There was a time when offering ebooks to their customers was an optional “nice-to-have” strategy that some businesses took advantage of — but most didn’t. However, that time is over, because on today’s competitive business landscape, ebooks aren’t merely an important piece of the inbound marketing puzzle: they’re essential!
We’ll get to the reasons for this bold (but inescapable) declaration in a moment. First though, it’s important to highlight a few key facts about ebooks that have also changed over the last few years:
- Ebooks are not just for B2C companies. They’re just as important – and in some marketplaces, arguably more important – for B2B companies.
- Ebooks for inbound marketing purposes aren’t the 100+ page versions that you might have on your e-reader. Most ebooks for inbound marketing purposes are in the 5-8 page range.
- If you partner with a qualified and experienced inbound marketing company, ebooks are surprisingly inexpensive to produce.
With the above in mind, we can now move forward and highlight 4 key reasons why ebooks are essential for inbound marketing:
1. Your customers find them valuable.
Inbound marketing is all about delivering pre-sales value to your customers, so you can build and deepen a relationship. Ebooks completely support this goal.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that ebooks can entirely solve your customers’ problems – and that’s fine. They can still provide insights, tips, steps, strategies, techniques, and more. As long as customers perceive the content as valuable, then the ebooks will have done their job.
2. They position you as a thought leader and industry expert.
Customers have always admired and trusted thought leaders and industry experts – and rewarded them by making a purchase, or influencing someone in the personal or professional network to do so. Ebooks establish your credibility and expertise, and position your business as the smartest, safest choice.
3. They help you learn about your customers.
Because ebooks are perceived as valuable, you can offer them in exchange for your customers’ contact information, such as their name, email address, and potentially other valuable data as well (there are best practices for what to ask for, and we’ll be highlighting those in an upcoming blog).
4. Your customers can share them with their network.
Ebooks are easily shareable and as such your customers can send them to colleagues, friends or in many cases, even to themselves (i.e. from their work email address to their home email address, etc.). This benefit is particularly valuable for B2B companies, because there are often multiple decision-makers that must approve a purchase (e.g. VP, CFO, project manager, etc.). Your ebook is something they can all review and discuss, which makes the process simpler for them – and more rewarding for you!
The Bottom-Line
For all of the reasons described above, ebooks are without question an essential part of the inbound marketing mix. However, there’s another core consideration that was briefly mentioned in the section on ebook affordably: partnering with inbound marketing experts.
The reason we’re reiterating this advice here isn’t out of self-interest. Yes, Leap Clixx is an experienced inbound marketing company, and we’ve crafted hundreds of ebooks for our B2C and B2B clients. However, even if you opt to choose a different partner, the fact remains that ebooks aren’t a DIY project.
Remember: your image is on the line, and having a badly written, off-message and poorly designed ebook floating around the interwebs with your business name splashed on the cover is probably the best marketing you can do…for your competition.
Besides, you aren’t in the ebook production or inbound marketing business (if you were, you wouldn’t be reading this blog!). As such, the best move you can make is to find a qualified inbound marketing partner, and then focus on doing what you do best: leading your business and moving it forward!
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