HP needed white papers on a range of subjects, including network security, regulatory compliance, network and device management, for its enterprise marketing programme.
These were used in two ways: in a standard online lead-generation role, and as bespoke sales collateral for salespeople to give to high-value corporate and public-sector leads as part of the sales process. Sometimes, we’d even create a bespoke white paper for a specific person, addressing that person’s questions or concerns in order to stop them being a barrier to purchase.
My role varied from project to project: sometimes copywriting, sometimes commissioning, editing and project managing. If
necessary, when we were writing about specialist subjects such as regulatory compliance, I would find and recruit a freelance writer with the relevant specialist expertise.
When Publicis hired me, this revenue stream did not exist. It began as three white papers on HP networking software. I turned them round in a day or two, and from that, grew enterprise content into a revenue stream worth hundreds of thousands of pounds a year to the agency.