Has it ever happened to you before?
You’ve spent hours upon hours collecting and compiling blog posts. Put them together into a lead generation eBook, spent even more time trying to make it look professional. Finally, you launched it and…
…no one’s seen it.
And it was meant to be so great. Your eBook was supposed to generate tons of leads. Help customers sample your expertise. Drive traffic to your site. And position you as a thought-leader.
Instead, there’s nothing.
But it’s not all lost. What you lacked was a solid strategy to promote your eBook. And in this post I’ll show you exactly how to do just that.
So, how to promote an eBook.
Let’s start with the stuff you should do before you publish it. You should start planning the eBook’s promotion before it is actually ready. But even if you already have it done, don’t worry. You can still apply these steps right now too.
#1. Decide what goals you want your eBook to achieve
There are two ways you can go about promoting your business with lead generation assets like eBooks:
- You can create, launch and promote it and then hope for the best, or
- Define specific goals you want your publication to achieve.
And as you could imagine, I’m in favor of the latter approach.
You see, it’s much easier to plan your actions if you know what you want them to achieve. It’s also easier to track your progress, since you know what to benchmark your eBook’s performance against. Not to mention that goals also make it easier to spot any problems along the way.
Here are a few example goals you could aim to achieve with the eBook:
- The number of downloads you would like to receive within a specific period of time. Say, 200 downloads within the first month of launch.
- Number of shares you’d like the eBook to receive. For instance, you could aim for 200 shares on Twitter and 100 shares on Facebook (or any other social channels you use).
- Amount of unique subscribers to your email list. Not every person downloading the eBook will be a new lead. People already subscribed to other lists might grab a copy too. So decide how many unique subscribers you’d like the eBook to attract. Say, generate 50 new and unique names on your email list in the first 2 months.
- Increase in inquiries. Since your eBook is a lead generation asset, specify how many leads you want it to generate. Given how many factors affect lead generation though, it might be a good idea to define an increase in inquiries rather than a specific number. So, you may decide to aim for 10% increase of new inquiries in the first 2 months.
#2. Define the time frame and budget
Marketing is a lengthy process. A lot of time could pass between the planning stage and the moment when you begin to see any results. And thus, allocate time for your campaign. Specify when you want to launch the publication and how much time you could devote to promoting it.
Marketing isn’t cheap either. There are many free strategies you could use, true. But there are even more that will require some financial investment. And thus, define what budget you could devote to promoting the eBook.
Here’s what you could do to achieve those goals.
With your goals, budget and expected timeframe set, it’s time to pull sleeves up and begin promoting the publication. And here are some strategies you could avail of:
Notify Your Email List
Send an email newsletter dedicated entirely to your eBook. Tell your subscribers about the value it delivers and why they should download it.
Important: Include a secondary call to action in the email too asking your audience to spread the news about your eBook.
Post About it to Your Social Media Audience
Next, tweet about your eBook and post a longer announcement on Facebook. On Twitter you have an option to post multiple updates promoting your publication. But instead of just posting its title link to a landing pages, also share:
- Quotes from the eBook,
- It’s key point,
- Ask a question about it, and
- Tell the audience what they will gain by downloading it.
Promote the eBook with Facebook Ads
Fact: Facebook ads are a great way to promote content. With different ad types, placements and targeting options, they can help you to reach directly the very people who might be interested in your publication.
Create a dedicated landing page for the eBook
A landing page is essential piece of your eBook marketing strategy. Regardless of how you’re going to be attracting traffic to your eBook, you will be sending visitors to a landing page.
Therefore, create a landing page that highlights the value of downloading an eBook and gives visitors a taste of what they’re going to get.
Here’s a great resource discussing what elements your landing page should contain.
Include a Call to Action promoting the eBook in your posts
Your blog visitors might be interested in your eBook too. And therefore, include a call to action in your posts to entice them to check it out.
From my experience the best placement for a solid call to action is under the post. And the best format is a catchy banner that outlines the main benefit the publication delivers.
Here’s an example of how it looks:
Post extract from the eBook as a guest post
Publishing articles on authoritative sites in your industry is a great way to raise awareness about your brand, product or service.
But you could also use it to promote your eBook.
Simply convert a section of the publication into a guest post. Mention the eBook in the author bio and include a link to its landing page.
There are obviously plenty of other strategies you could use. But from my experience, the best way to go about it is to start with few. And then based on results they deliver, decide whether to continue with them or try something else.
An important thing to do to measure your success
Tracking your progress is one of the most important aspects of the strategy. You could be launching one marketing technique after another. But unless you can measure their impact on your strategy, anything you do is pointless.
And there is one thing you need to properly track your progress – KPIs
Remember the goals we discussed at the start of this article? To measure your success in reaching them, you’ll need to come up with a set of KPI metrics (Key Performance Indicators). Here are some example KPIs relating to the goals we identified earlier:
- of Downloads,
- Social Shares,
- Brand or Publication Mentions,
- Links,
- Calls, Emails or other kinds of inquiries.
And, that’s it
I know, what I presented in the article is just the bare bones of a strategy. But I hope it gave you a good overview of what you need to be doing to promote your lead generation assets to the target audience.
Images: “Lead Generation Concept / Shutterstock.com“
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