How Whitepaper Marketing can do wonders for SaaS startups

In most industries today, launching a case study, eBook, or even a whitepaper is a go-to tactic for driving results in marketing. Rightly so, the very nature of this form of marketing where we push exclusive and premium content, is known to have worked well more often than not. 

Take any Big three consulting firms, or any other premium B2B companies such as Accenture or Deloitte, they have always done this in the form of industry reports. Today, as the tools for designing, compiling, and launching a whitepaper have become really common – startups across the spectrum can leverage the power of whitepaper marketing. 

In this post, I am going to discuss the potential of whitepaper marketing for SaaS startups, along with various tactics that you can use to craft a winning strategy for generating leads with in-depth whitepapers. 

Need for promoting a whitepaper (And having one!)

Lets face it, creating a whitepaper is only half the job done – more like getting your plane to the runway. You need well-crafted marketing and promoting strategies to really take off.   

Having a whitepaper on any given topic shows authority and credibility for a company. Now, you can wonder how using whitepaper itself as a marketing tool can accelerate the relationship building phase for you. Not only this, it adds another dimension to the kind of people you will be reaching. To discuss many other benefits of whitepaper marketing, let’s move ahead:

Driving Lead-Generation to the sky. 

By putting a well-crafted whitepaper in place, you can generate leads if you are able to crack whitepaper marketing. Once you are able to get yourself in front of the decision makers with proper credibility, it takes really less to close them if you got the product that they need. 

The key here would be to identify the right marketing tools and then using those to target your audience. Before you go ahead and try to figure out the marketing strategy though, you must first understand the nitty gritty of crafting the perfect whitepaper. 

First off, you must identify the problem statement that your whitepaper would try and simplify. Following this, you need to explain your solution in a very coherent manner. While you are at it, the most important thing to do is fit in your product and pitch how it solves the problem you identified in your first step. 

Once you are done with this, the most important job is to convey the product details and demonstrate product suitability for the problem that you claim to be solving. 

Bulk-up your e-mailing lists

E-mail list is an important marketing asset for any SaaS startup in today’s world. Quite obviously, the best marketing teams tend to emphasise a lot on this. With a well-written whitepaper, you can set up a landing page and use it to increase the size of your e-mailing list. To do this, you can prop your whitepaper as a free gift/subscription hook that is meant to make people let you inside their inbox. 

Good for the Brand. Good for Sales

If you have spent enough time marketing products in the digital world, you would understand that there are no bounds to good content. If you put in the effort and end up creating really useful whitepaper, it can end up in front of people that even the best algorithms can predict. Such is the power of great content. 

Instead of running blatantly after leads or sales, focus just on building a really useful whitepaper that can enlighten the readers. This will help you position your company as a really amazing brand. Come to think of it, this will be a bigger boost to your sales than anything else. 

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Taking the next step in Whitepaper Marketing

If you found the earlier part of this post boring, its because it was boring. The part that follows is what makes this post really useful. Now, we will discuss the steps that will help you stand apart from the rest when it comes to whitepaper marketing. So, without any further ado, let’s get started: 

  • Share with industry leaders. Ask for reviews.

Yes, you heard me. This is a really unique way to get attention from the key industry leaders. Creating an in-depth and comprehensive whitepaper on any given topic is not something that people do in their sleep. It takes effort. Since you have created one, you can definitely share it with key industry-leaders and ask them for a review. It does not have to be something that goes on social media on your site, just a suggestion at personal level would do. 

What this does for you is to get you the attention of really important people who would not discover your whitepaper (let alone your website) if you are at an early stage SaaS startup. Use this to build a rapport. It does not have to be transactional just yet, getting noticed by a potential client is a big enough win. 

  • Use Guest Posts as an exercise for spreading awareness

You have written the whitepaper, you have made it live on the website. Now the hustle for promotion begins. One very unique and productive way to do so is by offering guest posts on authoritative publications. By doing this, you can even score really good link-juice for your website. Secondly, you will be able to offer a really compelling and engageable Call-to-Action with your guest post. It is a win for you at multiple levels. 

So, this was our step by step guide on how you can take off your whitepaper marketing from the runway. Doesn’t matter how you choose to promote it, because of the fact that so few people are doing whitepaper marketing properly – it would not be a swim against the tides. If you happen to try some of the tips that we shared, feel free to share your experience. In case you are someone who has already tried whitepaper marketing and know some amazing pointers that should be in this post, again – feel free to share in the comment box!

 

Mayank Gulati – Unhappy with the concept of 5 working days a week, Mayank Gulati started his own Marketing Communications firm. He now works 7 days a week, where he wears many, many hats (and a neck brace). An unfortunate engineer, he founded a med-tech startup that was inducted into Nasscom 10k. He’s now decided to stop asking people to invest in his company, and get them to invest in their own – through better marketing and design.

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