eBook Marketing Campaign – 10 Effective Strategies

Looking for insight into an ebook marketing campaign? Here you go. This article focuses on a free ebook that is created typically by businesses to market themselves and collect contact information. While some of these techniques may apply to authors of other types of ebooks, the focus of the article is on marketing a business. This article also assumes that you have already written an ebook.

Before you start ebook marketing

Define your objective…

As with any marketing campaign you will want to have clear objectives and goals defined. Hopefully you did this before you even started writing the ebook but in the event you didn’t, here are a few things to think about.

When it comes to an ebook marketing campaign, there are typically three main goals. These are:

1. Brand Awareness
2. Education
3. Conversions

Brand Awareness deals with a customer’s ability to recognize a specific brand and the products and services associated with the brand. Typically the more brand awareness a company or product has, the more it is worth.

Education deals with teaching your potential customers about a certain topic. There are many products and services on the market today that can make life easier for consumers, however often people don’t know about the options. Ebooks help explain these concepts.

Conversions deals with getting somebody to take a specific action. A conversion can be something as simple as someone entering their name into a raffle, purchasing a product online or signing-up for a monthly newsletter. In the case of an ebook, a conversion may be when someone downloads the ebook after providing their contact information.

Depending on your goals, your marketing campaign will vary. If you’re primarily interested in Brand Awareness you’ll focus on generating as many impressions as possible with your advertising.  You would give your ebook away for free, or in other words, you won’t ask for people’s contact information.

If you primarily interested in Conversions, meaning you’re going to request a person’s contact information for a copy of the ebook, then you’ll need to think about how you can minimize your cost per conversion to maximize results.

Regardless of your marketing goal, ensure you have defined who your target audience is and, just as important, who is not. For example, if your ebook is about breaking in a new pair of women’s shoes you’ll want to target women who wear shoes that require breaking in. You won’t target kids running shoes.

Before moving onto the tactics, I’ll mention one last point when it comes to objectives. I think it is important to identify how many impressions or conversions you expect to get from your efforts. It may be tough to predict this but I encourage you to put a stake in the ground and pick a number. It is very much like 7^th grade science class where you had to create a hypothesis before carrying out an experiment. Over time you will improve the return on your marketing efforts by measuring.

eBook Marketing Tactics

Below is a list of tactics to consider. They are in no particular order and so you’ll need to use your own discretion depending on your situation.

1. Create a dedicated web page

Start with the foundation – a web page. Give people a place to access your ebook that other marketing campaigns can reference. A web page may be hosted on a current website or as a stand-alone landing page. Here are few tips to keep in mind when creating a page:

1. Use compelling headlines and copy to entice someone to download the book.
2. Include a table of contents or excerpts from the book so people know what to expect.
3. Add a visually appealing graphic to the web page. For example, the cover of the ebook.
4. Add the author(s) bio for credibility.
5. Add a quote or testimonial from a credible third party source.
6. Keep your form fields to a minimum. Only collect the contact information you absolutely need.
7. Regardless of what you do, ensure the page is properly optimized for search engines.

2. Advertise the ebook on your own website

Assuming you have a website, don’t underestimate the power of banner ads, sidebar ads and widgets that market your ebook.

1. Consider adding a banner image to your website homepage.
2. Create sidebar image ads on sub-pages within your website.
3. If you use autoresponders on your website, include a blurb in the autoresponder with a link to download the ebook.
4. Add a link in the “resources” section of your website.

3. Market the ebook to your existing contact list

Create a dedicated email and send it to your opt-in list giving them the link to the ebook landing page.

4. Media Partners

Media partners are organizations that manage some sort of online or offline publication. It could be a magazine, newspapers, events, blog or something else.

1. Partner with online media publications and take advantage of the vehicles they have available to disseminate your ebook.
2. Many publications have a “White Paper” or “eBook” offer where you can post your ebook on their website and/or have it emailed to their subscribers.
3. Keep in mind that there are costs typically associated when working with media partners.

5. Create a dedicated Facebook page

If you already have a company Facebook presence, you can create a page/tab to feature your ebook. The page should promote the ebook and link to you landing page.

6 Use social media

Depending on your type of business and the topic of your ebook, posting on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ can generate conversions. Don’t just post to your own feed but share the ebook with groups and communities. When sharing with others, remember to follow the rules of the group and be respectful.

7. Share on Slideshare

Slideshare.net is a website that allows anyone to share presentations with others. Create a short PowerPoint that really pushes the benefits of your ebook and publish it on SlideShare with a link to your landing page.

8. Guest Post

If you have a relationship with others who are influential through social media and target the audience you target, work with them to have your ebook posted on their blog and/or social media feeds.

9.Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC is a service offered by search engines and social media sites where you can advertise your ebook. Every time someone clicks on your ad you pay a pre-determined amount of money.

1. PPC can be a very effective way to promote you ebook, but you’ll require a budget and understand how to configure your PPC campaign.
2. What PPC platform you decide to use will depend on the topic of your ebook and who you’re targeting.
3. Common PPC platforms include Google AdWords, Bing Ads, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others.

10. Webinars

I’m a huge fan of webinars and while I don’t focus a presentation on an ebook, webinars give a good place to tell a captive audience about an ebook.

1. Include a description of your ebook on an introductory slide that is displayed while you’re waiting for attendees to log onto the session.
2. Include a single presentation slide at the end of your presentation and tall people about the ebook.
3. In your webinar follow-up emails, provide a link to the ebook.

Conclusion

So that’s it. I’m sure there are other ways out there and if you have something to add I would love to hear it.

People will often ask which the most effective way to market an ebook and my answer is always the same. The results will come from a combination of initiatives and not just one. I encourage you to try multiple channels and tactics. Whatever you do, be sure to track your efforts. Track your costs, click-throughs, impressions, and downloads among other things. This way you’ll know what is working, what isn’t and how you can improve.

Written by Sean Leonard

Sean Leonard, B.Sc Eng. CompE, Msc (CompE), MBA (Technology Commercialization) is the CEO and co-founder of JumpDEMAND Inc. where he is dedicated to helping Businesses with advanced emarketing strategies and utilizing the ActiveDEMAND integrated marketing automation platform. As an entrepreneur, Sean has more than twenty-five years of successful experience launching, owning, operating and growing businesses. Sean has over 10 years of successful global sales and marketing experience.