White Papers/eBooks - Are you using these

[Eric Rohrback]

How many people are currently using whitepapers and ebooks in their offers (whether it be from an email or downloadable on the site)? I was thinking of creating one or the other, but not sure where to start. I've read I can whip one up using MS Word, but is that all I need? What other resources have people used in the past?

 

[Phil Rozek]

Hey Eric,

Go ebook! All the way. My email list has always been crucial to my ability to get clients - good clients. And most people wouldn't have joined that if I didn't offer my free 7-step guide*.

Taking the time to make it the best damn free resource you can make will come back to you many-fold.

*Really need to come out with the 3rd edition of the guide.

 

[Linda Buquet]

It can be in e-book form sort of, but I would never call it an e-book. To me and I think many others, that word conjures up low end pitchy e-books filled with marketing hype and affiliate links.

White paper sounds a little too corporate and data filled to me. But if you call it a guide the way Phil just referred to his, it sounds much better, in my opinion anyway.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

What's the best way to create a guide? Do you just use MS Word, then export into a PDF or is there something special you do?

 

[leadjoint]

I've read I can whip one up using MS Word, but is that all I need?

If you are using this ebook as a lead magnet, you must realize that there exist a lot of people who "subscribe" and then unsubscribe just to get access to an ebook. Now if what you offer is real high quality, then the percentage of people who unsubscribe is going to be very much on the low side (since people enjoyed your ebook and want to see what else of value you would send them later).

So just whipping out a one-page document for the sake of capturing an email lead may not always be a good idea.

Having said that, you can use whitepapers and ebooks for more than just building email marketing list. I once carried out a survey of over a hundred SEO consultants and prepared a survey report to help me build links from industry blogs. You would definitely be spending a lot more time building original valuable content, but you can definitely reap far higher benefits this way. And what more, you can still use this ebook as a lead magnet to get people signed up.

 

[Greg Schueler]

What's the best way to create a guide? Do you just use MS Word, then export into a PDF or is there something special you do?

That is the easiest and probably the most common way to do it. Just make sure it is formatted nicely and spice it up with plenty of images.