Reprinted with the author’s permission from White Paper Pundit.
For some reason, people respond well to analogies as a way to understand complex concepts.
For example, when I talk to prospective customers about the white paper development process, I like to make an analogy between the role of a blueprint when building a house and the creation/use of an outline when writing a white paper draft. Since no self-respecting home builder would ever dream of building a house without the use of a blueprint, this analogy immediately positions the outline as a critically important guide in the white paper production process.
Analogies can also be used as an important marketing advantage that helps your reader better understand complex concepts either in the problem assessment or solution advantage sections of your white paper.
In a recent white paper on the topic of peer leadership coaching, I made the comparison between the transition from 1960s mainframe technology to personal computing and the transition from older, conventional ‘competency-based’ leadership training to newer, peer-leadership coaching:
In many ways the evolution from ‘competency-based’ leadership training to behavioral based peer leadership coaching can be compared to the evolution of corporate information over the past 40 years. While mainframes originally provided exceptional access to powerful shared computing power, the advent of the personal computer brought the power of the mainframe to each individual desk, creating the single greatest increase in productivity since the dawn of the industrial age.
Similarly, today’s internally controlled one-size-fits all training program is no longer able to deliver the type of value-based curriculum that empowers and develops individual leaders at all levels, and that is why many fail to deliver on the promise of generating a ready leadership base.
By using an analogy that most business executives can relate to, namely the distinct advantage of the personal computer over the mainframe computer, the reader can ‘warm up’ to the idea that peer leadership training will provide a comparative advantage for their business.
Here’s the bottom line: The use of analogies in your white paper allows your target reader to grasp an unknown concept by using something that they already know. The stronger your analogy, the better the reader will understand the message you wish to deliver.
Jonathan Kantor is the principal and founder of The Appum Group, which specializes in the creation of professional business and technical white papers.
