Whether you've written or plan on writing a best selling eBook, you're going to need to begin creating a marketing plan before the release of the book.
Now before we begin you need to ask yourself what you're trying to achieve for this eBook, and whether you're solving a problem for your audience who can benefit from the purchase. One way of getting the right people into your sales pipeline is by creating compelling content that practically begs for an opt-in.
Now there's just one problem: Making sure we generate enough demand for the offer to be successful. So here are 10 easy techniques for marketing your ebook online.
Here are the top 10 best techniques for marketing your ebook.
1. Consider a co-marketing campaign.
Before you create your helpful content offer, consider if there's any partnerships that you can leverage. Co-marketing provides an opportunity for cross-collaboration on content so that one party "owns" that content and the other benefits from it through affiliate sales.
Both sellers have vested interest in the results of the promotion because both reap the benefits (the leads generated from it)
2. Influencer Marketing
Whether you decide to do co-marketing or not, you can't deny the power of good old-fashioned personalized outreach. Think through your existing partnerships as well as other major players in the industries or social circles you want to reach.
Consider these thought leaders' goals: finding relevant articles to share with their fan base, increase their reach, and further establish themselves as an authority.
You can appeal to these goals by featuring them in your content offer. For example, ask them to join your podcast or recorded video call to be shared online.
The key to this tactic is to make your personalized outreach unique and worth their while. After all, they likely get bombarded with messages asking them to share content all the time. So this way both content influencers reap the benefits.
3. Use email marketing to promote the ebook with your existing audience.
Admittedly, outreach is arduous. Don't forget about the network you already have. Your email subscribers have already expressed interest in similar content offers, and if this new ebook continues to provide value for problems they need help with, this is another opportunity to continue engaging them.
To achieve maximum success with this tactic, it helps to have a segmented audience so that you're always providing relevant, timely, and personalized content.
You don’t want to email a specific ebook to your entire contact database because it probably doesn’t relate to all your contact lists. When you don’t segment emails, your engagement will be lower and your success will be diminished.
4. Promote your ebook on your highest trafficked blog posts.
In addition to your other methods of promotion, you want to make sure that you're converting organic traffic as well. But here's the problem: A user can't convert on a landing page they never land on. They can never be interested in a content offer they don't know about.
Content offers aren't an "If you build it, they will come" scenario. Instead, see how you can capitalize on the traffic you're already getting for its promotion.
By putting the CTA (call to action) on new blog posts, all you're doing is making a gamble. Mainly because you don't know if that blog post will ever generate traffic. After all, it's brand new.
However, you can put a CTA on an existing blog post that has proven success, pushing that ebook to a known source of demand.
Promote your offer on relevant blog posts that already get traffic to put your ebook in front of the audience you have.
5. Create a PPC campaign to advertise your content offer.
PPC is a quicker tactic than SEO and is a great way to promote not just your company and its services but also campaigns to offer you. A successful PPC campaign boosts visibility and downloads to your offer by driving high-intent users to the landing page.
6. Announce your content offer on social media.
Be sure to post on your social channels once your offer is live, conveying the value it contains for the reader and including an image to attract their attention. Mix these posts in with your other content so that your readers aren't put off by too much promotional content.
7. Consider an advertising budget
Just keep in mind that people don't browse social media with buying intent, so you'll have to ensure that the offers you promote and the way you promote them piques interest and conveys value. Otherwise, they'll just see it as an ad and scroll on past.
8. Repurpose your content into different formats.
The first time they see your post, they may not click and convert right away. Like with anything, it can take multiple "impressions" to attract attention and pique interest. At the same time, if you continue posting the same thing over and over, your content gets stale.
Enter repurposing.
Your ebook can easily be turned into a slideshare, infographic, quiz, or other format. By having multiple "versions" of your content for promotion, your ebook can go farther while getting more eyeballs on it.
9. Connect with niche readers on social media.
Look on Twitter and LinkedIn for users that have been sharing similar content to what you have created. Just by searching on Twitter for #digitalmarketing, I can see who is sharing digital marketing blogs, guides, and resources. Plus, I can see who is getting the biggest reach in terms of likes and retweets.
This tactic might not work as well as the influencer tactic in tip #2 since you're not providing mutual value, but many of these individuals spend a lot of time curating content for their audience, and you might just be helping them out.
10. Submit to a content community or online group.
Chances are, search engines and their social feeds are not the only places your audience hangs out. If your ebook contains specialized or niche information, you might be able to target these niches through content communities and online groups. For example: Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, Reddit, NextDoor Etc. For example, if you’re a plumber in Denver, join your community group on NextDoor.com and offer your content there. When your neighborhood gets hit by a power outage, your infographic on “Assessing Homes Power outage as a Homeowner” can come in handy to the community’s residents.
Content communities are also a great resource for getting feedback, starting discussion, and sharing your passion for your services with others.
ReScope ReCap
Hopefully these 10 techniques for marketing your ebook can help you build traffic and leads, and just remember that your audience can benefit from the purchase of your eBook if the book contains valuable information. So make sure you include this in your eBook to generate enough demand for it to be successful.