EBooks have proven to be a lucrative lead generation strategy for B2B organizations. As gated content, an eBook can be a valuable resource for those opting in, and work effectively to both grow your sales funnel and support your customers at multiple stages in the buying process.
Creating an eBook allows your organization to:
- Position itself as a thought leader by showcasing what you know
- Educate your audience and answer their questions
- Capture new leads to fill your pipelines
Thought-Leadership
People buy from people they like and trust. Share what you know about a particular subject to position your organization as a thought leader in that area or industry. Others will be inclined to engage with you because they will trust that you know what you’re talking about and you can solve their problems.
Audience Education
Much of a purchasing decision is made even before a buyer makes contact with you. Content empowers this choice. Creating an eBook on a topic that your organization is a subject matter expert in, and that delivers the information your target audience wants to know, helps to educate and influence their purchasing decisions. Readers come away with the answers to their burning questions.
Lead Generation
For an eBook to fill your pipeline, you need a compelling landing page to capture emails. What’s also important is strong collaboration between your Marketing and Sales teams. 79 percent of marketing leads go without a response from Sales, which is often the result of poor communication and coordination between teams. It’s essential when promoting your eBook that you formulate a strategy to ensure your prospects continue down the sales funnel. This requires a mutual understanding from both teams on how an eBook will accomplish your lead-generation goals.
Read how one Microsoft Partner partnered with Mercer-MacKay to produce an eBook that generated 300+ leads in the first 3 months and over a million dollars in pipeline opportunity.
Read the Case Study
The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) has a great article on how to promote an eBook at each stage of the sales funnel. From the top of the funnel to the bottom, there are different tactics that can be implemented to help bring new leads into the pipeline and move them towards a final purchasing decision.
- Top of the funnel: Your promotion tactics should “cast a wide net”. Focus on slicing up your eBook content to make it easily digestible and to create the most buzz. For example, CMI recommends turning a chapter into a blog post or posting the first chapter on Slide Share.
- Middle of the funnel: Receiving a commitment to a free trial or demo from prospects already in your pipeline can be challenging, but your eBook can add value and drive these prospects closer to buying. The CMI suggests creating a content package for existing prospects or including the eBook in your newsletters for easy download.
- Bottom of the funnel: At this stage, Sales teams typically take the lead. A couple of tactics the CMI advises sales teams to implement are to include the eBook in their presentation decks or distribute the book as a takeaway at meetings.
Learn all of the Content Marketing Institute’s promotional ideas in their blog: 22 Ways to Promote Your E-book.
Writing Your First eBook
Recycle Your Blog Content
If you’ve been blogging regularly, you already have an arsenal of content you can repurpose and turn into your first eBook. This is a great way to quickly create a digital asset and start the lead capture process. All you need to do is:
- Find relevant and relatable blog posts
- Designate a chapter to each blog post
- Write an introduction & conclusion
- Do some minor editing to make it a cohesive piece
- Add a call-to-action (CTA)
From a writing and content perspective, you’re done!
Strategically Plan Your Editorial Calendar
If you don’t have a good collection of blog posts that can be incorporated into one cohesive piece, strategically plan your editorial calendar to cover related topics which can then be turned into a series. You can post your blogs as they are written, but compile them into a single document for an easy read.
There are a few other essential elements to get your eBook ready for promotion:
- Visual Appeal: Hubspot offers great PowerPoint templates you can use to easily and quickly give your eBook content some visual appeal.
- Landing Page: A go-to resource for building and designing a landing page painlessly is Leadpages. Using standardized templates – with proven results – you can quickly develop a landing page specific to your eBook and integrate it into your website.
These are simple and easy ways to get you started on your first eBook! With content, visual appeal and a compelling landing page, your organization will be equipped with a digital asset that has the potential to increase your pipeline and generate revenue.