White papers are in-depth reports that promote information, a technique or best practice, a product or service as a solution for the reader. Some communications professionals argue about whether or not they should be considered marketing collateral or supplements to marketing collateral, but generally, everyone agrees that the white paper should be used as a “soft sell” rather than a blatant promotion.
ICO Whitepaper drafting
White papers are supposed to be completely centered around the Investor especially when you’re dealing with ICO Whitepaper drafting. Ideally, it is supposed to be a perfect blend of technicalities and diplomatic marketing points.
Here is a list of some quick key points which need to be taken care of before you take the first step:
1. Market Viability
The initial step in drafting a white paper includes understanding the problem statement. Most organizations fail to prove the market viability of their product or service when it comes to showcasing it to investors. You need to understand whether your offering is a product-market fit or not. Another important aspect is questioning yourself whether it’s the perfect time to get into the market and analyzing the goals/requirements of the organization demanding the white paper.
Below are some of the most common goals:
- Lead generation.
- Providing support for sales teams in the intermediate and later stages of the sales cycle.
- Making readers aware of a new and/or best practice or a product offering.
- Providing information or tips for positioning the organization as an expert or desirable resource.
- Elaborating on the unique selling proposition (USP) of an organization, product or service.
2. Target audience identification:
The second most important step includes identifying your target audience. Market segmentation and segregation along with personalized strategy formation play a key role in driving fruitful results. Trying to address the audiences haphazardly won’t have any real impact and will turn out to be a mere waste of time and resources. The more you narrow down our list according to our strategy, the better the chances of conversion.
3. Deep-rooted research :
When it comes to the pre-requisites to ICO Whitepaper drafting or publication, Market Research plays the most crucial role. Since a white paper provides an in-depth exploration of a topic, it should showcase the expertise of the organization backed by research. It can include competitor data, current market analysis, survey data or past-paper reviews. This research data can be from various data analytic tools or hire someone to gather data manually depending upon the requirements.
4. Focus group formations:
Whenever you create a service or a product your emotions or likings might drive you in developing that amenity according to your interests. But it is likely to mislead us from our goals. It’s never about what we need, rather it’s about what the customer needs. So the best practice to address this issue is to get in touch with your actual customer by forming focus groups. Conducting focus group interviews would help us in getting real-time and genuine reviews about our offering. Moreover, here you get the opportunity to interact with your end-consumer face-to-face which is undoubtedly the best approach to develop a feedback-based process mechanism.
5. Outline Development:
This is a mandatory step. It’s relatively much easier to do the modifications at this point if necessary. Following an agile development process is always appreciated but even for that, you need to have a strong foundation for that. Sketching the basic layout in a streamlined way would give you a head start in the whole white paper drafting process.
6. Preliminary Drafting:
Since you’re competing for readers’ time, you need to grab attention beginning with the executive summary. So, jump right into creating dramatic tension by directly addressing readers’ problems, concerns, or frustrations. Next, promise a solution in the summary but don’t include the actual solution — you want them to keep reading. Always keep in mind that the white paper is a report rather than a marketing brochure, so focus on providing useful, objective information.
7. Interactive UI designing:
The main goal of writing a white paper is to make it people and investors read it. In order to achieve it, the use of illustrations is a must. Complementing your data with pie charts, bar graphs and attractive graphics would automatically make it much more user-friendly and readable. But one thing that needs to be ensured by the drafter is that the color scheme and the font-size used must have no extraneous visual “clutter”.
8. Editing and Approvals
White papers typically go through more than one round of editing and approvals. Some people opt to hire professional editors, but the task can be done in-house. In the latter case, make time to lay the copy aside for a few hours or days so that you can look at it with a fresh perspective.
9. Market Launch
Once the paper is drafted, then comes the most cumbersome step-“Marketing”. Now is the time to make your targeted customers aware of the hard work you have done. Now you need to prepare a list of marketing channels or mediums where you can receive the required traction. Make sure there is an official announcement like Facebook, Instagram, etc. letter on your website as well as all the social media handles. Along with that, the use of proper analytic tools to monitor your status. However, it’s good to avoid a promotional tone and approach it from the angle of sharing useful information.
Once you’ve created the paper, you need to make your targeted readers aware of it. It’s a good idea to place it on your website, but you’ll still have to draw their attention to it. On the other hand, you may have designed the white paper for your sales team to use a leave-behind or to distribute at trade shows.
For many, the process of ICO Whitepaper drafting appears to be rocket science. But with these quick tips and tricks, this process is no more a nightmare. White papers are great tools for generating credibility. Customers respond better to informative write-ups than they do to blatant ads. The trick is to make sure your white paper is organized and well thought out so that you will create a natural and genuine interest in your services.
Idea Usher is one of the best web and app development company based in India. With years of collective experience, we have designed and developed apps for almost all kinds of businesses. Contact us with your idea and requirements and we will guide you through it.