White Paper Writing Guide

1 White Paper Writing Guide ow to achieve marketing goals by explaining technical ideas Al Kemp Copyright 2005 Impact Technical Publications. All rights book uses the names of fictitious organizations (Acme Company, NewOffice Company), products (ElectroWork-Flow), and periodicals ( The Office Automation Report ). Any resemblance between these organizations, products, and periodicals and any real organization, product, or periodical with the same name is purely and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer, , Acrobat Reader , Adobe , Adobe Garamond , Myriad , Photoshop , and Utopia are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems, Sans is a trademark of Esselte Sans is a registered trademark of The Monotype is a registered trademark of Fundicion Tipogr fica is a registered trademark of LEGATO Systems.

2 Baskerville is a trademark of Agfa Monotype is a trademark of Linotype-Hell Micro and Trend Micro Network VirusWall are trademarks of Trend Micro other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 3 C ONTENTS Introduction 5 White - Paper Pitfalls 6 The White - Paper Development Process 6 Phase 1: Assess Needs 7 Define the Goals 7 Define the Audience 8 Analyze the Audience 9 Describe the Subject Matter 10 Develop Strategies 11 Prepare the Needs Assessment Worksheet 12 Phase 2: Plan 13 Identify Sales Processes & Related Marketing Publications 13 Choose Delivery Media 14 Identify Personnel Needs & Assemble a Team 15 Identify Reviewers 16 Choose Desktop Publishing Tools 16 Estimate Costs 16 Prepare a Schedule 18 Prepare the Project Plan 18 Phase 3: Acquire Information 19 Gather Information 19 Analyze Information 21 Phase 4: Organize Content 25 Create an Outline 25 Create a Storyboard 27 Phase 5.

3 Design the Look & Feel 31 Design with your Audience in Mind 31 Choose a Page Size 32 Choose Colors 33 Design the Basic Page Layout 33 Make Typographical Decisions 34 Specify your Design Elements 36 Design a Title Page 38 Design a Cover 38 Create a Desktop Publishing Template 38 Produce a Mock-Up 38 Phase 6: Write 39 Start with the Storyboard 39 Write Iteratively 39 Educate your Audience 40 Explain Concepts Clearly 42 Demonstrate Business Value 47 Highlight Key Points 51 Put Supplementary Material at the End 51 Summarize the Content 51 Phase 7.

4 Illustrate 53 Use the Right Resolution for your Graphics 53 Tell the Story Visually 53 Use Charts to Show Data 54 Use Diagrams To Make Comparisons without Data 57 Use Flow Charts to Show Processes 57 Use Illustrations to Explain Concepts 58 Use Interactive Graphics in Electronic Documents 58 Use Illustrations to Emphasize Major Points 59 Use Tables to Highlight Information 59 Use Sample Screens and Reports to Show Capabilities 60 Use Illustrations to Show People, Places, and Objects 60 Phase 8: Review, Revise, & Approve 61 Review the First Draft 61 Revise the First Draft 62 Prepare the Final Draft 62 Review the Final Draft 63 Revise the Final Draft 64 Test the Content 64 Obtain Legal & Financial Approval 64 Obtain Approval to Publish 64 White Paper Writing Guide 4 Phase 9: Publish 65 Generate Output for Publication 65 Check the Output 65 Save your Files 66 Final Thoughts 67 Appendix A: Five Myths about White Papers 69 1.

5 Business executives will not read a long White Paper . 692. Audiences should read the entire White Paper . 693. Never make assumptions about the audience s knowledge of subject matter. 704. To sell drills, talk about holes. 705. Everything in a White Paper must support its abstract. 70 Appendix B: Three Mistakes when Starting a White Paper 71 The History Lesson 71 The Joy of Technology Syndrome 71 The Laundry List of Problems 72 Appendix C: Seven Excellent White Papers 73 1. Introducing the Digital Negative Specification: Information for Manufacturers 732.

6 Redefining Security to Combat Today s Malware Threats 743. Radio Revolution 754. Podcasting & Vodcasting: a White Paper 765. Records Management Redefined: From The Backroom To The Boardroom 776. eXtensible Metadata Platform 787. Corporate Blogging: Is It Worth the Hype? 79 What To Do if You Can t Access an Example 80 Have I Overlooked an Excellent White Paper ? 80 Index 81 About the Author 87 5 I NTRODUCTION A White Paper is in its broadest definition adetailed and authoritative report. The traditionalgoal of a White Paper has been to educate readersabout a complicated political or scientific contrast, product brochures and other market-ing collateral persuade readers to make approach works well for commodities likefurniture, personal computers, and motor performance is warranted, and prospectivecustomers can compare products in showrooms toevaluate the capabilities that distinguish one prod-uct from another.

7 But companies selling new prod-ucts and services based on complicated advances ininformation technology are finding that traditionalmarketing collateral do not persuade prospectivecustomers to make purchases. Prospects are warythat products and services may not live up to themarketing hyperbole. A prospect may not be ableto evaluate an expensive enterprise software prod-uct before it has been purchased, customized forthe client, and put into production. Purchasingmistakes are costly and time-consuming at must be convinced that these productsand services deliver the business value that theirvendors claim in the marketing market new products and services based oncomplicated advances in information technology,companies have taken the traditional White paperand modified it to fit their needs.

8 The new breed ofwhite Paper achieves marketing goals by educatingreaders about technical subjects. It combines alarge amount of education with a smaller amountof persuasion. For example, a White Paper mayeducate its readers about technological innovationsand show how those innovations are creating amarket for new products and services. A whitepaper may explain how a new technology solvesbusiness problems, and it may demonstrate how anew product implements the technology. A whitepaper may explain how a new methodology works,and it may document cost savings at organizationsthat have adopted the the purposes of this Guide , a White Paper is anybusiness document that achieves its goals by edu-cating its readers.

9 Four common goals are: Selling a product or service Promoting a technology Funding a project Establishing a reputation for expertiseThere are many valid goals for Writing a whitepaper. Goals drive content decisions but do notdetermine whether a business document is a whitepaper. Education is the key. Elaborate product bro-chures may be called White papers, but if they per-suade without educating, they are White papers inname only. In contrast, many educational businessdocuments that meet my definition of a whitepaper have other titles: technical overview, positionpaper, case study, and so decision-makers, business analysts, andtechnical specialists increasingly rely on whitepapers for information to evaluate new technolo-gies as well as products and services based on thosetechnologies.

10 A well-written educational whitepaper exerts tremendous influence on its Guide explains how to write educational whitepapers that achieve marketing goals. Many princi-ples, tips, and techniques apply to any business-to-business communication that requires a clearexplanation of technical ideas to achieve its goals. White Paper Writing Guide 6 White - Paper Pitfalls While researching the material for this book, I readhundreds of White papers. I spent a day examiningwhite papers voted the year s best by a White -paperrepository on the Web.