When properly researched, written, and designed, ebooks can be a great way to engage prospects and provide them with valuable information. And by delivering helpful insights with no strings attached, you become a trusted source for best practices, product reviews, industry assessments, or whatever it is you choose to present. This thought leadership that you establish can be a powerful brand-building force.
In addition, while producing quality content of any length helps improve your standing in Google’s eyes (as well as the other search engines), recent changes to search algorithms have given more weight to meatier materials. Having a nice mix of quick-hit and long-form content is to your advantage, and ebooks are ideal for sharing weightier topics.
Creating Ebooks That Convert
Producing an ebook involves a significant commitment of time, effort, and resources. Readers also tend to expect ebooks to be of high quality if they’re going to devote their valuable time to reading them. Consequently, you want to be sure you do it right. Below are some tips for developing and promoting your ebook.
- Short, punchy titles. Titles that challenge, intrigue, or amuse readers are important for work in any format. Considering ebooks will often be displayed as thumbnails online, you should add “short” to that list of descriptors.
- Eye-catching design. Both the cover and the interior pages of your ebook should have a visually-appealing design. Authors (and designers) often incorrectly believe that once the cover has enticed a reader to open their ebook, there’s no need to expend effort on the interior design. Not true. For the best reader experience and the best chance of keeping their attention to the end, your ebook should be a work of art from cover to cover.
- Tips, lists, best practices. The most popular ebooks include tips, lists, and best practices as part of their content. However, that doesn’t mean yours should consist entirely of that kind of material. You’ll also want paragraph-form intros, explanations, and commentary to complement that information.
- Expert input. Nothing helps boost the credibility of an ebook like including contributions from experts—especially well-known experts. And if what they provide is quotable, that’s even better!
- CTA. Every ebook should have a strong call-to-action. In some cases, you’ll simply request that the reader share this valuable resource with their peers. In other cases, you might ask them to interact with you and call or email for more information, or to arrange a consultation.
- Pre-release promotion. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it will do wonders for your marketing! Before you launch your ebook, share small tidbits here and there (via email blasts, social media, etc.) to create anticipation.
- Cross-promotion. As with all of your content, you should take advantage of the fact that when the prospect reads one piece of your content you have the opportunity to promote others.
Your Partner in Publishing
With results that include both engaging prospects and boosting your search engine ranking, ebooks provide a fantastic one-two marketing punch. As a leading content marketing provider for clients here in Colorado Springs, the state of Colorado, and around the country with more than 25 years of experience, we have the creative talent and marketing expertise to help you produce quality ebooks that will be valuable resources for years to come. Talk to us!
