Colleen and I are putting the final touches on our book Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR. As we prepare to deliver the final manuscript to the publisher, we solicited feedback from an experienced CEO friend asking him to read the entire book to determine if the content was valuable to him and if it flowed well.
While he was overwhelmingly positive about our book, he did have some constructive feedback for us and suggested we excerpt some of the information and make it available in white papers.
We loved all his suggestions – especially the one about leveraging the material in the book to create white papers which can be posted on our Website or e-mailed to potential clients. As we have begun working on this, we took a few minutes to think about what makes a high-quality white paper and came up with the following list:
- Know Your Audience – First and foremost, you should know who you’re trying to reach with your white paper.
- Understand Their Needs and Interests – Consider your audiences’ needs and interest. Leverage this understanding to establish credibility. This is critical at the outset of your white paper.
- Recap the Problem – Summarize the problem your audience confronts and provide a high-level description of how you can help solve it.
- Provide Realistic, Step-by-Step Guidelines – Provide the reader with clear, concise instructions of steps they can take to resolve their issues. Remember this is where you genuinely add-value and demonstrate your expertise.
- Develop a Compelling Conclusion – Make sure to explain the benefits or rationale for your approach, and affirm the reader’s commitment to moving forward.
- Use Graphs or Photos – Bring your white paper to life with a well-placed graph, chart or photo.
- Solicit Feedback – Before finalizing and publishing the white paper, solicit feedback from independent, third-parties.
To find out how Communiqué PR can help you author and publish a white paper, contact Jennifer Gehrt at [email protected]. In addition to developing our own white papers, we have experience working with clients on these and have found them to be quite successful in helping companies meet their business and communications objectives.
Do you have insights about white paper writing to share? If so, leave us a reply.