With a great website and blog, you can connect with your customers on a personal level and promote loyalty to your brand. But, you can’t stop there. You must go above and beyond in supporting your customers through every stage of the buyer’s journey to earn their loyalty. Otherwise, your competitors may step in and do just that, sweeping your customers off their feet before you ever had a chance.
So, how can you remain ahead of the competitors in supporting your customers? The answer is rather simple: eBooks. By offering your customers engaging and entertaining eBooks, you can guide them through the first stage of the buyer’s journey. You can help them learn more about their challenges – and even begin to position your products or services as the ideal solutions to those problems.
Before you set out to create eBooks to share with your customers, here are a few things you need to know.
When to Bring eBooks into the Equation
For most marketing programs, eBooks tend to work best when directed at customers in the first stage of the buyer’s journey. In this awareness stage, they are just starting to explore the challenges ahead, also known as their pain points, and they need your help in doing so effectively. Some of your customers may even need help seeing the pain points they face.
When you offer helpful eBooks tailored to customers in this stage, you capture their attention and gain their loyalty. It helps people see your company as an ally in making the best purchase decisions rather than just another business peddling their wares. As a result, they are more likely to stay engaged with your company as they move forward to the consideration stage of their journey.
Where to Set Your Focus
To make the biggest impact on your customers as they navigate the awareness stage, you must identify eBooks topics that are relevant to their needs. For best results, aim to educate your readers on every aspect of their pain points, including how the challenges affect their lives. You can subtly start to position your products and services as solutions as well, but leave the heavy sales pitches at the door.
Unless you already have buyer personas created for your company, determining what pain points your target customers face will take some research. This is well worth the time and effort, however, as customers respond best to relevant content that speaks directly to their needs. With a list of your customers’ pain points, you can start to determine what topics to cover in your eBooks.
How to Create Effective Content
With a clear focus on your customers’ pain points, your eBook is well on its way to providing support through the first stage of the buyer’s journey. That is not all it takes, however, as you still have to create the actual content and put it in a tidy package for your readers. While the focus of your eBook gets your customers to complete the download, the quality of the content is what keeps them reading.
Unless you have quite a way with words, and experience crafting long-form content, you might want to leave this step to the professionals. When you collaborate with a skilled writer to create the outline and chapters of your eBook, you can rest assured that it will keep your readers engaged from beginning to end.
What You Get in Return
The time and effort you put into creating helpful eBooks for your customers has the potential to provide a big payoff. As your eBook starts the conversation with your customers at the start of the buyer’s journey, it serves to keep them engaged with your company throughout the rest of the stages. Beyond promoting sales in this way, your content can showcase your expertise in your industry and position your company as a brand to trust.
You can also collect leads for all your marketing campaigns by placing your eBooks behind paywalls of sorts. Instead of paying money, however, your customers simply have to input their contact information into a form to receive their download link. With this approach, you can collect important info to use in making accurate buyer personas – and in creating and targeting your other advertising materials.
Who You Can Partner With in Your eBook Creation Journey
You have your pick of many fantastic professionals who can help you create your eBook from beginning to end. To clearly identify your customers’ pain points, for example, you might want to partner with a content strategist. They will create your buyer personas and help map the customer journey to guide your eBook topics.
From there, you can work with a talented freelance writer with the skills to bring your book to life. They can handle everything from coming up with the outline to writing up the chapters in your book. Your writer will infuse the content with facts and stats that show your influence and expertise while relating directly to your readers.
Your writers will provide the foundation for your eBook, but you can go a bit further to add even more value for your readers. Consider working with a graphic designer, for example, to create an eye-catching cover and add graphics to your content, including helpful graphs and photos.
You can get started in creating eBooks for your marketing program by collaborating with the professionals at WriterAccess. They have the skills and experience needed to craft highly-engaging eBooks that have the power to convert your readers into lifelong customers.
Marie A. regularly produces engaging web content and informativ
e SEO articles for small and large enterprises worldwide. She utilizes her knowledge of the online landscape to create effective content marketing campaigns for her clients. She writes shareable copy with a clear call to action that does not sound salesy or pushy. Her content always reflects the company voice and mission while adhering to the preferred style guide. Through the production of optimized webpages, articles and other works, she helps business owners speak directly to their target audiences, convert site visits into sales and position themselves as leaders in their industries.
