07 Jan Driving the Healthcare Conversation: The Influence of the White Paper
Shaping your organization’s narrative within the healthcare landscape requires tools that wield enduring power and influence. It’s not just about lead generation or thought leadership; it’s about educating the audience, driving the conversation, guiding decisions, and championing your solutions in a sea of options.
A healthcare white paper has a specific purpose, sheds light on the most pressing questions and issues facing your prospects — with research to support it— and empowers your audience with insights they won’t find elsewhere. It’s the antithesis of a hard sell — a delicate balance between persuasion and education. But to be effective, the white paper must be well-written, well-sourced, and compelling to your audience.
Whether you work in healthcare, healthtech, or medtech, white papers can be a powerful and compelling tool in your arsenal. Consider these tips to create an engaging white paper.
Identify the Purpose of Your Healthcare White Paper
Before diving headlong into the writing process, clarity on your objective is paramount. You may be aiming to inform, steer prospects towards a specific product, enlighten them about your unique service offering, or showcase a compelling use case that nudges them closer to a purchase decision. Once you’ve homed in on your goal, every word you pen should serve to drive that message home with unwavering conviction, enticing prospects to take that next step down the sales funnel.
Provide Depth, Don’t Overpromote
Healthcare white papers need to educate on as deep and specific a level as possible — without completely giving away the “secret sauce.” They should help readers solve complex challenges or describe, in detail, the benefits of a methodology.
Writers often feel compelled to share too much about the company itself in a white paper. A successful white paper delivers only enough company positioning as is necessary, while over-delivering on the thought leadership and authority on the problem being addressed. The goal isn’t to make it about the company — it’s to make it about the reader’s needs, delivering information and research to help them make informed decisions.
Answer Your Prospects’ Most Pressing Questions
As you fine-tune and decide what angle to take on a key issue for your brand, consider your buyer personas and the kind of questions that feel pressing to them related to your company’s solution or offering.
For example, a healthtech company that provides a B2B telehealth platform for hospitals might examine:
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- What distinguishes telehealth technology designed for hospitals and physicians groups from telehealth designed as direct to consumers?
- Which revenue streams within a hospital have the potential to be positively impacted with a telehealth solution? And in which departments?
- How do you choose a telehealth solution? What capability considerations matter most?
- What is the near- and long-term future of telehealth technology?
Establish Your Brand as a Trusted Authority
Tackle big questions that are difficult to answer in a way that presents your company as a solution to a problem (even if indirectly). Doing so will help connect your solution to larger trends in your marketplace and industry, while demonstrating to your audience that your brand is one to trust.
Back Up Your Claims
A good healthcare white paper showcases your organization’s expertise — but a great white paper backs its claims up with trusted third-party research. You can assert the impact of medical solutions on patients, but unless you back it up with credible research, you’re not really substantiating your claim. Given the more formal air of a white paper, you need to choose your sources carefully. Leverage the most credible research at your disposal, and your message will come across with more authority.
Title Creatively
You worked hard to draft a compelling case, so do your white paper justice by titling it appropriately. Start with this: Don’t include the words “white paper” in your title. Give it a name that conveys something about your paper’s key points and motivates audiences to read it. Remember, if you include your product name, your white paper will likely come across as sales collateral.
Rather than opting for a long title that you hope conveys all the valuable information in your white paper, think short and compelling, and if you believe a bit more explanation is necessary, add a subhead.
Maximize the Visibility of Your Healthcare White Paper
Give your white paper the spotlight. While it’s essential to have it readily available on your website, ideally with a captivating landing page to entice potential readers, you should take proactive steps to further ensure its visibility.
It’s important to cross-promote the key insights and benefits of your white paper. Create a blog post and use your email list of clients and prospects to promote to an audience that is already engaged with you. Extend your reach even further by leveraging your social media platforms. Enlist the support of your colleagues, urging them to share the content within their networks, as well. And ensure your white paper is easily discoverable on your website, perhaps featuring it prominently on your homepage or as a call to action from within other content.
By setting up your white paper for success, you will attract the right readers. Create a solid foundation for your white paper, substantiate it with solid research and real-world evidence, and it can be a useful tool to deepen your relationship with clients and prospects.
Need help making your own white paper a powerful, persuasive tool? Contact us to start the conversation. Contact us to start the conversation.
