Executive Blog

What are white papers?

In conducting more research in how exactly I am going to market my business, I stumbled onto the concept of white papers. White papers are essentially a marketing piece that is informationally loaded and solution-based. Companies such as Microsoft and IBM regularly use whitepapers.

Whitepapers have an interesting history. They orginally applied to government produced pamphlets that were quickly bound with paper and released rather than bound with a hard spine. The term also became more popular after Winston Churchill's whitepaper in 1922 on the conflict in Palestine.

Today, whitepapers are popular in commercial circles. In particular, they good for companies with complex and/or cutting edge services or products. They especially appropriate, indeed I say necessary, for any company using IT (internet techonology) in a B2B settings. They are an instant credibility builder for these types of companies. Because they are solution based, prospects will want to know ultimately how your product or service will help to do business better and faster. Outside of B2B circles, whitepapers are less appropriate because they are by nature nonemotionally appealing.

Michael Stelzner is an authority on whitepapers if you ever want anymore information.
This is an example white paper by the Sun Developer Network: Java Performance.

posted by Michael Anders @ Monday, August 14, 2006