Chapter 3: Promoting your eBook
At this stage in the process, you should be excited about the high-value asset you’ve created, and encouraged to get it spread as far and wide as possible.
The important part at this stage is to lean into what you already know about your customers.
Fran said:
“If you know your customers spend a lot of time on Facebook, then make sure your eBook is all over Facebook.”
“If you know that a lot of your customers listen to your podcast, then why not repurpose your eBook into podcast episodes so that they’re more likely to engage and get value from the content.”
And on that note, thinking about your intended audience shouldn’t stop there…
Why you should create a value-led journey
We all know by now that the buyer journey isn’t linear. We as marketers can’t force buyers who aren’t in-market, to come in-market before they’re ready.
And if we try to, we’re more likely to have the opposite effect and send them into the arms of our competitors due to pushy, unpopular tactics.
So the idea is to do what we can to build positive associations with our potential prospects by sharing content they want to engage with as often as possible. Remaining front of mind, and hopefully viewed as a trusted, credible organisation.
So that when they decide they’re ready to buy, they come to us.
And we can apply that mindset shift to our eBook experience.
Putting the user experience over any agenda to push leads. Giving those experiencing our brand for the first time an overwhelmingly positive interaction - and reinforcing for those who already know us that we’re worth keeping in mind.
Think about what the user expects to happen at each stage, and then what you can do to delight them. How can you exceed their expectations?
For example, when they’re engaging with your eBook, why not use a personalised popup or chatbot to ask them about which pain point is most relevant to them? Use that to direct the content you send to them next.
The main point we urge you to remember is to resist getting people into a funnel and asking for a demo.
Because put simply, it isn’t what the reader wants or what they’ll find valuable at this stage.
Instead, create alternative pathways to continue engaging with your brand until they either feel the need to come inbound to you - or give you a better indication of intent.
How we do this at Cognism is through our value loops.
Value loops are anywhere your audience can subscribe, follow or attend regularly to get repeatable value.
This can be your:
- Organic social channels
- Podcasts
- Blog
- Live events
- Newsletters
- YouTube channel
- And more
The important part of this is to be everywhere our ICP hangs out, delivering highly relevant content consistently over time. Increasing the numbers of your ICP engaging on those channels.
It’s all about being memorable. There’s a lot of noise out there - one-off actions aren’t likely to be remembered and so doubling down on subscription-based channels such as podcasts, YouTube or newsletters means you can build an engaged audience and focus on the quality of the content.
If you build out your audience, then you can make data-driven decisions based on the types of companies and job titles that are engaging with your content.
Asking yourself questions like ‘does this fit with our ICP? And in turn, is this helping us to build the right pipeline for our business?’
The feedback loop is very important! Listen closely to signals and feedback from your ICP to ensure content is resonating on the channel.
Distributing your eBook
It’s all well and good having this amazing value-led asset - but if you don’t know how to get it out into the world, then no one will ever see it.
Getting a comprehensive distribution plan in place to maximise the reach of your content can make all the difference in an eBook campaign.
There are so many options for where to distribute your eBook (especially if you choose to have it ungated!). For example:
- You don’t need to rely on third-party companies or content syndication (paying another company to gate content and send you leads).
- Could be your own app if you have one - or a Slack community if not. Share exclusive content, hold exclusive events, and provide high-value insights specific to the persona.
- An owned audience is the best and quickest way to get feedback. Ask audience members to share reviews or what they didn't like so you can improve next time.
Tom said:
“We now have a private group of over a thousand. We do private events and content with them every week - and we’ve found these members close at double the rate that non-members do. It just turbo-charged our nurture.”
Sanaa Siddiqui, Content Editor at Juro said:
“Community plays a huge part in our eBook distribution. We have built a community of our ideal customers, so I try to get as many of those eyes on our content as possible.”
“Creating an owned audience has worked really well for us. Our weekly community newsletter, for example, has an average open rate of 50%, and an average clickthrough rate of 20%.”
