Why is length an issue?

I don’t think the move to shorter white papers is driven entirely by the change in audience, although I’m sure that’s at least part of the reason. It’s assumed that busy business executives won’t take the time to read long papers, whereas ‘techie’ folks will. But mainly I think it’s because there’s so much information out there that everyone is trying to minimise the amount of time they ask others to invest in obtaining information from them.

This is a good instinct. There’s no reason for white papers to be an exception to the general rule of being as concise as possible. But the ‘as possible’ is important. It doesn’t mean: ‘achieve conciseness at the expense of every other consideration’. It means: ‘be as concise as you can while still fulfilling the purpose of the piece and meeting the expectations of the intended audience.’ Being concise at the expense of clarity is never a good idea. Nor is it a good idea to be concise if your audience’s expectation is for the opposite.

Be honest with your audience

When it comes to white papers, there are certain expectations. A white paper is not a blog entry, article or a sales brochure. If somebody has chosen to read something called a ‘white paper’ it’s fair to assume that they’re looking for something with a fair amount of depth or analysis. If it’s only 2 or 4 pages they may feel cheated; it’s unlikely that you can cover a topic in any sort of depth in that space, even if you cram every page with copy (which may put people off reading).

More than one survey of B2B audiences suggests that 6-8 pages is about right. Of course it’s perfectly possible to provide insight or show original thinking in 2 or 4 pages. Even a short blog entry can be full of insight and originality. If you’ve got something short, sharp and perceptive to say, by all means offer it to the world. Just don’t call it a white paper. Call it an article or an executive brief; or you might create a series of such publications called ‘perspectives from [your company]’ or similar.

What if you’ve got more to say?

If you need much more than 8 pages to cover what you want to say, consider splitting the paper in two. People will certainly read longer papers if the content is worthwhile and well-written, but if you can split your topic into two you avoid putting off those who won’t even start on a long paper; and you have the additional bonus of being able to market two papers instead of one.

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Inevitably the visual focus of a webinar becomes the slides. But, just as with a face-to-face presentation, the audience really doesn’t want to sit and listen to the presenter read a set of slides. If that’s what you expect them to do, don’t be surprised if they simply do something else or leave.

In fact, reading any kind of script can be a turnoff if it’s clear to the audience that that’s what the presenter is doing. When the presenter can’t be seen, the quality of their spoken delivery is critical: the audience needs to feel that the speaker is opening a conversation with them, not reading aloud to what could just as easily be an empty room.

Keep the focus on the screen

As well as working on the tone and rhythm of the delivery, here are our top tips for keeping an online, invisible audience attentive:

• • With the slides as the only visual focus, make them visually interesting. Even more so than in face-to-face presentations, images are a good idea. Only a visually and emotionally engaged audience will avoid multitasking during a webinar.

• • Use more slides. In a face-to-face presentation you don’t want constant slide movement to distract the audience’s attention from the speaker. But in a webinar you should keep the visual pace moving briskly along: using slide builds, meaningful animations, highlights, or a new slide every 30 seconds on average to keep the audience engaged.

• • Regularly break up the presentation (and the visual movement) with planned audience interactions using web tools such as an instant poll, or a hands-up indicator for a show of hands, or use of the virtual whiteboard.

• • Include one or more Q&A sessions. Use the invisibility of the audience to your advantage: prepare some stimulating ‘questions from the audience’ in advance and use them if nobody actually asks any.

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“What’s in it for me?”

Standard invitations

If your presentation or webinar is a standalone event, your invitation must convince recipients to give up their time (and possibly money) to attend. The commitment you’re asking for is greater for a face-to-face presentation. So, depending on the nature of the event, the invitation might call for higher production values, or a noticeable level of personalisation, or conspicuous reference to the main drawcard for the event.

But generally the same basic rules apply to invitations whether the event is in person or online; and whether the invitation is printed and posted, sent as an email, or sent as an attachment to an email:

• Keep it as short as is practical
• Show a clear understanding of the problems or questions that the target audience is actively looking for answers to
• Clearly communicate that your presentation is going to address these issues
• Include some key takeaways
• Mention the speaker to personalise the event
• Make it easy to identify when and where the event is
• Make it easy to register and find out more

Presentation abstracts

If your presentation is part of a larger event, your ‘invitation’ to the target audience is probably a short description or abstract in a programme of events. Your job is to make this presentation stand out from the others that are on at the same time; and you may have as few as 50 words to do so. Don’t waste them.

Consider the audience and why they’re at the event. If everyone is there for broadly the same reasons, think about leaving out the traditional statement of their challenges and cut straight to the takeaways of your presentation. Also focus on what you hope will make your presentation stand out: will you be covering lots of case studies; or is your speaker the world’s recognised expert; or do you have something surprising or controversial to say?

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In the midst of this dynamic, hyper-competitive global economy, understanding and addressing the ever-evolving needs and requirements of every customer is increasingly more complex yet essential. In response, a complete shift is happening in the way marketers are pursuing buyers and consumers, as well as addressing the needs of the sales channels. These realities provide immense challenges and opportunities for marketers.

Did you make it all the way to the end? If you were the recipient, would you continue reading?

To be fair, it wasn’t long ago that the trend was predominantly for a style of copy only slightly toned down from this example. We weren’t allowed to address ‘the business audience’ as if they were normal people who might appreciate plain speaking. There was a whole other language to use, ‘business language’; and it was unengaging, passive and wordy. Why say ‘in’ when you can say ‘in the midst of’? Why be satisfied with addressing customer needs if you can address both their needs and their requirements? Oh wait, not just address, but understand also. And we’re still in the first sentence!

The tendency to produce over-complex and verbose copy came, we think, from the belief that wordiness conveys seriousness and authority; and that adding adjectives makes copy more powerful. Neither of these beliefs has ever been true.

But things have changed. While each brand is doing it slightly differently, our clients are asking us for a much more relaxed style. They want copy that talks directly to their audience without fuss or embellishment. Have we writers finally managed to convince everyone that its possible to be both authoritative and concise? And that all those adjectives dilute the message?

Possibly; but I think the change really stems from accepting that people don’t expect, or want, to be addressed in a radically different way when they walk into work. It may never be appropriate to address the CIO or IT manager of a target company as if they’re your mate; but (in the UK and US at least) it’s become acceptable to address them as real human beings. That’s a trend we can only encourage.

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Tender responses are usually hefty, detailed, written in legalese and, well, a bit bland. There are good reasons for all of this but it does handicap the ‘selling’ purpose of the document; and what is a bid if not the ultimate opportunity to sell your product or service?

With this particular bid, our client had no choice over the format of their formal response; the tender was issued as a series of questions that had to be answered online and delivered as printouts in a certain way. But the rules did allow for respondents to attach supporting material.

So the client turned to us: could we help them create a good-quality standalone brochure that would really sell their proposed solution to an executive audience?

They recognised that, while their online responses would be pored over by those charged with assessing the proposal in detail, this was not the best way to reach or convince many of the relevant decision-makers. They wanted to explain the proposed solution in clear and compelling language to a non-technical, time-poor audience.

The result is an executive overview that illustrates the solution’s benefits over alternatives, answers likely questions and combats likely objections; without making the audience wade through extraneous detail or ‘hygiene’ factors.

We were really impressed with the way our client recognised, and grabbed, the opportunity to do something different. Bid responses are important and there’s a natural tendency to ‘play it safe’, but there’s still room to innovate. We expect that this approach will help them to stand out against their competitors and improve their chances of winning this prestigious and sizeable deal.

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