Creating a winning white paper requires a methodical approach to gathering the information you want to convey and presenting it in an effective way to your audience. It is an essential source of content marketing, to share information on technology or business Studies show that at least 75% of B2B buyers would share their company information in exchange for a white paper.

But before that, you need to distinctly know what is a white paper.  

A white paper is an in-depth explanation or solution about a specific topic or problem. And this can be a great way for marketing your businesses to establish credibility among customers and clients. But how can you create white papers that grab people who want to read?

Read on few tips to find out how to create engaging white papers:

1. Strong reasons for writing:

Before you start to write, know why you are writing. Find some sound reasons for writing a white paper and make sure it is what you need in the first place. Ask yourself some basic questions: why are you writing a white paper?  What are your aims? Who is your target audience? How will it help with your marketing plans?
Consider some rationales for writing a white paper:

• You want to convey your idea in a particular area that’s relevant to your business.
• You want to persuade your readers or change their opinions.
• You want to provide information about business/technical propositions.
• You want to provide a solution to a problem your readers might be facing.

2. White Paper Structure

Most white papers are structured in a basic format:

Heading – A title that completely focuses on what the white paper is all about.

Executive Summary – A quick summary of what your paper is about. Make this attractive so that readers should also be interested to read the rest of the paper.

Introduction- It provides the information needed about your business, including the problem you’re addressing and how you’ll solve it.

Main Body – It is a detailed description of your research or argument. Use subheadings or bullets to make sure that the reader covers every section. You may also want to use illustrations, pie charts, or text boxes to emphasize key points and keep readers engaged.

Conclusion – A final section where you summarize the key conclusions from your white paper, also including a relevant call to action.

3. Maintain a professional tone

White papers are top-of-funnel content and are other forms of content marketing. So make sure they should sound formal. This means you should take care of a few things while writing a white paper to communicate smoothly:

• Use technical language where necessary but avoid jargon.
• Try avoiding informal terms and contractions.
• Write as concisely as possible, keeping in mind your target audience
• Sound confident. Don’t mess up everything you say.
• Avoid unnecessarily gendered or biased language.

4. Strategy before you start writing

Creating a detailed editorial plan will help you a lot with writing a white paper. An outline allows any changes to the structure and content to be made before the writing process starts. The process can also remind you of any missing content.
This overviews:

• The document’s structure.
• Key points and messages.
• Language of communication
• Target word count.

5. Create credible content 

White papers are a chance to prove the superiority of your products and services and unique offers for customers. But with all that competition in the market space, saying yourself as best is never enough as all your competitors are saying the same thing.

Hence you need to ensure you create credible content to claim about a product or service and needs to be backed up with data – either from a real customer, an analyst report, or another trusted source.

6. Keep it Concise. 

If the message that you’re trying to say isn’t clear, then your readers will not pay interest in your white paper.  And unfortunately, you won’t get the expected results.
For writing a white paper perfectly, there are several simple editorial best practices you can follow to ensure your messages come across loud and clear. These include:

• Avoid long sentences and jargon
• Use simpler words like buy and start, rather than more complex ones.
• Avoid long sentences
• Structure your document clearly, using headings and subheadings
• Ensure that each section follows logically from the previous one.
• Use bold texts or bullets to highlight key points.

7. Set your target audience

Tailor your white paper to your audience and deliver information that they want to know. That means you need to understand your audience’s demands, and then set your paper accordingly to solve one or more of their problems.

8. Designing the paper. 

A boring design of your white paper can be rejected by your readers. Use good templates or signposting throughout your white paper and break the text up with box-outs, sidebars, etc. Photographs can also make your white paper look attractive.

9. Promote your paper

Creating your white paper is only half of the work. Promoting it is the real challenge. You might spend a lot of time creating your white paper, but if you don’t know the right strategies for promoting it, then it will be buried deep within your website. Nobody will get to know it. There are many ways of promoting your white paper. This includes:

• Create a high-conversion landing page.
• Run Google Ad Words campaigns.
• Place ads on your website.
• Promote your white paper on social networks.
• Share an article based on your white paper on

10. Proofread. 

Final and the most important part of writing, is proofreading. It will be a complete turnoff by the readers if they find a single mistake in the white paper.  Give a final read to your white paper, or use tools like ‘Grammarly to make it typos or error-free. But giving it a professional touch-up would be better.