Common B2B Whitepaper Mistakes Made by Content Marketers
B2B buyers are different from B2C consumers. The former make informed decisions using available information. Therefore, B2B marketers organize white pages to showcase their brand sales.
The sad part of the story is that most white papers have boring content that the reader doesn’t like. As you aim to curate informative and engaging whitepapers and attract potential customers, we’ll share some tips in the next section of the article that will help you. B2B buyers, especially tech buyers, rely on white papers for detailed information when making purchasing decisions.
White papers are essential in B2B and the only catch here is that they need to be done well with a plan and purpose in place. Once you reach this goal, they will provide ongoing support for your products and services.
We see hundreds of half-made white papers that don’t achieve their purpose. As a result, they fail to attract high-quality leads.
When writing whitepapers, B2B content marketers should avoid the following typical mistakes:
1. Not matching the whitepaper to the buyer’s journey of your prospect
Only when your whitepaper is relevant to your customers’ journeys will they be interested in reading it. Therefore, you must consider a prospect’s buying process when writing a whitepaper.
To write a successful whitepaper:
- You must be clear about the issues, objectives, and requirements of your audience.
In a sales cycle, - you need to be aware of every phase of the buyer’s journey.
- Accordingly, the material must be tailored to early-stage leads or later-stage leads.
2. Not generating interest in your primary brand’s themes and topics
If a piece of information is not fascinating, why would someone read it?
Well, selecting an intriguing topic is one of the trickiest aspects of writing a whitepaper. Here are some suggestions from our end as you struggle to select one for your whitepaper:
- Pick a subject that speaks to the issues your audience is facing.
- Create your topic around a trend you discover by researching popular articles and posts that members of your audience have enjoyed and shared.
- Consider addressing your audience’s top problems.
- Pick a subject that could have a significant impact in the future.
3. Your tone of voice is inappropriate
You are attempting to engage your audience with the aid of your whitepaper. Therefore, avoid trying to sound robotic. It’s not advisable to use an overtly corporate tone while writing whitepapers. In the end, you are still working with people.
Request that your writing team read the whitepaper aloud so they can fill in the gaps.
4. Failure to include expert quotes and interviews
Many content marketers forget to include quotes from subject matter experts. The success of your whitepaper can be greatly influenced by the quotes, statistics, and data you use. Your idea will be supported in front of your reader by using quotes and statistics in your whitepaper.
People will instantly believe your content if you provide them with such specific details, which will increase your white paper’s credibility.
5. Paying attention to the past rather than the future
The brands’ habit of bragging about how they succeeded is a prevalent error we see in many whitepapers. They attempt to overemphasize their past, and after a while, readers lose interest.
Most of the time, content marketers ignore the obvious reality that a brand-devoted customer has been using the product for a while. We need to demonstrate to them the bright future of the brand rather than spending too much time talking about the past.
6. Not emphasizing the product’s USP enough
Content creators are consistently under pressure from top management not to divulge any kind of trade secrets. Because of this, the authors of the white paper avoid discussing even the USPs of the good or service.
More harm than good will result from hoarding the USPs. Inform individuals of what you are giving, why you are delivering it, and how you differ from other market competitors.
Start improvising right away…
In the early days of content marketing, any idea you could implement was fine. However, this is no longer true. Everyone does content marketing, and as the competition gets tougher, the underdogs will soon sink to the bottom. If you want your long-form content, such as a white paper, to be successful, you need to come up with the most promising, authentic, and relevant ideas.
