White Papers! Serious, Formal, Data Driven, Wordy…. And A Bit Boring?

We know why organisations and brands commission white papers.

To cement their position as a thought leader on a particular topic.

To use as a sales driver.

To generate content for news, social media and marketing purposes.

To use as a tool to launch an event.

And a cleverly researched, insightful and unique white paper report can do all these things really well.

But … does anyone actually read them? With attention spans so short, and people so busy, a long form white paper – even beautifully designed with graphics – can languish in the ‘I’ll read that later’ folder.

At Perspectus Global, our mission is to create reports that engage people, making them want to consume them, and not recoil at the thought of reading reams of words.

And we find that using video in our digital white papers is an incredibly successful way to do this – transforming a white paper into something multi-coloured and exciting.

Video content gives an interactive quality to a report, grabs attention, breaks up blocks of text and allows information to be transmitted in an animated, digestible way.

We can use video to bring to life a report’s executive summary, outline the takeaway points from the research, and to add case studies to the study, who literally talk to the reader. We can also transmit the main findings of the report through video – creating an animated version of the white paper.

A combination of well written text, clever design and engaging and relevant video content is a heady one which results in wider consumption of its contents.

People won’t fall asleep reading your report, they’ll be on the edge of their seats.

 

Ellie Glason is Managing Director at Perspectus Global, GingerComms