White Papers and Email Marketing: How To Fail Miserably

From the desk of Roy Furr, Wednesday, 5:31 am

I got an email this morning with a subject line that said:

Receive a free white paper if you act by March 31st!

DELETE!

Failure. Failure to connect. Failure to inform. Failure to sell. Wasted investment of time and energy and probably money.

And another marketer left scratching their heads saying…

“I used the word free, how come it didn’t work?”

As my reader, I’m sure you’re smart enough to spot the error in that subject line, and certainly would do better yourself. But just in case you haven’t had your morning cup of coffee, I’ll take a moment to explain… and then tell you how I’d do it differently.

Wait…

So as I’m writing this I go back to my trash basket to pull out the offending email.

And…

It turns out it’s not trying to get me to download a white paper at all. Bigger fail! It’s for a service provider who among other services will write white papers for me.

Here’s why this is a great big failure. I thought — from the moment I read the subject line — that this was an email trying to get me to download and read a white paper.

My original complaint was…

… that I had no clue what the white paper was about…

… had no clue how reading this white paper would benefit me…

… and no clue why the heck I should waste my time even opening the email to find out what they had for me if they wouldn’t tell me up front!

Still all completely relevant feedback… if the email is selling a white paper download. However, now that I know the email is selling something different…

Back to the actual content of their email…

Here’s the real offer (rephrased to protect the still-guilty — I’ll explain in a minute):

We’re a great company with a new lead nurturing program. Give us a lot of money and we’ll put all this together for you:

• eBook on a topic you choose
• Syndication and promotion of eBook and weekly leads report
• 3 custom white papers to compliment eBook and sell product
• Minimum lead guarantee

… And if you act now, receive a fourth white paper at no charge (which they waited until the end of the email to explain). Call me for more information at…

As an aside — a couple of my colleagues and I joke around hard… I mean wit-and-sarcasm-that-hurts-more-than-a-gut-shot hard… and because of some of the blows I’ve been able to land they joke that I should own the website IBelittleYou.com. If I did this post would be on there. But truly, I break this email down in order to teach, not to insult. I’m sure the person who wrote the email is an incredibly intelligent person who regularly gets results from their marketing — I’m just trying to provide insight into how I would get more and bigger results using the same offer. I mean this analysis in the most productive, least destructive way and hope it is taken as such.

Back to the assault…

So I have three major complaints with this email — and can offer three major revisions that I believe would drastically improve results.

My complaints:

1. The subject line is not clear enough. I assumed they wanted me to act now to download a white paper, instead of having them write for me. That’s the writer’s fault, not mine.
2. The subject line is not paid off until the end of the email. As soon as I open an email I should be reassured that what was promised in the subject line is covered right away, or at least will be if I read the entire email.
3. They’re not drinking their own Kool-Aid. There’s no reason to respond now unless I want to move forward with what I perceive to be a rather expensive service. What about offering a white paper?

My revisions explained:

1. Make it clear in the subject line that “We want to write a white paper for you.”
2. Pay off the subject line up front, stack the benefits, and lead into the description of the offer.
3. Offer a free white paper to interested parties. Why not offer a white paper on white paper best practices (so existential!) to anyone who responds for more information about the offer.

With those recommendations, do you want to give it a try and see how your email comes out?

I have, and here’s my email (admittedly my first-draft):

(Before we get started I’ll point out — I wrote 2 headlines for split testing purposes. Test one to 200, test another to 200, and if there’s a clear winner roll that one out. If there’s no clear winner I’d either test again to an additional 200 each or go with the safe, offer-related, non-”creative” headline.)

SUBJECT: Would you let my experts write a Free White Paper for you?
SUBJECT: How Lack-Of-Information-Itis is killing your sales

BODY:

Dear Roy,

I’d like to have one of my IT experts write a free white paper for you. But first, I have to let you in on a disturbing trend.

Let me explain. There’s a real problem sweeping through the IT industry. I call it “Lack-Of-Information-Itis.” It’s a condition that happens when a buyer thinks they want your solution… but doesn’t have quite enough information to make the purchase.

The tragedy is how quickly this disease is killing sales — even though it’s completely preventable.

Luckily, there’s a simple cure and it will take you almost no effort to implement. In fact, our new Lead Nurturing Program annihilates Lack-Of-Information-Itis at the source. It presents customers that are ready to buy to your sales team on a silver platter. And it saves them days of time and effort because the buyers we bring you are already fully educated as to how your specific solution will benefit them.

This leads to more sales, and also happier customers who are easier to support because they understand what they’re buying before they get it.

Here’s what we do for you:

• Our team of experts will write an eBook on a relevant topic to your customer base, to attract interest of qualified prospects.
• We’ll manage the syndication and promotion of your eBook across our network of sites to actually do the work of bringing qualified prospects into the fold. When prospects download the eBook we’ll collect their information and send it to you while they’re still hot.
• Normally my experts also write 3 custom White Papers to supplement the eBook and teach the prospect exactly what your product can do for them. These lead your prospects down the garden path directly into your sales cycle, fully informed and free of Lack-Of-Information-Itis. Respond before March 31st and I’ll have my experts write 4 White Papers for you — the 4th one is on my dime!
• We shoulder the risk. We have guaranteed lead minimums determined before we start, and if we can’t live up to our promise of a predetermined number of qualified leads that makes sense for your business, we’ll refund your entire project fee. It literally is ZERO risk to get started.

This integrated treatment for Lack-Of-Information-Itis has proven itself over and over again — including for other tech companies like Joe-Blow Technotronics and MegaBucks Techno Corp., as you can read about on our website at www.example.com/case-studies/. (Of course, we could show you success stories all day but the most important thing is to prove it for yourself by giving it a try in your business.)

What to do next:

I want you to get a hold of me. I want to show you how this whole program works — and most importantly how this whole program will work for you.

If you’ll call or email me to start the conversation, I’ll give you a free white paper I’ve put together called “How to Use Lead Nurturing and White Papers to Make Selling Easy and Fun (And Make A Lot More Sales While You’re At It).” There’s no obligation with this white paper — it’s designed to inform whether you bring in my team now or later. (And if you really wanted, this white paper gives you enough information to put together a program like this on your own and start making more sales immediately.)

Here’s my email … example@example.com … and here’s my phone number … 123-456-7890 … I want you to get a hold of me now, so I can send you the free white paper and start our conversation.

I expect to fill up quick.

There’s only so much time in the day, and although our tech experts verge on genius, they haven’t figure out how to stretch time yet. So we can only take a limited number of businesses right now to put together a lead nurturing program for you. Call now because I’d hate for you to be the one I have to say “no” to.

Bill Smith,
XYZ Publishers

What do you think?

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