Your white paper is written, edited and designed to perfection. So now what? You have to put together a plan to promote your content and get it in front of the right audience. We’re going to walk you through how to promote a white paper, connect with your audience, and start generating leads.

Create a Landing Page

Now that you have a valuable resource available for you potential customers, you’ll want to ask them for some information in return for the white paper. That’s where a landing page with a form fill comes into play. When creating a landing page, there are a few key components to take into consideration:

• Your landing page should not have your navigation bar (keep your reader focused on the offer at hand).
• Keep your landing page copy short & sweet. But provide them with enough information that they want to fill out the form.
• Make sure your headline explains exactly what you want the reader to do “Download” “Watch”.
• Encourage your readers to fill out the form to get the download.
• Include an image that is representative of the offer

Here are some additional tips to create a landing page that converts well.  Once you have the basic copy completed for the landing page, you will want to have a clear and concise form fill for your potential customers to enter their information. Pending on the offer that you are providing you can ask an assortment of questions. For example, their name, email, business name, website, industry, goals, etc… It will vary per campaign, but at the least you should get their name and email – so that you can start the lead nurturing process.

Promotional Email

You may already have a following, people who are interested in learning more about what you have to offer – so why shouldn’t they learn about the new white paper that you have created. Create a promotional email to promote your white paper. Present the content to your followers with a quick, short introduction about what they’ll learn by downloading the white paper. Make your call-to-action very clear. You are going to send them to the landing page to fill out the form and gather a little more information about them. Make the email enticing so that they have to click and find out more. This is a great way to stay connected with your current audience; it keeps the conversation going and shows that you are still available to help provide them with information.

If you do not have an existing email list, then one option would be to partner with a publisher that can help with a co-branded e-book. Take your white paper and partner with a publisher who has a vast subscriber list and have them send out your content via their database. Now, you are reaching an entirely new pool of potential customers and partnering with a viable publisher. Partnerships usually come with a price, be it actual money or the request to  add to your content, but the overall return on the investment could be great!

Social Promotion

If you build a white paper, your audience doesn’t just come to it. It’s not a Field of Dreams situation. You need to promote the white paper and get it in front of the right people, so they do see it and they do come. One great way to do so is to promote your white paper via social media. Whatever channel(s) you are present on, develop a strategy to continuously share it. We often use this style of posting, to make the most out of our content. By posting at different frequencies, you’re keeping the white paper fresh but you’re not bombarding your audience with the same message over and over again.

You can turn your white paper into some creative micro-content to tease your audience with the content and encourage them to go to your landing page, like this example below:

In addition, you can run social ads to help generate more awareness for your white paper. With social ads, you have the chance to target specific audiences and really hone in on who you want to see this white paper. There are so many options when it comes to social promotions, you can use this blog to help you. Ask yourself:

• Who is interested in this content
• What social platforms is my target audience on
• What form of ads will entice them
• What is my goal (in this case, it should be to drive to the landing page)

Once you have answered all of those questions, you may decide that a website clicks ad from Facebook is best, or a sponsored update on LinkedIn will work best for you audience. There are a lot of options, so it’s best to have your strategy and budget outlined prior to launching the white paper.

Create Additional Content

Your white paper is chock full of information! But, some people may be hesitant to fill out a form without knowing more about what they’re going to get in the white paper. One great way to tease that information is to write a blog post (much like this one) and fill it with great information that can also be found in the white paper. Basically, take one small section of your white paper and then expand upon it in a blog post. For example, the topic – promoting your white paper is just one small section of our larger resource “9 Steps to Creating an Engaging White Paper” and with this blog post, we have provided you with additional steps to creating a successful white paper. So, now that you already have the attention of your target audience, keep giving them great information (make yourself invaluable) and then right at the end of the post, include an eye-catching call-to-action that encourages your audience once more to go to the landing page and fill out that form.

Hint: The call-to-action at the bottom of this blog takes you to a really great resource about how to write a white paper. I may be biased, but it’s pretty useful.  So take a few seconds and check it out!

You have probably spent a lot of time working on this white paper, creating draft after draft and then fine-tuning it to perfection. So, of course you’re going to want to promote it and get it in front of the right people. Use the examples above as a foundation for your strategy and remember, ever piece of content deserves just as much time promoting it as you spent creating it!