White Papers – Part 1 – How to Write White Papers For Your Business – Sewing Machines Los Angeles

White papers mean many things to many people, but what they are truly matters. For example, they should not be huge documents which resemble your company’s product catalog, not even a particular product brochure. If it is similar in size to a doctoral thesis it is too long, boring and no one will ever read it. The white paper also should not be a sales pitch for your product or products.

What a white paper should be is a short one or two page document which provides your potential customer information on the way to solve a problem he has. It should be informational, interesting and provide a solution for the problem that led the potential customer to find you in the first place.

For example, if you sell leather punches you should provide information about making holes in leather, not about the leather punch itself. After all, no one who bought a leather punch wanted a leather punch, they wanted a hole.

Furthermore, they may want a particular kind of hole. After all leather comes in different thicknesses, it can be very hard, stiff or soft, it could be faux-leather, it could be tough heavy duty cowhide. What the customer wants is a hole in a particular kind of leather.

Why is it better to write a white paper about solving a problem than selling a product? The most common time a customer wants to buy a product is when they need to solve a problem. The other day I was at my son’s home, and while I was waiting for him to arrive I took a gander at his toolbox. Now, this toolbox has about ten drawers (it is a large toolbox) and so I began to pull open each drawer to see what was there.

Much to my surprise there was at least one tape measure, and sometimes two or three, in almost every drawer! For the life of me I couldn’t understand why he needed so many tape measures! My son explained that the tape measures break, and when he is out shopping instead of having a list of what he needs he simply tries to remember what he needs. He remembers he broke a tape measure, forgot about the ones in the other drawers, and buys yet another tape measure! Why did he buy another tape measure?

This story demonstrates my point – buying another tape measure occurs because he is trying to solve a problem! So, when you write a white paper you should write about solving a problem, not a description about what you want to sell to solve that problem!

When you advertise problem solving information like this you will get the kind of response you need, and at the same time build your reputation as a source of quality information instead of being “just another peddler.” Done right, you also gain permission from potential customers to communicate with them in the future.