In many organizations, no formalized process exists for developing white papers, reports, and other thought leadership or  lead generation material. I imagine the lack of process is the result of overworked marketing teams fighting to keep their heads above the water; teams who don’t have the time (or the leadership?) to step away from the situation and determine if their current process is effective or not.

Less-than-ideal White Paper Development Process

Truth be told, there’s no such thing as “no process” (which is why I specified “formalized” in the first sentence). Even if a marketing department has no set workflow, whatever informal chaos they abide by is, in fact, their process.

A traditional white paper development process is shown to the right. The progress seems logical enough at first. Someone has a great idea for a paper, or a new product is going to market. Someone creates an outline, develops the copy, and after everyone approves, the designer gets a Word document and is told to make it look nice.

While marketing teams who follow this kind of process may consistently execute, their efforts will fall short of the kind of worked afforded by an integrated development process.

Integrated White Paper Development

What I recommend is a tighter alignment between the team leaders, project managers, copy writers, and designers. By building-in the design concept from the earliest stages, you can ensure that the design and layout of your white paper supports and augments the goals of the copy.

Rather than slapping-on the design as a last minute window dressing, your white paper’s design is foundational to its effectiveness.

A better approach to white paper development

See the Integrated model to the right. In this approach, the creative concept is always in dialogue with the copy development. The concept for the text and the design concept emerge co-dependently at the time the goals and objectives for the marketing efforts are determined.

The designer, then, should be a part of the discussion from the beginning, and collaboration between the writers and designers should persist throughout the process. Unlike the Traditional Model, wherein the designer remains in a separate silo until the very end, the Integrated Model facilitates clear and open communication and results in white paper and reports that will strike the target audience mentally and emotionally.

Much more can be said of the Integrated Model, but these thoughts should serve as a nice starting point for further discussion.