Whitepapers and Position Papers
The Problem:
Companies need a range of technically-oriented materials to support marketing and sales. The most difficult materials to write,
yet the most useful, are focused whitepapers that describe how the company’s technology addresses real customer problems and
provides real value. Without this information, whitepapers tend to be high-level market-ectures, or lists of features and
standards without a connection to solution and value.
Companies need to effectively communicate their positions on various topics that define the market place. The “all
things to all customers” approach is known to fail. Position papers are tricky because they need to be clear without being
inflammatory, and need to be aligned with the customer’s technology without projecting a “one size fits all”
view of the technology.
Weak or non-existent whitepapers and position papers are a huge turn-off to developers and would-be customers that are trying to
evaluate technology. Good whitepapers and position papers help define a presence, lead to developer and customer interest, and
can be the basis for marketing and sales tools, such as webinars, scenario-based sales demos, developer forums, and technology evangelism.
The Panoscopix Solution:
Panoscopix can provide this service off-site, with expert consultants that have years of experience building and deploying real solutions,
and writing clear, high-impact, goal-oriented papers. Whether the need is a single paper, or an overall strategy and set of papers,
Panoscopix has the experience to deliver. We have worked with emerging companies (start-up, pre-product release), and established
companies (post-product release,
competitive differentiation, product suite value proposition).
A brief review of current papers leads to a “gap analysis”, and also allows the current paper style and format
to be used. If an overall strategy is being developed, content points are identified and prioritized. The usage of
the paper – general public, managed access, internally only – is also determined, as this has direct bearing on the
content and tone.
Deliverables:
Examples of the deliverables provided in this service:
- Gap analysis of current whitepapers and position papers.
- Overall strategy, if needed.
- Competitive analysis for strengths, weaknesses, and differentiation.
- Installing and using the technology for a scenario-based discovery (how is a given problem solved), and comparison with competitive options.
- Performance benchmarking, ease-of-use evaluation, API evalution, administration/tooling evaluation.
- One or more papers, based on the above needs and priorities.
- Paper authoring cycle that provides constant transparency and feedback to the materials, graphics, tone, messages, etc.
