The white paper, an in-depth report that typically runs from 8 – 12 pages, has become an increasingly popular B2B marketing communications tool. Consider its versatility: it makes a great offer for generating qualified leads; it can be a tool for attracting favorable media attention; and it fortifies your website with quality content.

A step-by-step approach white papers can take a book (and already has), but here a few tips that’ll give you 90% of what you really need to know.

First, identify the hot buttons.Successful white papers can embrace a wide variety of topics including market trends, emerging technologies, new business processes and market analysis. The best topics, however, are not necessarily what you want to write about, but what your audience is drawn to read. Typically, that means pressing a hot button – speaking to an issue that raises hopes, fears, alarm, dread, desire, ambition, etc. The best topics combine a desire for gain with competitive fear, i.e., “Profitable Warehouses: How Leading Manufacturers Manipulate Inventories for Market Advantages.”

Don’t lead with your methodology.Yes, the way you gathered your information (and are able to substantiate it) may be important. But it’s not engaging – and it certainly doesn’t give anyone a reason to read. Put the methodology in an appendix or, if it’s crucial the subject (such as in a white paper based on market surveys) let it follow the introduction or executive summary.

Answer, “Why this paper?”The two most important parts of the paper are the opening and the conclusion. The opening establishes the context – why is this particular subject worth reading about? The key is to link the topic to potential gains and losses that mean something to your reader. For example: “Inventory control may seem one of the more mundane aspects of daily operations. But according to the Institute for Advanced Gadgets, excess inventory represents the single biggest tax liability faced by widget manufacturers today. More importantly, savvy inventory managers gain market momentum – our research shows a 12% - 27% speed-to-market advantage for successful inventory managers.”

Summarize the important points up front.Don’t make the reader hunt for your main points. Just as Broadway composers introduce their major melodies in the opening overture, you want to introduce your top three to five points (keep ‘em limited to a handful) right in the beginning. The truth is, many of readers won’t read further. But if you’ve stated your case up front, you’ve done your job anyway.

Build your bodies with statistics and direct quotes.The body of the white paper develops the themes you established in the introduction. Your job is to descend from the high-level themes in your introduction to the down and dirty proof that earns reader respect. Back up your assertions with real numbers (when possible), vivid anecdotes of real-life events, and direct quotes from participants and/or interview/survey subjects.

Tie it back to the reader.Blame it on every teacher we’ve had since elementary school – we’ve been told to restate our main points in the conclusion. Or, in other words, to credit our readers without enough intelligence to retain the points from the introduction and the body. Try a better idea: link your main points directly to your readers’ concerns. Make it easy -- create a checklist of all the issues discussed in the white paper and invite readers to mark corresponding “yes,” “no,” “planning to,” “never will,” etc. boxes alongside them.

For example:

[ ] Yes [ ] No We barcode all inventory[ ] Yes [ ] No Our inventory database is searchable by multiple parameters[ ] Yes [ ] No We review our inventory stats on a regular basis.

And so on. Then conclude with an invitation to discuss the results – or any questions and issues raised by the white paper – with one of your representatives. Simple, right? But a very effective way of getting readers to bring the subject matter into their own worlds – then bring you into theirs as well.