Chapter 1: Basics of Ebooks

Q1 What are eBooks?

eBooks are long-form sections of content, a digital book per se, that goes into particulars about a particular topic. 

They are available through desktops, tablets, or smartphones, so the perfect ebook format is a PDF, slideshow, or reading app.

The composition of an eBook is essentially like a book. Yet, it’s much more precise and visually captivating with pictures, charts, designs, lists, and so on. 

Though smaller in length, the content is still as in-depth and comprehensive as a 500-word hardbound. 

But readers have a limited span of attention. So the visual appearance plays an important role as the content.

How do eBooks serve as lead generators?

Think of your recent trip to the supermarket: Did you see stages with samples to try? 

Did you notice products bundled together — for example, a combination of ice cream that came with a coupon for sundae toppings added? 

Was there a presentation hawking a brand-new flavour of potato chips at a discount? 

These marketing tactics lure clients by giving immediate value — a taste, an immediate use, or a dropped price — for a tiny investment on the clients’ part.

By contributing a little benefit in exchange for a bit more thoughtfulness, these brands tell customers they understand they have great products to extend and are ready to prove that. 

Whether your company exchanges services or products, you can do the identical thing with your content strategy, by giving eBooks as an example of your wares.

Q2 The logic behind Publishing an Ebook

1.) Leverage your eBook to grow your brand

In the current world, brand identity and influence is everything. Research shows that 63% of consumers would buy only from a trustworthy brand. That’s a hard statistic to overlook.

eBook is the best way to convince people how reliable you are in solving their questions or concerns.

When brainstorming for your eBook, ask your buyer personas to check your customers’ demands, requirements, and wishes.

Can’t imagine a topic for your eBook? Employ Buzzsumo to hunt for topics your adversaries haven’t yet written about. 

For instance, type “eBook writing” into Buzzsumo as a search keyword, only to discover that there are just two new resources directly associated with the subject. 

As a writer, there are a couple of fields you should concentrate on when producing your first eBook:

i) Content

Make sure each chapter you present provides a different takeaway and ends with a brief call to action. Emails with a single call-to-action improved clicks by up to 371%, highlighting the need for a compelling copy that interests your users.

ii) Design 

As Hubspot’s Pamela Vaughan puts it, a steady brand style guide will give each of your publications a “more expert, branded look which renders into a feeling of reliability.”

2.) Use eBooks as the heart of your marketing campaign

With Google switching to mobile-first indexing, there’s yet a massive advantage in short and medium form blog posts. Nevertheless, when it comes to complicated subjects, users favor opting for longer-form content over smaller, more relaxed blog posts.

According to Neil Patel, 1500 to 3000+ word blog posts drive more traffic and, as a consequence, more conversions. It looks like today’s users favor content that’s more accurate and packed with value.

A well designed eBook around a company’s marketing campaign allows to showcase professionalism, by creating tremendous value.

By taking the most significant and most appropriate chapters of your eBook and utilising the existing content to generate blog posts, promotional emails, infographics, videos, and podcasts, you stand to drive commitment, generate leads, and generate conversions without additional effort.

You’ll want to twitch and tailor the content to suit the medium on which you’re selling it, but this will take a considerably shorter time than producing brand-new content for your campaign.

Not only is repurposing content from your eBook letting you enjoy optimal ROI from your stressful work, but you’ll also be ready to cross-promote the eBook in the process, extending your reach and creating critical brand awareness.

Repurposing eBook content can also work the opposite way. For instance, ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse earned a considerable amount of accurate feedback for his series 31 Days to Build a Better Blog.

Despite being formatted and packaged as an eBook and marketed for $29.99, it was partly made up of content Rowse had previously published online. 

Even years after its launch, it’s still accessible. It’s also bought and utilised as a substance for online courses.

3.) Aid Possible Clients to Discover More About You 

The good thing about an ebook is not only about promoting your business and brands but also about letting your customers know more about you.

Customers need to know what kind of services you are offering. Otherwise, there is no reason for them to buy your service. 

Just give it a thought that you are selling one product, but they don’t know how your service works for them. Is there any reason why a customer should buy your product, leaving the product that they have been using for a long time?

Even if you are offering services at lower prices than what they are using, they won’t go for it. The simple answer is they don’t want to waste their time and money on something they do not know.

This is the very reason why you need to go for an ebook. 

4.) So What Happens After They Know About You?

After sending your information in bits and pieces in instalments with ebooks, they will know everything about you, how you are running your business and what kind of work they can expect from you.

Based on these ebooks, they will gauge your work and get to one conclusion about whether they should go for your services or not. 

This is generally a way to touch and increase your customer base by distributing your ebooks to your customers.

5.) Leverage your eBook Services to build an email marketing list

Ebooks are another way to accumulate email lists of potential prospects. 

Anywhere in the world, people expect something from someone if they have to give something that is their own.

Just trade your ebook downloads for their email ids. If people are genuinely interested, they wouldn’t mind exchanging emails with you.

This way, you can stop buying email lists to get the prospects. This not only prevents the people who are not interested, but it also helps you to concentrate on people who are really interested in your content, and not waste your time and money on unnecessary things.

6.) Ebooks have the capability of generating leads

We always hear that email marketing is one of the most productive ways of marketing out of all marketings, but ebooks are not far either.

 Here, I will tell you one of the reasons why it is a useful tool. 

We all know ebooks are downloadable, which means prospects can download them and read them whenever the time is available for them.

Here is the best thing about ebooks. Ebooks never irritate prospects, unlike emails. Prospects always read the books when they have free time, which implies they do not have any other work and can focus on things that they are doing.

With emails, it is not that way. For instance, people are in a rush to search for their mails, and when you see these marketing ads in your inbox, people might get irritated with it, and there is a possibility that you are losing a potential lead.

With ebooks, it never happens since people read about you when they have spare time. So there is a possibility that you turn a potential prospect into a lead.

7.) It helps with SEO

Brand awareness is imperative to get a customer to know about your product . So how do we get brand awareness to our company?

Brand awareness is usually not a small thing. It takes time, money, energy, and effort. To get brand awareness, you should spend some money on advertising, which is a costly thing, and as a startup, you can’t afford that.

But here is a clue to get brand awareness to your product. Today, most people are looking for things on the internet. It implies that you have a chance to promote your product online and get that brand awareness that you are craving for.

But how do you promote your product online is the question. For any new website, it is essential to follow the rules of SEO, to get the traffic to their website.

Even though there are so many SEO rules to follow, here I am talking only about ebooks. Ebooks have the magic of showing people it is FREE.

The word “FREE” is like a piece of music to the ears for anyone. Of course, it is not free. We are trading our ebook with their email, but still, giving an email is not that costly to people. 

We all know how people love it when they know it is free. It allows people to flock to your website and get traffic going, which eventually helps in getting your website on top of the search results and getting that brand awareness to your site.

It is inexpensive yet instrumental!

Q3 Why do eBooks help companies?

Not only can companies prescribe the information obtained in their eBooks, but they can also direct the tone. 

People are assaulted with advertising these days, and established lead generation origins are presenting less ROI — people oppose the hard sell when they think it’s sneaking behind every corner. 

eBooks present subtle marketing that permits prospects to discover you, instead of the other way around.

They’re also inexpensive to create. These ebooks don’t have to be hundreds of pages a book ranging from 25 to 50 pages is a lot; lengthy ebooks are less productive. 

However, the most pleasing part of eBooks is their simplistic technological advantage:

1.) Convenience

The electronic means presents the best method for an immediate call-to-action: a click! Coupons, instructions, and checklists can pull prospects instantly, needing a click to reclaim the offer. 

Where do those clicks lead them? For your site, blog page, or Facebook fan page. Your business doesn’t have to request consumers to remember a URL.

2.) Quantifiable Measures 

eBooks carry links that let businesses track their progress, making it simple to manage the ROI of marketing costs.

3.) Variety

Rather than present an inactive product, companies can attach links to video, audio, or graphics, appending visual attraction. 

A Few eBook publishers even let companies provide updates to their eBooks’ content, stopping it from feeling old long after its initial publishing date.

Q4 What are the things you need to keep in mind before creating an ebook?

Start with a thorough and reliable plan before moving on to create and write an ebook. Make yourself unique by producing content that is distinct yet appropriate to your business and your firm.

Here are six vital things to keep in consideration:

1.) Make it accessible at no cost

You’re not in the business of trading ebooks. You’re out to market your product unless that’s the motto of your business. So if feasible, don’t make the readers pay with cash to read about it.  

Instead, get other information that will be more relevant to you as a content marketer, like an email address. Hence, you can segment groups of users who have read your ebook and focus on them later.

2.) Pick one simple topic 

Even if your problem isn’t straightforward, take a simple spin on it and make it as convenient as possible.  

Create something you think a bunch of people will enjoy and learn from, not something too complicated.

3.) Time it well  

Pay heed to your industry and see what is going on. What are people talking about?  

4.) Devise something new 

There is always someone who has produced the content you wanted to publish, so make sure you do thorough research before jumping onto the creation part.

5.) Teaching is Primary objective; selling is secondary

Whenever you design an ebook, keep this in mind, an ebook is not a copywriting write-up. The primary purpose of an ebook should educate the learners, who came for the knowledge; everything else is secondary.

6.) Present examples to back your case 

Ebooks are beneficial for lead generation when they’re useful and not wholly theoretical. Remember, the aim is to save your readers time and money. Encourage them into action.

Chapter 2: Lead Generation

Q5 What are the Steps Required for Lead Generation?

The eBook presents an attractive, long-lived, and long-form approach to narrate ‘your story.’ A well-written eBook leaves likely customers distinguishing you as useful and up-to-date. It causes leads while establishing your brand — the B2B marketer’s nirvana.

• Tell your narrative
• Dazzle potential customers
• Produce leads while creating your brand

Step 1: Your Team

The initial step in any project is to create your team. For an eBook, that implies thinking about content creation, graphic design, and promotion.

Getting the appropriate people to join social media, write kickback emails, and create a quality landing page are all essential steps to progress. 

It would be best if you then re-engage with your content creation team to write supporting blog posts, creating as many avenues as probable by which your target market viewers can find your eBook.

• Content creation
• Graphic Design 
• Promotion 

Step 2: Planning Your eBook Topic 

Your intention here should be three-fold: select an eBook topic that is exciting; choose a topic that is appropriate to what you do/sell; pick a subject that will cause leads pertinent to your salespeople.

The primary step in any project is building your team. For an eBook, that implies thinking about content creation, graphic design, and promotion.

If stuck for motivation, there are various tools ready to kick-start your project.

Finally, your subject requires to be compelling to push traffic. Nevertheless, traffic will only be useful if it is related to your business. 

Your topic must appeal to the type of people with which your sales team desires to talk.

• Pick something captivating
• Ensure the subject draws in people important to you

Step 3: Consider Your eBook Readers

It is crucial to consider the expectations of your target viewers. 

Communicating something too technical or falling short in appropriate depth can leave users underwhelmed or upset.

Think about the persona of the target readers you want to draw with your eBook. Communicate content that suits the audience. Insert those assumptions into the headlines and advertising. 

Step 4: Creating Your eBook Title

Your eBook title is an essential driver of traffic, so keep it in mind from the start. It influences how search engines classify your work and whether or not people fancy to engage. 

It’s good to start with a working title and come back at the end to ensure you get it correct. Your title has to be captivating. Above all else, your title has to match the content and purpose of the eBook perfectly.

Step 5: Research concerning your eBook project

Find data that supports your argument, look at different perspectives, and see if other brands (especially your competitors) have previously penned on the topic. 

Don’t fret if they have it, but use that knowledge to develop discussion and add content that is incomparable to your viewpoint and company.  

Keep in mind that an eBook is an opportunity to motivate and communicate. 

It is an opportunity to describe your narrative the way you want. Strenuously jump into the subject and pull all of the knowledge you can find in-house, online, or through conversations.

You are making a trade with your likely clients — the answer to inquiries they have in exchange for their contact information. A basic eBook starts with decent research.

• Add a different perspective to the subject at hand
• Put in the work required to surprise readers
• Explain the questions you set out in your title and introduction 

Step 6: How to Write an eBook

The key to a successful eBook is providing the right information. Transparency is always better than enticing because it is beneficial. 

Being helpful and transparent in your eBook is how you show a possible customer that you will be open and valuable as a client. 

However, an eBook should never look like an uninteresting instruction manual.

You need to pull together the study of journalism and the compelling voice of a blog post. You must make the user feel as if they’ve got what they are craving for, but leave them still desiring more further. 

Step 7: How to Write Something Long

Writing an eBook is not all that different from writing 5-10 relevant blog posts. 

You need to think about the appropriateness of style and format to allow your reader to establish a mental map as they read quickly. But, if it is overwhelming, just think about it as various projects and join them together after the fact.

Remember, your readers went through the difficulty of filling out a form and downloading the document. It needs to be short, but don’t get stuck on length or hurry to a sales pitch. 

Quality is more relevant than flash. People who download an eBook are going to read the entire thing, mainly if it answers their question.   

• Don’t get puzzled by the length
• Concentrate on composing shorter segments well — then tie it together with an eye for consistency 
• Write to the extent that suits the topic
• Quality is what matters

Step 8: Creating an eBook 

• Begin with the aesthetics previously established into your brand
• Get innovative with contrast, repetition, whitespace, and proximity
• Be careful of aesthetics 
• Prioritised simplicity and readability

Step 9: Picking Your CTA

An ideal eBook will not only grab a potential client, but it will also drive them down a path that will enhance the possibility of contacting you.

A Call-to-Action (CTA) is a link that attracts a guest to click through to a landing page that will additionally join them with your company.

When creating your CTAs, identify the content of your eBook. Create them around concepts that a reader is expected to have further questions about. 

The outcome may be an end-to-end inbound sale. So you should:

• Customize your CTA to the content of your eBook
• Add a tracking URL
• Ensure your CTA directs to a quality landing page

Step 10: The Landing Page

Your post-production promotion begins with the addition of a great landing page. This is the channel through which people will first find your eBook. 

It should include a photo of the cover, an outline of the content, and the ‘gate.’ This page requires to be laid out in such a way that it attracts a reader — presenting just sufficient information that they choose to download the eBook.

Step 11: Your Promotional Campaign

Once your eBook is completed and your landing page is created, all that is remaining to do is advertise. Utilize every channel accessible to your marketing team. 

And a good quality eBook can increase the click-through rates.

With all content, it is necessary to keep it ‘active’ with backing stuff, links, and social posts. The more ‘arrows’ leading to your site, the more inclined people are to discover it.

Make extra blog posts, a bunch of social media content, and possibly other ‘gated’ material such as templates, tools, and visual means. 

Q6 Your Best Blog Posts Can Become your Good Marketing Strategy through Ebooks 

There are so many awesome blog posts that are piled up in your blog section. However, that’s not going to be enough for your digital marketing strategy. You have to do more than that. You have to strategies through multiple channels. 

Multiple channels, in a sense, it’s not just about blogs. There are other ways to drive traffic to your website using ebooks, videos, whitepapers, podcasts, etc. 

Out of all the options that have been mentioned above, ebooks are one of the best possible marketing channels to just combine all your top blog posts into one and market it as an ebook to the audience.

It is not only easy to do, but it also takes less time to create. With this introduction, we can jump into the topic and explore in-detailed aspects of it.

The following are some of the reasons why this idea can be a huge boost to your marketing strategy, not just because it is easy to do, but also because of the less time-consuming aspect. 

Remember, for a company, time is always precious. Companies can earn money if they lose it, but they cannot get the time back once they lose it. Having said that, here is how you should do it:

1.) Pile Up your Awesome Posts into One

There might be a lot of undeniably awesome posts in your blog section, but the new users might not have noticed that good old blog posts. 

Now, all you can do is just combine all those good blog posts and make it as one ebook.

There is no limit for words in ebooks. You can have as many as you want. In general, an ebook is a way to educate the audience with an in-detailed explanation with thorough figures, facts, and stats.

One more good thing about ebook marketing is that it is downloadable. Users can read it whenever they want.

2.) Extend your Audience Base with Ebooks

Since it is downloadable and free, more users prefer to show interest in downloading. Freebies are always encouraging to users. The word “free” is music to the ears of any person. 

Hence, you have the chance to expand your business to a larger audience. If someone is mesmerised by your content, then obviously people will come for your content again. 

There might be a chance that they become prospects and leads as well.

3.) Expand your Reputation

Another aspect of the ebook is that you can publish anywhere you want. These days anyone can publish their books or ebooks on the internet.

You have the chance to promote your ebook anywhere and who knows you can even get a new user base.

All you need to do is just publish some good ebooks because, in the end, it is all about reputation on the internet. If you have a good reputation on the internet, then people will show interest in reading your ebook. This way, you can strengthen your user base.

Chapter 3: Importance of Long-Form Content

Q7 Why you should spend some time on long-form content marketing?

Most of the time, you might have heard that long-form content is boring, and it won’t appeal to the readers, don’t you?

And to some extent, it is true, but it is not entirely true. There are some pros and cons to everything in this universe, not just for content marketing, ebook marketing, or anything else for that matter.

So, in this case, long-form content has some cons as well, but it is not entirely useless as everyone thinks so. Long-form content has so many benefits. Most of them are unknown to many people due to their unfamiliarity among people.

Ever wondered why Neil Patel, Crazy Egg and Optinmonster all have good domain authority and good search engine rankings on Google?

It is because the content on these websites is huge. Trust me, long-form content gets most traction. “The Squeaky Wheel gets the Grease”

If there were no viewers for long-form content on the internet, then, the above-mentioned websites wouldn’t have a lot of traffic on their websites since most of their content is long-form content.

So, consider first that long-form content is vital to generate traffic to the website.

Q8 How do you decide if the content is long-form or short-form?

There are different views and opinions for long-form or short-form on the internet. 

• Some consider anything above 1000 words to be long-form content.
• Some consider anything above 1200 words to be long-form content. 
• Some consider anything above 1500 words to be long-form content.

To make things easier for us, let us assume anything above 2000 words is long-form content. As Google gets updated, the definition gets changed for long-form content.

Q9 Why are short-form articles bad?

Let’s be honest, in a 500-word article, you can barely cover anything about the topic. Hence, short-form content is not a good thing for the website.

It is like a reader went through your company half-way through, and wondering what kind of services the company is offering in the other half in his imagination.

You are just leaving the reader mid-way through without giving a proper end/information to the topic. Therefore, stuff as much information as you can with an interesting read. Never disappoint the reader with half-information.

Keep in mind, long-form content is always about educating the reader. The more the content, the better.

Q10 A few reasons why you should have long-form Content

Well, no one wants to write long-form content without knowing what kind of benefits it brings to the table. Here are some of them that I have explained in detail:

1.) Helps with Google Search Rankings

Contrary to popular belief, google search engine rewards for 

providing long-form content. 

The long-form content suggests that it is complete and full of information about the topic. 

Here and there, you might see the odd short-form content on the first page of search results, but it rarely happens and for different reasons. Hence, this is one of the benefits you can get by having long-form content on your website.

2.) Helps with SEO

Another benefit of having long-form content is that it helps immensely in the SEO part.

But you must be wondering “how?” 

Having long-form content on the website, you have more room to put the keywords n number of times in the article. Moreover, it is all-natural. You are not trying to stuff the article with lots of keywords just for the sake of it.

Yes, don’t try to fill out the article just for the sake of keywords. It could turn out to be detrimental to your website as google bots can easily identify that.

3.) Increased Organic Traffic

As Google puts your website on the first page of search results, you can notice the increased traffic on the website.

So many people are trying very hard day and night for the traffic to the website either by spending some money or doing something else. But with the long-form content, you can get that easily, and you can notice that as everyday passes by.

4.) More Opportunities for you to build your Backlinks from Different Websites

As you build your traffic to your website, it is obvious that everyone wants to cash in on your traffic, and build their backlinks from your website as well. 

Since you got a chance to provide a backlink for other websites, you can do the same. Ask them to provide your backlink from their website. 

This way you can cut down/eliminate the investment on the link building costs.

5.) More Audience leads to Potential Leads

Since you worked on the link building, it is obvious that you will get a new audience for your website, who are loyal customers to other websites.

If these new audiences like your content, then there’s all the more reason for them to convert into a potential lead.

6.) Credibility for your Content

As you get traffic day by day, the credibility of your content increases daily without investing in it separately. 

There are so many companies out there vying for credibility on the internet, but it is not easy unless you have some audience base, traffic base, domain authority, backlinks, etc.

All these are very much interrelated to each other. All of them are only possible with long-form content.

7.) Brand Authority

Having acquired things like traffic, audience, backlinks, etc. Now, it’s time for your website to turn into a brand among people.

We all know what kind of impact a brand will have on the market. Once you get the brand for your website, then everything else falls into place easily.

8.) Less Investment in Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing, we always hear about this word if you are in the digital marketing field. 

Everyone knows how tough it is to get inbound marketing going. Inbound marketing is not something about money. It is all about how well you can put the content on the website. Just spending money is not enough.

We always hear about outbound marketing like buying an email list and some other, and how it gets the leads for companies. Most of the time, it involves a lot of money. Furthermore, we don’t know how many of them are relevant.

This way, you can cut down the investment in outbound marketing to some extent.

9.) Long-form Never Looks Advertising in Nature

Whether your motive is to promote your website or not, it indirectly gives you a chance to promote your website even though the long-form content purpose is not promoting your website on the internet.

Whenever you are signed up for long-form content, the main motive should be educating the readers, not anything else. 

This way, you can get the confidence of readers. Next time the readers are visiting your website, they will know that you are providing educational content rather than promotional content.

10.) Ability to Mix Different Types of Content

Many people have said that long-form content is boring. But ever thought of why it is so.

The first reason is, the moment the reader looks at those large blocks of text, he would feel intimidated by it. Never put those large blocks of text right in one place.

Segment those large texts into small paragraphs and make it easier to read for the readers.

The second reason is, anyone can feel the boredom reading the same type of format over and over. To ease things, mix different types of content (video content, image content, infographic content, gifographic content, etc.) in your long-form content.

This way, the reader won’t feel the monotonous nature of your article. This not only helps the reader but also helps the search engines to give better information to the reader.

11.) Ability to Analyse a Puzzling Infographic

We all felt that disappointment in lacking explanation after seeing one vague infographic in short-form content. Infographics have the natural ability to speak the words with images. 

But it is not entirely true. We all have seen those excellent infographics/gifographic, but somehow, we felt that there is one shortage in the form of explanation. 

It is quite hard to put everything in one infographic, and the result is a vague infographic, even though it looks quite fantastic with all the images and gifs in the infographic.

This is exactly where this long-form content can do that missing part and do the justice for the infographic.

12.) Had the Option to Turn into an Ebook

The other option to have a long-form article is that we can turn those long-form articles into an ebook. 

We all know how ebooks help our marketing strategies. Anything over 1500 words, we can turn the content into an ebook with a 15-20 page ebook and put it on the internet for the download.

The good thing about the ebook is that it is downloadable, which makes the reader read the ebook whenever they want. It never pushes the reader to read it right at the moment. Once you download the ebook, they can read it whenever they want it.

Additionally, you can add some call-to-action in the ebook.

13.) Final Thoughts

Let’s be honest, creating long-form content is not easy in the first place. It takes time. 

But what you should keep in mind is whether it is worthwhile or not. Put it simply, it should add more value to your brand.

Long-form content may not give you instant results, but it establishes a foundation stone for the solid base. 

In any field, doing the basics right is always important. 

Investing in something that gives you a big return after some time is a lot more important than earning peanuts in a short time.

So make up your mind about creating long-form content and take some action on it, but remember, the main priority of the long-form article should be educating the reader and everything else later.

Chapter 4: Lead Magnet

Q11 Why Ebooks Are Best To Act As A Lead Magnet & How to Create & Promote Them

Ebooks have been in the market for quite a while now. It is one of the best resources to act as a lead magnet. 

There are several ways to get the leads, but the ebook is adaptable on multiple channels. It is undoubtedly one of the best-promoting channels on several platforms.

Ebooks can be petrifying in the first instance if you don’t have any experience. But ebooks are one of the easiest marketing channels if you have a solid blog repository on your website.

Before going into the details, we will see the fundamentals of ebooks in the following:

1.) What is an Ebook?

The ebook is also known as an electronic book. You can read it in almost all electronic devices like iPad, desktops, laptops, ebook readers, tablets, etc.

2.) Why are ebooks one of the best channels to promote over printed books?

No doubt printed books still have their share in the market. So it is pointless to debate which one is a better option. 

Here, we are talking about how ebooks can be one of your best marketing channels with less investment in the field of digital marketing.

The following are some of the benefits with ebooks:

• You don’t need to carry multiple books for multiple topics
• You can access it anywhere
• You can access it anytime
• You can download it
• It is eco-friendly
• Easily updatable with the cloud-based system 
• Shareable content on social media
• Easy on the eyes with new features coming every day
• The text-to-speech feature lets people listen to ebooks if they are busy
• Ebook can be interactive with videos, images, and text-to-speech features
• It can be manageable in the long run

Q12 What is a lead magnet?

The lead magnet is substantially a piece of information that can be of value to the respective user, who is generally trading his email for information. 

The main purpose of the lead magnet is to attract a large number of potential leads with an amazing offer (lead magnet).

Q13 Why do you need an irresistible lead magnet?

If you have been in the digital marketing field for quite a long period, you know how happy people were to exchange their emails for a free ebook or report.

Since those were the initial days of the internet revolution and data revolution, people were happy to exchange their emails even if the information is not so good. 

But today, the scenario is completely different. People have so much exposure to data and information. It has become really hard to get their contact information.

People have become stingy due to privacy and security issues. They don’t want their inboxes filled with clusters of unnecessary junk. 

To avoid all these issues, you need to come up with an amazing irresistible offer that can make the prospects swap their emails for an offer.

Once you acquire their emails, you have the chance to impress them with your content by piquing their interest in your products/services.

Q14 How to create a lead magnet?

If you are a marketer you know how important it is to create an attractive lead magnet. The lead magnet is the one, which can make or break the deal.

It should be designed in a way that grabs visitors’ attention and gets them to engage more in knowing more about the lead magnet.

Marketers are becoming more innovative day by day. To cope with these daily challenges, you gotta be creative with your lead magnet and also its offers.

Below are the steps you need to follow to create an ebook:

Step 1: Research

Research is one of the vital things in creating an ebook. Without doing proper research, your efforts will go in vain.

First, you need to find a topic that is suited to your buyers’ persona. But how do you know what the buyers’ persona is? Do some research on what buyers have gone through on your website and on what topics they are interested in.

Based on that, you can gauge what kind of content they are looking for. This is how you can save your time instead of just providing some unnecessary information to readers which is no use at all for the user. Hence, do the proper research before you do anything.

Step 2: Select a Topic

After doing thorough research, you will know what kind of topics can intrigue your users.

Based on the popular topics on your website, you decide on a topic that can result in some traffic on your website.

The following are some of the key things after selecting a topic:

• Title: Pick a title that can draw people and make them look at your ebook once and also make them download it, if possible. The title can also tell the user what kind of content they are going to get just by looking at it. Hence, take some care in your title creation while you are at it.
• Sub-Heading: Sub-heading won’t appear as relevant as the title, but it can still make some difference in terms of drawing people. There were so many instances, especially in movie names where sub-headings piqued so much more interest in the audience than the main title.

Step 3: Write an ebook with a proper format and arrangement

Step 3 is probably the core part of your ebook. Writing an ebook can be quite daunting. But don’t worry if you have a handful of blog posts that are already quite a hit among your audience.

If you already have some blog posts which are very popular among your audience, then just repurpose it. Maintain some consistency in the ebook. 

Don’t go for flashy colors, which makes your reader faint at the first sight of it. Maintain some consistency with your colors. Just pick two colors that are related to your company’s profile and use it throughout your ebook.

Avoid all types of grammar mistakes. Use simple language that can be understood by everyone. Forgo the complicated language. Remember, if someone came to your website for the sake of knowledge then just give it in a simple language.

No one likes complicated language, which is why people have issues in relationships with the opposite sex all the time. Keep it simple and clear.

Follow an outline and list of contents structure that is really simple to understand in one or two papers.

Use headers, paragraphs, lists, etc to not confuse the reader with so much information in one place. Highlight the quotes whenever needed. Give some real-time examples and links to your previous blog articles to understand the context. 

Just correctly put all these things, and your core part of the ebook is completed. Remember, the structure and content flow is an important element in an ebook.

Step 4: Designing an ebook

Once you have completed the writing part, it is time to give some shape to your writing part.

The first impression is the best impression and you might have heard this a lot in your life. It is not just applicable to life, but it applies to ebooks as well.

i.) Cover Page

Where do your users get the first impression? Well, it’s from the cover page. 

As I have already mentioned above, that title is very important, but to make it more appealing to the users, you have to give some amazing colors, visuals, and images so that it will take your ebook to the next level.

ii.) Fonts

Use simple fonts throughout the ebook. Arial and Verdana are probably the best ones to go for a simple font and everything else, don’t look too appealing to the eyes. Hence, avoid all overwhelming fonts at all costs.

iii.) Visuals

Use high-quality images in the ebook to corroborate the text information in the ebook. Visuals can make it seamlessly very easy for the readers to understand the context even if it is a complicated topic to explain.

iv.) Ebook software and Margin Consistency

Keep your margins consistent whether you are adding a text, image, or even a video. Choose ebook software that can give your write-up a professional look. There are so many free software versions on the internet that you can use them and give that professional look to your ebook. 

Don’t forget to convert your write-up into a pdf document. The PDF document makes sure that it stays the same structure on every electronic device.

v.) Make it Mobile and Printer Friendly

Earlier I have said that there is still some market left for traditional books, which is why it is important to make it printer-friendly for those customers.

Also, make it responsive on other platforms like iPad, desktop, mobiles, tablets, etc. 

vi.) Include a Version Number

The version number allows you to update its content at a later date and inform the users about new content related to the subject so that you can gain some new users as well.

Step 5: Optimize your Ebook

Everything is almost completed. Now, it’s time to optimize your ebook.

Insert the call-to-action button in your ebook so that you can move them further down in the funnel. If they are really interested in your paid services, then there is a chance that they will take some action on your paid services.

Promote your ebook on all social platforms and give the boost that is needed for your ebook.

So this is all about creating an ebook.

Q16 How to Promote your Lead Magnet?

Now, we should move on to the topic of how we can promote our ebook on the internet. Though I have given some little introductions to promoting your ebook in the creation section, it is not elaborated in detail.

In the following section, we will see all the promotional parts of the ebooks on all platforms.

1.) Promote your Lead Magnet on all Social Media Platforms

It’s important to realize the importance of social media. These days people are using social media more than electronic or TV media. Hence, you have a lot of scope to promote your lead magnet on social media networks including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.

Additionally, you can also drive traffic to your website through lead magnets.

2.) Promote your lead magnet on your blog and the website

It is possibly one of the most frequent things you will ever see on the internet these days.

You read one blog post and in the end, you will see a pop-up message suggesting one lead magnet in exchange for an email.

Though it may sound fishy, it works in the end. Just imagine you have read some knowledgeable information on a certain topic you are so interested in, and suddenly it ended. This suspense will lead you to read the next chapter by submitting your email.

But the key thing here is that you have to maintain the intriguing part even in the ebook so that you can keep hooked and eventually, turn them into potential leads for your business.

3.) Promote your lead magnets on emails

Once you have their emails, keep them hinged on your content, even in emails. Email marketing is probably one of the most profitable markets out there so don’t miss out on this opportunity. 

Furthermore, you can add these lead magnets to your email signature as well.

So this is all about how ebooks act as lead magnets and how to create an amazing lead magnet and promote it on the internet.

Hopefully, you have got all the necessary information regarding the lead magnets and their uses. 

Chapter 5: FAQs

A Few Compelling Reasons Why Your Company Needs to Produce More Ebooks?

Ebooks are not a new concept to anyone. It has been part and parcel of the business for a long time. The trickiest part of creating an ebook is it is very challenging if you haven’t created one yet.

Yes, creating an ebook may be a frightening task. But remember there is, “No Gain without Pain.” 

As you may or may not know, the ebook industry value is around $8 billion today. In 2018, the same industry was valued at around $4 billion. 

You can notice that there is a significant hike every year in the ebook industry. So it is obvious that the ebook industry is not going anywhere. Ebook is still here to stay and is growing strong every year.

Before jumping on to the details as to why you need to create more ebooks, first, we have to know the fundamentals of ebooks.

Q16 What is an Ebook?

Ebook is generally a book that is shaped in an electronic format. Ebook can do similar work as a traditional book, except it won’t experience wear and tear as time passes by.

An ebook can be about any niche. It is not particularly related to one niche and you can generate as many words as you can, unlike a blog. Yes, it is one kind of a blog, except that it is downloadable and all electronic device-friendly format.

You can read it on desktops, laptops, tablets, PCs, smartphones, ebook readers, etc. Due to its eco-friendly nature compared to traditional books, it is gaining momentum among the people.

Q17 Why isn’t everyone creating it?

The ebook creation thought can seem a little bit overwhelming if you don’t have any experience. For this reason, no one would prefer to create an ebook in the first place.

With a few design tools and a few write-ups, you can create some awesome ebooks which can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

Q18 Is Ebook worth the time?

Absolutely! Why does Amazon suddenly have an interest in the ebook industry? It is because there is a huge scope for business in the market for ebooks. As I mentioned above, today the value of the ebook industry is $8 billion.

In short, it is definitely worth the time if you can allot some time for ebooks.

Q19 What is the minimum requirement of words to claim it as an ebook?

There is no specific number of words to claim it as an ebook, but anything over 2000 words can label it as an ebook.

The good thing about an ebook is that you don’t have a word limit. You can express it as elaborately as you can. 

Q20 Should I put it on the internet for sale or for free?

It is completely up to you to decide. There is no regulation that one has to keep ebooks for free. So many people are selling ebooks for money.

This way, you can earn some money as well. But keep in mind that the ebook should give some value to the reader when he/she is buying it.

No one wants to buy an ebook when it is not adding any value to the reader.

Similarly, when ebooks are up for free of cost, customers are likely to show more interest in your ebooks. Yes, you won’t get anything in return, but that can make the difference in the longer run.

Q21 Reasons why you should produce more ebooks

Having said that, it always boils down to one question, “How is it gonna benefit your company?” 

There is nothing wrong with asking this question. It is important to know why we are doing it and for what purpose and how it is gonna help your business.

Therefore, the following are some of the reasons why you should start producing more ebooks:

1.) Your work is already half-done

If you or your company already has a blog, then your work is already half-done. Once you have a few good articles in your blog, it is not difficult at all.

All you have to do is just combine all articles into one nice ebook and put it on your website for downloading and that is it. 

But keep in mind that you keep everything in order so that it makes some sense to the reader.

2.) Generate Better Leads

Ebooks can generate better leads with a laser-like focus on potential prospects. Only people who are interested in your content will download your ebook. 

It’s just that they want to extend their knowledge concerning your niche. If they like your content, they will most likely become your leads.

Remember, people who already know the basics of your niche will only go for advanced levels which means you have a great chance to get better leads.

3.) Saves Time

You might think of how an ebook can save you time. 

Here is the trick, only people who are interested in your content will download the ebook which means people already know a thing or two about your business. 

This way, you can focus only on the required prospects. Hence, you can avoid unnecessary prospects, who are not interested in your content and save your valuable time which, otherwise, will get wasted on unnecessary prospects.

4.) Increases Your Credibility

By having a sound knowledge about your niche can make you an expert in that industry.

It’s the best way to enhance your presence and become a credible source in that niche.

5.) Brand Authority

It’s not everyone’s cup of tea to generate an ebook. Only a handful of people can generate ebooks with high-grade quality. 

Once you can generate an ebook, it is more likely you can become a brand in the market in your niche. We all know how important it is to have a brand name for our company. 

Take a look at an iPhone updated models, iPhone new models have almost similar features as old iPhone models, except for a few things, but still, there will be so many people who queue up in line for its new model, even though there isn’t much difference between the new models and old models.

It’s all about the brand. Once you get the brand name for your product, people will buy it regardless of the price and features.

6.) Highlight Yourself Among the Competitors

It is easy to highlight yourself among your competitors. Most companies avoid generating ebooks just because it is hard to create.

This is where you can tap the ebook readers and turn them into your customers. As I said above, there are so many people out there who are still into reading and they are up for the grab.

Why don’t you jump in and take the opportunity with both hands?

7.) Helps Small Businesses a Lot

This might be a little controversial, but there is some truth to it after all. Since small businesses are new to the field, it is hard for them to invest a lot of money in advertising as big companies do.

Ebooks are relatively cheaper than other forms of marketing. The only drawback of ebook marketing is that you have to invest a lot of time in it.

Apart from the time, you don’t need to invest in anything else. For designing tools, you can get designing tools for ebooks for free on the internet. Hence, there is little to no investment in ebook marketing.

8.) No Need for Investment in Email Lists

Customers won’t hesitate to trade their emails for the things they are interested in. Ultimately, it benefits both.

There are so many out there who are investing a lot of money in buying email lists. With this, there is a lot of scope for fake email lists, uninterested people, people barely show any interest in taking any action, etc.

So there are a lot of drawbacks to buying email lists, not to mention the amount of money that we are investing in.

So in no way, buying email lists gives the same value as it does with trading email lists with ebooks. People are generally interested in knowing and taking some action when they download ebooks about your niche. This is not the same case when you buy email lists.

The main intent behind your ebook will go down in vain when people are not taking any action or not doing what you wanted them to do. It kills the whole purpose of the ebook.

9.) Adding a Call-to-Action Button

We all know how important it is to have a call-to-action button in your content. The other benefit of an ebook content is that you can add one call-to-action button at the end, or to your landing page, or your website.

10.) Increase your Website Traffic

By having some call-to-action buttons in your ebooks, you can direct them to your website, and increase the website traffic organically. As a result higher domain authority.

11.) You have the chance to make some connections with your readers

You have the chance to maintain some relationships at a personal level with your customers.

Remember, customers usually buy things when you hit them at an emotional level. To make this happen, it is essential to know them on a personal level.

No customer appreciates if the product is not according to their needs. Know the customer at a personal level and based on that, customize your ebook and engage them with your content all the time. 

Keep them hooked all the time with your content. It will do wonders for your ebook marketing.

12.) Return on Investment

Return on investment is one of the key things in our marketing efforts. If there is no result for your efforts, then what is the use of investing in something?

Whether it’s a small or big business, everyone expects returns on the investment and volumes of activities.

With ebook marketing, the investment is very minimal, but the returns on it are enormous. You barely spend anything other than time in creating an ebook.

You need some content and one good design tool to design in it in such a way that it is appealing to the readers. Design an appealing cover page so that it compels the readers to download the ebook. Fill out the ebook with attractive images that help with the text content.

You don’t need to spend anything on design tools at all. There are so many free design tools on the internet that you can use and create outstanding cover pages for your ebooks.

13.) Earn Money

With ebooks, you can also earn money. Several people extend their ebook services for money and in fact, it is big business. 

But this is not recommended unless you already have a good name and brand name for your business. No one wants to buy a thing that doesn’t have a reputation in the market. Therefore, be mindful of it.

But if your company already has some base audience and brand, then your ebook marketing can generate some money through selling.

You are not only earning money but at the same time, you are promoting your brand as well.

14.) It’s Your Turn

Now you know why you need to create an ebook and the reasons behind it.

• Choose your target audience
• Pick a topic that you are interested in
• Plan a certain structure and flow to your ebook
• Maintain more than 2000 words for an ebook
• Support your ebook content with relevant images
• Design a delightful cover page for your ebook with free designing tools on the internet
• Share your ebook everywhere on the internet including social media and websites

This way, you can not only drive traffic to your website but you can also get high-quality leads, money, brand value, credibility, and several others with one go.