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How Can a White Paper Become a More Effective Persuasion Tool?

By Adele Sommers

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 18Aug2008 Word count: 727 Viewed: 249 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

The science of persuasion has moved to a new level of intrigue as researchers attempt to discover which kinds of arguments or information help buyers make purchasing decisions. This article focuses on recent findings in this area and suggests how the research could apply to the domain of white papers.

Here's an important question: Should you tell your audiences only the good things about your offerings, or give them more of a complete analysis? Some of the answers come from the June/July 2008 issue of the User Interface Design Newsletter published by HumanFactors.com.

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Which Kinds of Information Improve Persuasion?
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Researchers have been probing whether one-sided presentations (only telling the good things about a product) or two-sided presentations (telling both the pros and cons) are the most effective in persuading consumers to buy a product.

One research team developed a series of experiments for products that ranged from cell phones to bicycles to toothpaste to portable DVD players to medicine. In half the tests, consumers were presented with only positive information. In the other half, consumers were given both pros and cons. Here are a few of the discoveries:

-- Both one-sided and two-sided messages can increase positive attitudes toward a product.

-- Two-sided messages are more effective at instilling consumers with confidence in that attitude.

-- People who were exposed to both pros and cons indicated a greater intention to buy than those exposed only to pros -- even though both groups had developed positive attitudes toward the product.

Another research team seemingly concurred that people who only see the positive information know consciously that they still need to come up with and analyze the drawbacks of a given decision. In contrast, people who are exposed to both the pros and cons have the impression that the information is complete. Therefore, they don't need to put forth the effort to generate and then weigh out the cons before they can make a good decision. Somebody has already done that for them!

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What This Research Could Mean for White Papers
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For technical products and services, it could be argued that white papers and similar technical briefs offer a more objective way to help people make technology-based buying decisions than other types of sales literature.

Some people, however, feel that white papers often fall short of their potential. The topics are uninteresting, the titles are boring, and the content can appear either too superficial or too dull. Instead, technologists need the tools to help them present business cases to other stakeholders within the organization. The group needs to make educated and informed decisions, without having to wade through any hype.

So, how can a white paper do a better job of educating and persuading -- without depending on a sales pitch?

Similar to the idea of presenting pros and cons, a white paper can help your audiences prescreen themselves to determine how likely they are to succeed with your offerings. Using this approach, the white paper aims to reduce a customer's risk of failure by ensuring that potential buyers satisfy certain basic prerequisites.

This is very different from attempting to be persuasive in the typical sense -- by aiming to attract anyone you can win over. Rather than trying to convince everyone to buy, you're trying to convince people NOT to buy if they're not good candidates for your wares. Your offerings will be ideal for the right parties. But how will people know whether their needs are a good fit?

You aid these people by stating the minimum requirements for using your offerings, including the combinations of products, services, and infrastructures you will and will not support.

For a technology-based product, the minimum infrastructure might entail high-end computing equipment, digital wiring, Internet connectivity, high bandwidth, or other factors. Explicitly stating these types of parameters up front is a common practice in a variety of industries, especially to realistically constrain the obligations of warranties.

Your white paper can therefore explain the product's features, benefits, and parameters in such a way as to clearly assert: "Please buy this product only if you meet the prerequisites! If the shoes do not fit, we can't be responsible if they hurt your feet!"

In this mode, you are using an approach that looks out for everyone's best interests. It's a conscientious and principled way to persuade others, using transparency and candor.

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