How to Recycle the Heck out of Your White Paper

Posted by Alli Sisson on Jul 2, 2019 8:00:00 AM

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Fact: writing a white paper is no joke. It’s certainly one of the bigger sorts of projects a marketing team will work on and will require some serious leg work. White paper’s require hours of research, a healthy dose of timely and reliable sources, a research position and tone of voice, a dang good subject. It typically will be anywhere from 3000-5,000 well thought out words and an all-hands on deck approach from more than one of your marketing team members

With so much work going into your white paper, it would only make sense to get as much out of it as you can. For example, if you spent weeks brewing your own beer at home—tending the process, ensuring all your steps were just right, bottling and packaging—you wouldn’t drink all your product alone in one sitting (at least we hope not). You’ve worked hard for your finished product and will want to spread it around as much as possible. You’d share it with your close friends, bring it to cookouts and probably use it as the occasional gift. After all, you poured your time, energy and resources into your brew. It should be savored and shared.

Think of your white paper like a good old, made-at-home IPA. You want to spread that baby around. We’re here to help you figure out how to do just that while tailoring your messaging to target the right audience with each recycled iteration.  

Creating a Campaign Around Your White paper

For clarity’s sake, let’s invent a white paper to stretch over a campaign. We’re going to pretend you’ve written the world’s greatest white paper on “Why Email Lists are Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool.” You’re proud of the work you’ve done and couldn’t be happier with your team. And creating a full body of content is tough, and so you don’t want to waste your precious new piece. Putting it out into the ether in one big solo push is a disservice, so you decide to create an entire marketing campaign around your white paper that will blend in with your current marketing streams.

Recycling Your White paper into a Blog

Of course, one of your first moves should be to announce your white paper on your blog. You can talk about the subject matter, tease with numbers and benefits, and then link to the actual download. But there are more blogs to be written other than this original announcement. For example, you could write a blog post on an offshoot topic that still points to your white paper. If you focused on the unreliability of a social media account and what happens to businesses when their accounts get hacked or deleted, you have an opportunity to point to your white paper. Even though you’re talking about something else entirely, the solution lies within your white paper. You should be able to uncover multiple topics that point back to your white paper. Maybe you write a quick case study about how a business’ online sales changed when they sent out an exclusive promo deal to their customers via email, pointing back to your white paper for more reinforcement. This list goes on and on, friends.

Recycling Your White paper into an Email

Once again, you’ll send out an email blast about your new white paper to your entire audience. But there’s more to be done. Once you’ve written your blog posts that relate to the white paper, it’s time to email your subscribers. This is a nice way of landing in their inbox multiple times without seeming like you’re harping on your white paper until the cows come home. You can tease with tempting headlines like, “How One Company Survived Losing 300,000 Instagram Followers Overnight.” Use headlines like this to target different segments depending on their interests while pointing them back to your blog that will eventually culminate in introducing your white paper. Do the same thing with other posts with headlines like, “How a Brick and Mortar Used an Email List to Rake in $50,000 online.” Pretty interesting, eh? See how many different blog posts you can craft around your white paper, then see how many emails you can craft around each of those blogs. As you do, be sure to keep in mind the audience segments you’re targeting and tailor your message appropriately. Before you know it, you’re sitting pretty on a trove of glistening content.

Recycling Your White paper into a Social Media Post

You didn’t think we forgot about social media, did you?! We didn’t think so. Of course, with every blog, email, and interesting tidbit from your actual white paper, a social media post awaits. There is so much that can be done here. When it comes to your white paper, you can tease what you’ve been working on before the white paper is even out. You can show photos of your team members brainstorming or researching, post teasing questions like, “What’s a business to do when it loses all its followers? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Answers for your arsenal coming down the pipeline.” Once you have your actual whitepaper completed, you can post pull quotes and statistics that are found within the whitepaper itself. Once you’ve crafted blog posts that point back to your white paper, you’ve got even more social ammo. Promote your blogs via social, and always remember to include a link to whatever you’re promoting—be it your blog, a new email, or the actual white paper—in your profile or bio.

Have more ideas about how to recycle your white paper that we didn’t touch on? Tell us in the comments!

 

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Topics: Marketing Strategy, Brand Growth, Brand Evangelism, Target Marketing, Digital Strategy

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