Quick tip: When a promotion is working, do more of it [checklist]
And when it isn’t, do less of it.
That’s a pretty good rule of thumb for how to promote your white papers.
People often ask me, “How do I get anyone to notice my white paper?”
Well, you have to promote it. Here’s my checklist of the 18 must-do promotions.
Beyond those, you can start spending money.
“But what channel should I spend on? Which one works best?”
That all depends on your audience, of course.
But the same principle applies:
When a channel is working to promote your white paper, do more of it.
This isn’t how all marketers operate
Let’s say a company has two products, A and Z.
Product A is the flagship product that drives 80% of the company’s revenues. Product Z is an also-ran limping along at 10% of revenue.
Many marketers would ask for more dollars to drive up sales of Product Z.
“If we spend more to push Product Z, we’d see sales start to climb,” they will argue. “Product A will take care of itself.”
But this is seldom a good idea.
In most cases, it’s more sensible to pump even more dollars into promoting Product A. That will help drive more sales of the proven winner.
A ruthless CEO would consider killing off Product Z altogether. And few shareholders would object.
It’s the same with white paper promotions
Say you’re promoting a white paper with a mix of three channels:
- Social media ads
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Syndication services
How do you know which one is best?
In today’s data-driven marketing, you can give each channel the same budget and see how they do for a month or two.
Then for each channel:
- Track the number of downloads
- Track the number of conversions (based on your call-to-action)
- Calculate the cost per conversion
So if PPC is generating conversions at half the cost of syndication, shift budget away from syndication into PPC.
It’s really that simple: Stick with your winners.
For more quick tips like this, get my free newsletter White Paper World.
