why it addresses the problem.
• Providing indications of proof of concept (case studies and technical explanations both contribute)

Having said all of this, how should a vendor select an analyst company to write a white paper? This is a topic I’ll deal with on another post.
Note: This posting is one in a series of postings that covers the topic of dealing with analysts. Click here for links to other postings in the series.