In any commercial buying or sourcing situation, what gives you the confidence to select one business over another? Why would you trust that company in particular? And how do you know how much they know about the topic or area of expertise that you’re interested in? For business critical purchases or important service engagements, thinking goes beyond the simple constraints of price.
Much of our decision making about investing in a product, service or business relationship depends upon having confidence in the expertise and understanding that a prospective organization exhibits about the subject. By that, we mean how well do they see the complete picture and to what level of detail? Do they fully comprehend the challenges faced by the sector or similar businesses? Are they convincing in their approach to providing solutions? At the end of the day, do they ‘own the subject’ – are they ‘thought leaders’ and innovators?
For any business active in promoting itself, getting this complex message across to potential buyers can be quite a challenge. This is particularly true in the logistics, intralogistics and supply chain sectors.
One way of demonstrating to a target audience that your business is not only involved in the sector, but leads with it’s in-depth knowledge, understanding and creative thinking, is by laying out your position in a comprehensive White Paper of two thousand words or more. Desk research, highlighting market data and survey findings, can be skillfully used to provide context or to support a line of argument, helping to build the complete picture. Importantly, such a document gives you the opportunity to clearly state your unique perspective and advanced thinking on the topic. The voice should be authoritative and the narrative informative, leading the reader to identify with the challenges at stake and the route that should be taken to solve those issues.
A well-written White Paper can form the central pillar of a marketing campaign. It sets out and defines the topic, the challenges and the solution. The completed article can be presented in a compelling format using informative graphics, and as a pdf, may be circulated to prospective clients, posted to a ‘knowledge centre’ on your website, or printed out to distribute at exhibitions and conferences. A press release on the key points can be positioned in the media to encourage readers to download the full White Paper, and shorter opinion articles can be created from the central themes described in the full White Paper. All this can be supported through social media, Linked-in and Twitter – and may form useful collateral for Blogs.
A White Paper can be a powerful tool for influencing the market and driving sales. But, critically, it needs to be crafted by a professional team of writers with the knowledge and skills associated with many years of experience as journalists in the sector.
At AMA PR we have accumulated considerable knowledge on logistics and supply chain, totaling over half a century. We are all ex-editors of the industry’s leading publications and this experience helps us to tell your story – we are adept at tapping into the intellectual capital within an organization, we support this knowledge with desk research and then we produce a White Paper that positions you and your organisation as ‘thought leaders’ on the subject.
We have a long list of clients in the sector that have successfully used our services to develop and promote White Papers on their behalf.
Have the confidence to own the subject. Harness the intellectual capital held within your business to drive sales – contact AMA PR to find out more.
