White papers are a fabulous marketing tool for many businesses. They offer a vehicle through which you can concisely convey complex information. The problem is once written, emailed out, and posted in your online library; they tend to be forgotten.
That’s such a shame. Every white paper contains information that needs to be seen, so what can you do to extend their shelf life?
Making the most of your white papers
One way to extend their life is to serialise them.
This is something I’ve done for a number of my clients.
Every business needs a constant stream of high-quality content to feed their website. The problem is coming up with a flood of ideas (plus having the time to write them up). That’s where I come in.
As I’ve already said, your white papers hold a vast amount of information that your audience wants to know about. The problem is, they may not have the time to wade through your long copy.
However, if that information from your white papers were serialised into several blogs/articles, it would help you:
- Maintain a constant stream of high-quality content on your blog
- Provide your audience with bite-sized chunks of information that is easily absorbed
- Reuse content that would otherwise have been forgotten about
Of course, I’m not talking about a simple cut and paste job. The process is a bit more involved than that.
How to convert white papers to blogs
The first thing to do is read through the white paper and mark up where the natural breaks are. The documents would have been initially written with subheadings signifying specific topics. These breaks could be used to mark each topic for your new blogs.
The information should be rewritten in a style that is suitable for your blog and updated through independent research. They could also be enhanced by conducting interviews with your subject matter experts to get an up to date take on the information.
If you stick to about 600 words per blog, you’ll be about right in terms of attention spell for your new audience.
Just think about how much easier your life would be if you had this going on in the background? No more breaks in content flow because you’ve run out of ideas or because your subject matter experts don’t have the time to write an article for you this month.
By working with a professional copywriter, you will have access to a constant stream of high-quality articles that will feed your blog, satisfying your readers and stakeholders.
Don’t let your past marketing efforts go to waste. Dig out your old white papers and start serialising them – it is smart marketing.
If this sounds like the thing you should be doing, call Sally Ormond, Briar Copywriting, on +44(0)1449 779605 and find out how she can keep your content stream flowing.