Creating eBooks to Boost Your Marketing Strategy
One of the most effective marketing tools available to organizations today is the regular creation and curation of amazing online content. While not as common as blogs or articles, eBooks are particularly effective—especially when gated—because of their ability to generate leads. Read on to find out more about gated content, how to create eBooks, and more.
How to Develop and Create an eBook
Yes, understanding your target audience is crucial when creating an eBook. You should consider factors such as their age, gender, education level, interests, and needs. This will help you determine the style, tone, and level of detail to use in your writing. It will also help you determine the most effective format and layout for your eBook, as well as the best marketing strategies to reach your target audience.
In terms of content, it’s important to clearly define the problem or need that your eBook is addressing and to provide practical, actionable information that will help your readers solve that problem or meet that need. You should also strive to make your content engaging and easy to read, using headings, bullet points, and other formatting techniques to break up the text and make it more accessible.
Content Creation
To ensure the success of an eBook, its content must be carefully crafted. A clear, engaging, and well-written title is crucial in capturing the reader’s attention and enticing them to delve deeper into the book’s content.
Moreover, organizing the content with headings and subheadings can aid in breaking up the text and improving readability. Complementing the text with supporting materials such as graphs, charts, and images can enhance the presentation of complex or technical topics and make the content more appealing to readers.
Create a Style Guide and Layout
Once your content has been created and organized into sections with headings, create a table of contents. If your eBook doesn’t have data or insight that’s already been interpreted visually in graphs or charts, select text that can be transformed into bullet points, charts, or infographics. While copy forms the foundation of most eBooks, the most effective eBooks utilize visuals to get their point across.
Make sure the visuals you’re including are effective. How? Develop a style guide that includes your color palette, fonts, and any other visual collateral so that the team putting the eBook together can create something cohesive.
Page Layout Templates
Once you have your style guide in place, it’s time to tackle page layout. Start by looking through various collections of eBook templates to see what might work for you when it comes to ensuring that the flow of each page is easy to understand for the reader.
Where can you find eBook page layouts templates? Canva offers an excellent eBook template library. New to Canva? Read our Canva software review.
Upload Your eBook
Once you have created your eBook, the next step is to publish it and make it available for your audience to access. There are a few different ways you can do this:
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Gated downloads: This means that users have to provide their email address or some other information in order to download the eBook. This can be a good way to build your email list or gather data on your audience.
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Free downloads: You can also choose to offer your eBook as a free download to anyone who is interested. This can be a good way to generate buzz and get more people to read your content.
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Paid downloads: You can also sell your eBook for a price. This can be a good way to monetize your content and generate revenue from your writing.
Regardless of which option you choose, it’s important to make sure that your eBook is available in a variety of formats, including popular eBook formats like Kindle, Nook, and iPad, as well as formats that can be viewed on smartphones (Android and iOS). This will ensure that your eBook can be accessed by the widest possible audience.
eBook File Formats
Multiple different file formats can support eBooks such as:
PDF files are created by Adobe and are popular across browsers and industries.
MOBI Format
MOBI files are an eBook file format created by the company Mobipocket for their Mobipocket Reader software.
EPUB Format
The EPUB file format is by far the most popular eBook file format. Created by the International Digital Publishing Forum in 2007, it replaced the open eBook format (OEB). BFree to use, open standard, and vendor-independent, EPUB remains a popular eBook format.
RFT Format
The Rich Text Format is supported by every eBook reader on the market.
AZW Format
The AZW and AZW3 extensions are Amazon’s two proprietary eBook formats. AZW is the oldest of the two, having debuted alongside the first Kindle in 2007.
IBA Format
Another proprietary eBook format you’re likely to encounter is IBA. Apple’s iBooks Author application uses this file type to create books.
LRS, LRF, and LRX Format
LRS, LRF, and LRX are the file extensions for the Broad Band eBook format. They were Sony’s proprietary formats, created for use on the company’s own line of eBook readers.
FB2 Format
The origins of the XML-based FB2 can be traced back to Russia. It is popular among eBook collectors due to its ability to store metadata within the eBook file itself.
DJVU Format
DJVU is well-known in the scientific community. It compresses data ten times faster than PDF, allowing it to store more than 100 black-and-white scans in under a megabyte.
Photo by Annie Spratt, Unsplash
What is Gated Content?
While eBooks and other forms of online content can certainly be made available from your website and/or social media platforms without asking anything of those who access that content, eBooks are perfect for “gating”. What is gating or gated content?
Gated content is any content that requires a reader or downloader to hand over useful or actionable information in order to access it. While the information asked for can vary, in general, most B2B organizations require at least the following to access gated content:
- Name
- Company
- Title
In addition to these requirements, it’s common for gated content to also seek a phone number and/or a response to a low-friction question, such as how many people work in the reader’s department or company.
Why is Gated Content Valuable?
Gated content can be an effective way to generate leads and build trust with potential customers or clients. By requiring individuals to provide their personal or professional information in exchange for access to valuable content, you can create a list of qualified leads who have already expressed interest in your business or organization.
In addition to generating leads and building trust, gated content can also help you segment your audience and understand the needs and interests of different groups. For example, offer multiple eBooks or other types of content on your website. You can use gated content to understand which topics are most popular with different segments of your audience. This information can inform your future content strategy and marketing efforts.
Overall, gated content can be a valuable tool for building relationships with potential customers and clients, as well as for generating leads and understanding the needs and interests of your audience. However, it’s important to strike a balance and not overdo it, as too much-gated content can be off-putting to some users.
So there you have it: a guide for using eBooks in your marketing efforts to generate qualified leads.
