Adrian Trenholm

Choosing the most effective white paper title

October 6th, 2005

I know at least one of the regular readers here is planning a white paper, so this research data on white paper title effectiveness from Marketing Sherpa is timely. Follow the link now, because the article will be subscription only after 16 October. The research looks at some of the 3.5 million white papers downloaded from CNET Networks B2B sites over the past 24 months, in a bid to find which titles were the most popular, in particular with highly qualified prospects, as opposed to those who are just window shopping.

Key research findings - your white paper will be downloaded by more interested prospects if you:

1. Keep your white paper title short and simple: Long titles, puns, jargon and brand names turn prospects off, whereas a scannable, relevant title will generate a lot of downloads from interested prospects. “Hook, Line and Sinker: Phishing attacks going professional” is a no no. “Phishing and the Threat to Corporate Networks” works well.

2. Break long titles up: If you must use a long title then use a colon to break it up, like this: “Hosted CRM vs. In-House: Which Direction Should Your Company Take?”

3. Use the present participle: Which means offer ing action steps eg “Eliminat ing ,” “Identify ing ,” “Prevent ing ,” and so on

4. Check your search keyword statistics: Once you have identified what your prospects are searching for, include those keywords in your white paper title. The difference might seem subtle, but the impact could be big. For example, white papers with “spyware” in the title were 77% more likely to be downloaded than white papers titled “anti-spyware,” because prospects typically search using the name of the problem they hope to solve, rather than name of the solution.

Lots of common sense here, but worth a read nonetheless.

Entry Filed under: Writing , Marketing