Effective Ways to Boost Sales with Downloadable PDF Guides

Over the past several years, there’s been an increased interest in guides and eBooks. They’re everywhere. Almost everyone has an eBook reader, tablet, or a smartphone capable of reading eBooks.

You can take advantage of this trend to boost your sales. By creating your own PDF guides, you can easily attract more customers and establish yourself as a leader in your industry.

Use the following 6 tips to effectively boost sales using downloadable PDF guides.

Create a Quality Guide on a Relevant Topic

First, you’ll need to create the PDF guide. This means writing at least 10 pages of content on a topic relevant to your industry.

Remember, this guide isn’t a plug for your products or services. It needs to provide readers with a real benefit. They should get something from reading your guide.

Choose a topic that you are knowledgeable about. Create an outline. Then, start writing your guide. Downloading an eBook template will help you choose a font size and page layout that will be easy to read on any device.

After writing your guide, include images. Adding one image every one or two pages will help break up your content and make your guide more readable. You can find free images using public domain image directories.

Once your guide is written, convert your document into a PDF. If your software doesn’t include this option, you can convert the file for free using any number of free online tools.

Next, upload your guide to Dropbox, Google Drive, or your web hosting account. Users need to be able to easily download your guide. After uploading, copy the link to the guide. You’ll use this for each of the following strategies.

Offer Your Guide in a Giveaway

Once you have your guide is ready, you can use it in various marketing strategies to boost sales. The first strategy is to offer your guide in a giveaway. This strategy works best when using guides that provide a lot of information.

If your guide is detailed and provides a real value, then this an effective way to drum up new business. Start a giveaway either through your website or social media and use your PDF guide as the prize.

Give Your Guide Away to New Subscribers

Another option is to give your guide away to new subscribers. Entice people to sign up for your email list by offering your PDF guide. Once they sign up, send them a confirmation email that includes a link to the download location.

Include a Download Link on Your Social Media Accounts

If you simply want as many people as possible to read your guide, then include a download link in several social media posts discussing your guide. You could even start a Facebook ad campaign to spur some initial interest in your guide.

Sell Your Guide through Amazon

As with the first strategy, if your guide offers a significant amount of information, then you could sell your guide through Amazon. For this, you’ll not need to convert your text document into a PDF file. Amazon uses their own system.

Instead, you’ll use a template downloaded from Amazon and then upload the completed work. With this strategy, you can generate additional revenue while establishing yourself as a voice of authority.

Release a Series of Guides on Similar Topics

If you find success with your first PDF guide, then don’t stop. Continue releasing a series of guides on similar topics. Over time, you’ll learn what works best and what doesn’t. Set a schedule for your new guides. For example, you could try to release one new guide every two or three months.

If you need help with these steps, you could always hire a copywriter to compile your outline into a guide. Otherwise, start jotting down some ideas and begin outlining your first guide.

Create Quick, Easy and Effective Content With This Simple Technique

Don't reinvent the wheel; learn to upcycle your content.

Everyone talks about how content is king, but everyone is wrong. Content isn't king -- only really engaging and information is.

So, you keep putting out great content like a never-stopping machine. You're always looking for new ideas to make your content interesting, useful and engaging, and probably growing frustrated with an ever-growing to-do list.

Now, I want to introduce you to upcycling -- repurposing content.

With upcycling, you don't have to reinvent the wheel with every post. By taking advantage of a few easy tools, you can cut your work in half and engage your audience on multiple levels (while also making it easy to manage multiple social accounts).

Why repurpose content?

Content marketing and storytelling is a full-time job in its own right, but repurposing preexisting materials alleviates a lot of the work. Plus, an effectively repurposed piece engages your audience again and again. Another huge benefit of recycling content is that it has the potential to give your old blog posts new life, making your marketing arsenal much richer and much more immersive.

We all like to consume information on our own terms. Some people prefer to read long-format articles, while others like listicles. Some like videos or podcasts. Other types of media like infographics, whitepapers and ebooks make for great presentational materials for both business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) companies.

By allowing your audience to choose their preferred material, you show appreciation and understanding of their needs. This will only make your company more likable and relatable.

What content should you repurpose?

The best place to start is by looking at your analytics and identifying the best-performing content. What materials get the most traffic, likes and social shares? This is a great indicator of relevant, useful information that grabs attention. Chances are it will be even more popular in a variety of formats.

I personally prefer to repurpose visual content. People are very visual creatures and a lot of us learn best by visualizing data. Besides, in a fast-paced world with fragmented attention, visuals grab and increase our interest. They also tend to be easier to comprehend.

There is a good chance you have written at least a few tutorials or how-to guides. Give these posts a new life on Pinterest by repurposing them into images and checklists that are both engaging and useful.

Creating infographics becomes very easy with a few amazing tools. I recommend Piktochart and its pre-loaded templates. Piktochart offers freemium services, so you may start from scratch or customize their free and premium themes.

I also love Canva, a great freemium tool that lets even the least design-capable of us create beautiful visuals. The app has some stylish templates that are easily customizable, or, if you prefer, you can start from scratch.

I use Canva to create blog graphics and quote posts. Since it saves all of your work automatically, you can create a consistent branding by editing the same visual with new text or background image.

Turn written content into video.

Video content has been rising as a medium of choice. YouTube is still the second largest search engine in the world. Facebook gives a special attention to native videos. Do you need any more reasons to start utilizing the power of video in your content marketing mix?

Give your most popular blog posts a makeover by converting the information into a video. A lot of content can be turned into how-to demonstrations or talking-head videos that viewers can follow along. Even if your offering is not very visual or your company is service-based, you may well employ videos by sharing knowledge or using this medium as a blogging tool.

The best part is that you now have content you can upload to Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Instagram. If you're not on those platforms yet, this is a perfect opportunity to add another network to your arsenal and reach new audiences.

Be sure to upload these videos to each network you are present on because social networks give special treatment to native videos. Plus, you're creating a rich content library on each channel.

Make podcasts -- you're not too late.

Podcasting is another growing category of content marketing. While there are lots of great podcasters, there is a still lot of opportunity in the field. Compared to other forms of content, a lot of niches are still underserved with podcasts.

This medium is great because people are able to consume information on the go, whether it's while working out in the gym or commuting to work. Your podcasts don't have to be long, either; some podcasters choose to create 5- to 10-minute episodes, enabling them to create more episodes in relatively the same amount of time.

If you choose to use video as a sort of replacement for traditional blogging, you could also easily convert videos to audio-only formats and upload them to iTunes or SoundCloud as well.

Turn reports into whitepapers and ebooks.

If you have a long and in-depth industry report, cut it down to its most important parts and conclusions and create a whitepaper or an ebook. Once you have it ready, promote it on all the social channels you have and drive traffic to your website. Better yet, create special conversion-driven ads on Facebook and Twitter, where people can share their email address without leaving the social sites.

You can even design a pictorial ebook with lots of photo examples using tools like Canva -- or, if you're short on time, by creating a PDF file from a Word document and including a few charts might suffice.

Slideshows are a good idea, too.

People love statistics and data that will help them make better business decisions. If there is a PowerPoint presentation you are proud of, upload it to SlideShare. If you are in a B2B company, you've got to try SlideShare.

SlideShare is a great platform for sharing whitepapers, presentations and other related things, so you can easily champion one more social platform. It is easy to use, easy to share and can be embedded just about anywhere. It's also integrated with LinkedIn.

Even if you're in a B2C company, SlideShare still provides an amazing way to connect with your consumers. The content you publish doesn't have to be all educational; inspirational quotes, fun facts and surprising statistics will work well on SlideShare. Plus, because of its integration with LinkedIn, you can share your new piece with one checkbox and share it on other networks as well.

Are you making the most of your content?

Content marketing doesn't have to be daunting. Remember, it's not always about the volume of unique content you're producing. It's about engaging your audience with the content you already developed. There is only so much you can cover in every industry, but if you're being creative about it, your knowledge can really shine in a variety of formats.

Start by identifying what types of media your audience prefers, what networks they are on and a few old blog posts. With just a little effort, you'll be well on your way to a much richer content library.

Source: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/297582

How to Use eBooks to Improve Brand Awareness and Boost Sales

There are many different marketing channels and strategies for reaching as many potential customers as possible. But, how do you know which ones to use? In the past few years, a couple of options have become popular solutions for increasing brand awareness. This includes the use of video and eBooks.

Both video production and the release of eBooks can help you reach a larger portion of the public. They also provide an opportunity for providing potential customers with beneficial information. If you want to learn more about the use of eBooks for marketing, then use the following tips and suggestions.

Choose a Relevant Topic for Your eBook

The first step is choosing the right topic for your eBook. You’ll want to write about something that you understand and that’s relevant to the products or services that you sell. You can get some ideas by searching for eBooks related to your industry.

Try to find topics that haven’t been widely covered. If you can’t find a topic that hasn’t been thoroughly discussed, then come up with a way to cover the topic from a new perspective. You can search Google or eBook websites to get some examples.

Create an eBook from Your Existing Content

Another solution for finding a topic is to create an eBook from your existing content. Use analytics software to determine which of your blog posts received the most attention. This includes the blog posts that received the most comments and most shares.

Choose several blog posts related to a similar topic. Organize the posts in an order that makes sense to a reader and then provide additional information. You can use your existing blog posts as the basis for the layout and structure of your eBook and then expand upon the ideas presented in the posts.

Decide How You Want to Distribute Your eBook

Along with creating an eBook, you’ll need to decide how you want to distribute the eBook. You can distribute your eBook through Amazon, Apple iBook store, or other popular sites. Another option is to distribute the eBook yourself.

You can create a PDF and use the eBook as an incentive to join your subscriber list or complete another desired action. You can find free tools for converting your text document into a PDF for release as an eBook.

The distribution method that you choose will depend on your goals. If you want to build brand awareness, then online distribution through an eBook store will be beneficial. If you want to increase your subscriber list or include a promotion to increase sales, then you should consider self-distribution.

Make Sure You Format Your eBook Properly

Once you’ve written your eBook, or paid a ghost writer to write the eBook, make sure that it’s formatted properly. If you’re going to publish your eBook through Amazon or other popular eBook sites, you can download their provided templates.

If you’re self-distributing your eBook, then make sure that the final copy is readable through a standard PDF reader on desktops and tablets.

Send Out Free Copies of Your eBook

As a final step for using your eBook to improve conversion rates and boost sales, you could send out free copies of your eBook. You could give your eBook away from a download link included in emails or through the website that will be distributing your eBook – if you chose to use Amazon or Apple.

Sending your eBook to influential people in your industry could give you positive taglines or reviews to include in your marketing material and possibly help generate some quality backlinks.

The use of eBook as a marketing tool shouldn’t be overlooked. It is a great way to build brand awareness and establish yourself as an industry leader. It is also a cost-effective marketing approach. If you need help, there are many reputable firms that will handle the creation of an eBook on any topic.

Start thinking about the topic for your first eBook. Choose a topic that you’re knowledgeable about. The topic you choose should be relevant to your industry. For additional tips and suggestions for improving your marketing efforts, click on the following link to learn more about lead generation and my done-for-you system.

How to Create a Lead Magnet to Grow Your Email List

If you’re resting all your marketing ambitions on the hope that first-time visitors will make a purchase, you’re going to have trouble making any money. Only about 1% of visitors are ready to make a purchase during their first visit. On average, you’ll need about 4 or 5 points of contact before getting a sale.

A lead magnet is designed to help you capture the email address of these visitors so that you can direct them back to your sales funnel. They’re designed for the 99% of prospects that leave your site without making a purchase.

So, if you want to gain these email addresses, you should take the time to create an effective lead magnet.

Research Your Competitor’s Lead Magnets

First, you’ll need to look at your competitor’s lead magnets. Look at the offers that they provide. You shouldn’t copy their offers. But, you can use your research to ensure that you’re offering something original and more appealing than what your competition is offering.

This research will give you a better sense of what your potential buyers want. Use this information as you choose your offer. Generally, these offers will fall into one of these categories:

• PDF, eBook, or downloadable guide
• Video tutorial
• Webinars
• Discounts or coupons

The medium that you choose for your offer will depend on your market. PDFs and other readable content are useful when you don’t have a tangible product.

So, if you offer digital goods or services, your customers will expect digital offers. Though, downloadable content can be applied to almost any industry.

When creating your offer, the medium is not nearly as important as the actual content. Whether you film a video tutorial or put together a downloadable guide, you need to choose a topic that your potential buyers are interested in.

Researching the Top Concerns of Your Potential Buyers

Researching the top concerns of your potential buyers will help you choose a topic for your lead magnet. People want solutions. They want valuable information. You’ll provide them with the answers or facts that they need.

There are several ways to learn more about the top concerns of your target demographic. You can search forums and communities. Look at the questions that people ask most frequently on these websites.

You can also look at social media comments. This includes comments on both your own social media accounts and the accounts of your competition. Social media is the preferred method of communication for most consumers.

A little bit of keyword research can also help you find a topic. See what keyword phrases are searched for most frequently. Focus on keyword searches related to questions or concerns.

After you’ve researched the top concerns of your potential buyers, you’ll have a topic to discuss. Make this topic the focus of your free content. Then, this content together in a PDF, video, or webinar.

Create a Killer Title and Sub-title

Once you have an offer, the rest is easy. You just need a great title and sub-title. Be specific and keep your title simple. Address the problem or concern that you promise to solve in your free content.

The sub-title follows up on this promise by telling visitors what they’ll find on this page. Make it obvious to your visitors what they’re about to read.

This same tip applies to the rest of your web page. Keep the content simple and direct. You need to stick to the point. The entire goal of the page is to get visitors to sign up to your email list by offering free content. Make sure that they understand exactly what they’re about to sign up for.

A lead magnet is an invaluable tool used for growing your email list. But, there are more steps that you can take. If you’d like more powerful marketing tips, as well as a way to generate conversion-ready internet marketing prospects every month, click here to learn about my done-for-you system.