No One’s Reading Your White Papers. Here’s What To Do About That.

White papers aren’t exactly the most trusted type of business content out there, but that’s no reason to abandon them, especially if you have an extensive library that you’ve built up over the years.

The most challenging thing about existing healthcare business content is getting new eyes on older ideas. Of course you can start trumpeting them via social (you should be doing that already), but another option that is particularly useful for longer pieces is condensing them into a more digestible size. In this post, I’m going to focus on repurposing white papers into blog format.

To make sure you’re not just condensing a long, dry piece into a short, dry piece, follow these 4 points.

Choose the right white papers.

It’s tempting to embark on a year-long initiative of condensing every white paper you’ve ever published into a new and interesting blog post, but if we’re being honest, we know that not every paper needs to be revived.

It may be that a piece focuses on a subject that no longer connects to a product or solution you offer, or that it was written to address a time-sensitive topic like Meaningful Use Stage 1 or 2014’s HIMSS conference.

When choosing what papers to revive, be selective and make sure they connect with the current state of your business and the healthcare industry.

Don’t just summarize.

You may be thinking that it’s ok to just copy the executive summary from your existing papers, add on an interesting graphic and publish. While that might drum up a bit of additional interest, it won’t breathe any new life into the piece, and that’s the whole point.

You’ll want to go back, review the main points of the paper and present them in a way that has a shorter internet attention span in mind. That’s because this time you’re looking to attract a different type of reader than the ones who were initially interested in the paper.

Add some fresh bits.

If the whitepaper you’ve mentioned is still timely, there are likely some interesting links, keywords, and even hashtags you can play off of in the post itself. You’ll do this not only to engage readers, but also to demonstrate that your thought leadership in healthcare business is connected to the industry as it currently stands.

I’m talking about the blog post here, but if there have been major developments in the subject that the paper addresses, it may be worth considering updating the original work itself.

Focus on headings.

When I say “condense”, I’m not talking about shaving a few hundred words off of the original paper — I mean turning your 4000 word piece into something that’s 500-800 words…something not much longer than this post…something you can post on LinkedIn or share in a newsletter or organizational email.

This will mean it’s absolutely essential that you understand the most important points and highlights of the paper so that you can present them simply without bogging potential clients down with details (until they’re ready to read the paper itself).

If you need help condensing your existing library of white papers and publicizing them in ways that get new attention and drive new business, contact me at growth@locutushealth.com and we can set up a time to talk about your business and content goals. You can view one of my condensed ONC papers here.