Some of our clients ask about eBooks. There are great example of companies using eBooks throughout the web. It’s a great example of content marketing and there are a few reasons to use eBooks as part of your marketing strategy.
First, eBooks work as part of your service or offering. As we’ve mentioned before about blogging, content adds value to your overall offering. Content is part of the entire sales funnel and prospects and clients feel the knowledge you share with them via your content is more valuable than the regular offering of your competitors. It’s a great way gain and edge or even give reason for increasing your prices.
Second, eBooks are great lead capturing tools. This is becoming more common for businesses. A business will create an amazing eBook full of good information and offer it for free as long as the website visitor provides their email address. It’s a great strategy for capturing the attention of someone that’s interested in your industry and service. You can move them into your email marketing program and move them down the sales funnel.
Third, eBooks are something that people share. Your prospects are likely to read your eBook, get tons of value and pass it along to friends via social media and email. It’s a great reason for people to refer your brand to others that could turn into future clients.
So there’s lots of value to creating eBooks, but the big question businesses have is how to create an eBook…
Using Blog Posts to Create an eBook
When clients ask about eBooks we often raise the question of creating blog posts and using collections of posts for eBooks.
Some are surprised by this suggestions. It’s almost like they have a moment of, “You can do that?”
Of course you can do that. Some of the biggest names in the blogging industry do it. Some even charge for the eBooks.
You can use blog posts a couple different ways to create your eBooks.
First, you can use the exact posts from a series of posts to create your eBook. This would mean taking the word-for-word post and turning it into a .pdf book or something where you hire a designer to spruce up the text and make it look like a great book.
Second, you can take your basic ideas and re-write them into eBook form. You can add more detail in the eBook so there is an even greater reason for people to download the book or even purchase it.
Series Collections for eBooks
A design company that builds websites can use this technique by putting together a series of posts on “How to Prepare For Your Website Design Project”. They create the posts, publish them on the site. Once the series is complete they design the content to create a great eBook and they make it available for download.
Some people just prefer to read .pdf eBooks instead of blog posts. It’s simply re-purposing content to make it easy for people to consume it on their preferred channel.
A consulting firm could create a series on “Increasing Sales Using Social Media”. They do the same thing as the design company. Actually, they would probably hire the design firm to help them with the design of the eBook so it’s even more appealing for potential clients.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking to create an eBook for your website then consider using blog posts as a way to create the content. You save time and you get value in two ways. Don’t just create an eBook. Post that content on your blog so search engines can find it. You’ll get more people to your site and each new visitor could be a potential customer.
Re-purposing is a major strategy for business blogging. You can use it for all kinds of things including eBooks.
And finally, I’m not sure if it’s ebook, Ebook or eBook. I see them all used.
Let me know if I’m wrong.