Writing an e-book to attract new leads is smart. It doesn’t need to be Pulitzer-winning material, and it doesn’t need to be comprehensive. It only needs to be useful for your target audience and help them accomplish one specific thing.
An e-book can be on anything, so long as it promises to solve an immediate challenge your reader is dealing with. What will make it compelling is if it offers effective solutions to a problem your reader is currently facing.
In this article, you’ll discover how you can identify a topic for your e-book out of the sea of options. Plus, a quick way to get it done and ways to promote it.
How to Identify a Topic for Your E-book
Before you can write your e-book, you need to know what it’s about. And, if you’re like most freelance writers, you’re overwhelmed with topic ideas.
Here’s a tip. Relate it to the problem you solve.
Here’s what I mean. Several years ago, I wrote an e-book called “Facebook Marketing for Pet Pros.” At the time, I was writing for a lot of dog walkers and other pet professionals. I also offered social media marketing as a service.
My intended audience was overwhelmed and confused about using social media for their business. So, I chose to focus on Facebook and give ideas on how and why to use it for business.
It also described how to set up a Facebook Business Page, gave ideas for content types to create, and touched on Facebook Ads.
That way, it positioned me as a helpful resource. Because I sold social media packages for this audience, it made sense as a lead-generation tool.
To choose your topic, ask yourself these three questions.
- What service do I want to promote?
- What problem does it solve?
- Who buys this?
For example, suppose you sell blog content for B2B tech companies. Your goal is to set yourself apart from other blog writers by showing how your blog content generates leads for the business.
When you can tie your service to solving a problem, then you create business value for your service. You connect the dots for busy marketers and help them see you have an answer for their problem.
Every company wants to attract new business. They also want to retain existing business. B2B tech companies with an active blog calendar are ripe with potential.
With this in mind, you know your audience and your topic.
Organize Your Material
Chances are, you already know you want to address certain things. You can start by making a big list of points to address.
In the case of blogging for lead gen, you’ll want to address the importance of reviewing the content and prioritizing what to improve.
Knowing how well their content performs is a pain point for many marketers because they know they have a ton of content that isn’t doing much. It’s basically taking up space and not delivering a return.
You’ll share how to fix this in your e-book.
Once you publish your e-book, you’ll want to promote it. Otherwise, it’ll end up sitting on your computer and not doing anything for you.
Hint: For this first one, I’d recommend writing it in Word or Google Doc and saving it as a PDF. Focus on providing useful information and promoting it, not on design.
Speaking of promoting, this is essential, and I didn’t do enough of it with my last e-book.
Don’t Forget to Promote!
Way back in 2013, Derek Halpern of Social Triggers recommended spending 20% of your time creating content and 80% promoting it. “It’s smarter to find another 10,000 people to consume what you’ve already created as opposed to creating more.”
It’s the 80/20 rule in effect. Once you’ve created the e-book, it’s time to let people know about it.
You can:
- Share it with potential prospects as a follow-up.
- Pull out quotes and use Canva to turn them into quote graphics for social media promotion.
- Write a series of social media posts.
- Write 3-5 blog posts about a related aspect and link to your e-book.
- Find opportunities for guest posting and include a link to the e-book in your bio. To find guest posting opportunities in your industry, you can Google “your industry + guest post.”
- Identify podcast opportunities and include the title of your e-book in your bio. That way, the host will introduce you and mention your e-book.
- Include it as a freebie for those who sign up for your email list.
- Have a landing page on your website that you can send to people where they can download it.
As you can see, there are many ways to promote your e-book. Sometimes it’s helpful to map out a rough marketing plan for your e-book and use that as a guide for what you include in the e-book. For example, if you have a list of industry sites that accept guest blog posts, you can review their current guest posts and get a sense of popular topics.
The beauty of an e-book is that it establishes you as a credible resource for your market. When you market it well, it will attract new clients and enable you to charge more money too.
Have you written an e-book for yourself?
