Using e-books as lead generators
Forget printed brochures! E-books sell better, plus you don't need to print or mail them!
Do you use an e-book as a lead generator or as an incentive for visitors to provide their e-mail address and permission for you to keep in touch via your e-mail newsletter?
If not, you're missing a great opportunity to convert casual website visitors into valuable prospects and-later-clients.
An e-book provides you with an opportunity to promote your expertise in an editorial environment. They can appeal to both the rational and emotional sides of your prospects.
Your e-book's title and tone proves you understand your market's needs and how you're uniquely qualified to satisfy them.
Success begins with a title that targets your website visitors' self-interest. As always, your website visitors aren't interested in hearing how great you are. Instead, they're interested in finding out how you might help them achieve their goals or solve their current problems. Espresso Dave, for example, offered an Event Book, download sample, that showed event planners-wedding planners, meeting planners, trade show exhibitors-how to create successful events.
Tp trade show planners, the quality of Dave's coffee was secondary! The primary goal was to ensure successful events, organized in a engaging "6 steps to success" sequence.
Emotionally, the design of your e-book, (i.e., layout, colors, photographs, and the use of type) communicates an image that pre-sells the e-book's content before your prospect even begins to reads it.
The Event Book's design reflects the prospect-oriented information hierarchy. The text describing the "steps to success" is set in a larger, bolder typeface than the text describing what makes Espresso Dave unique.
In addition, the "event success" message is set in a column twice as wide as the columns talking about Espresso Dave. Each page contains lots of white space. Espresso Dave's signature photograph is repeated on each page, along with other location photographs. Bulleted lists organize the content and add more white space.
Once created, you can distribute your ebook for years without further cost, although they can also be printed on your desktop printer for face-to-face handout, or taken to commercial printers for quantity distribution at events like trade shows.
Although some choose to make their ebooks available as an immediate website download, most choose to distribute them via auto-responder after visitors submit their name and e-mail address. The less registration information you require, the more names you'll collect for your e-mail newsletter and follow-up. You can use autoresponders to handle the entire process, leaving you more time for one-on-one e-mail or telephone follow-up.
E-books are typically created using a portrait, or vertical, format. Like letterheads, the page height is greater than page width.
Recently, however, I discovered Stephanie Diamond's Marketing Message Blog, where you can download her Web 2.0 for Small Businesses, an excellent example of a landscape orientation e-book. Art directed by Rob Smith, from Digital Media Works, Stephanie's Web 2.0 for Small Businesses is an outstanding example of design perfectly suited for onscreen reading.
The multi-column format's flexibility adds visual interest to each page. Yet, because the entire page is always visible, on-screen readers don't have to scroll up and down to read each column.
Ask yourself questions like these when creating an e-book for use as a lead generator:
- Key concerns. What are my prospect's most pressing goals and problems? (What keeps them awake at night?)
- Engagement. What kind of titles will attract my prospect's attention?
- Qualifications. Which of my products and services can help the most?
For more samples and assistance setting up an e-book lead generation program,
e-mail me or call me at 603-742-9673.
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