A big part of what we do here at Leap Clixx is educate our prospects on what inbound marketing is, how it works, and how they can use it to create the shortest path to substantial, sustainable ROI. And a big part of this discussion focuses on ebooks and whitepapers.
Specifically, here are the 5 reasons why businesses need ebooks and whitepapers in order to reap the full rewards of inbound marketing:
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Ebooks and whitepapers deliver “branded” information.
Businesses can convey useful, relevant and 100% “non-sales-ish” information to target audiences, but in a way that aligns with what they know and believe to be true (i.e. in accordance with their brand and brand messages).
For example, a business may know from years of experience that prospects in its marketplace routinely overlook key factors when making a buying decision. Perhaps they focus too much on price, and not enough on service. Or maybe they don’t even know what to ask potential sellers, and as such end up making the wrong decision.
Ebooks and whitepapers can honestly and objectively steer these prospects in the right direction, which naturally and deliberately leads to the business that shared it in the first place. Again, if this content is crafted professionally and correctly, it doesn’t come across as sales-ish (and therefore loses its credibility). Rather, it comes across as helpful, useful and reliable.
As such, businesses that produce such helpful, useful and reliable information win on two levels: they impress their prospects by giving them something valuable, and they pull prospects in their direction and away from the competition.
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Ebooks and whitepapers can be segmented for various buyer personas and buying stages.
Businesses can create a library of ebooks and whitepapers, and adjust the content according to different buyer personas and buying stages. This ultimately leads to better engagement, deeper relationships, and more sales.
Buyer personas are a business’s ideal (i.e. most profitable and important) customer groups. There can be two, a few, or several buyer personas in the mix, and they can change over time.
Buying stages represent where prospects are on the customer journey: some are at the very beginning and doing their preliminary research, while others are further into the process and ready to make a decision within the next few days or weeks.
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Ebooks and whitepapers can be downloaded on-demand.
The web is open 24/7 and many prospects – including those in the B2B space – are doing their shopping early in the morning or later in the evening, as well as on weekends and even holidays (when the crush of emails, texts and phone calls are dialed down!).
Businesses can easily setup their ebooks and whitepapers to be downloaded on-demand, which is what today’s prospects want and expect. They’re not interested in waiting days for something to arrive in the mail. They want it NOW and they want it digital, so they can store and share it easily.
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Ebook and whitepaper distribution is automated – and free.
Once businesses configure their inbound marketing system and platform, and create the necessary assets (e.g. ebooks, white papers, landing pages, etc.), then the real fun begins: because distributing the content happens automatically, and there are no additional production or variable costs – whether a dozen ebooks or whitepapers are downloaded in a month, or hundreds of them are.
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Ebooks and whitepapers can be tracked.
Last but not least, businesses can track engagement and see which ebooks and whitepapers are generating the most traction, by whom, when, and where (i.e. through which channel). All of this data can be used to improve current and future campaigns, and ultimately achieve better results.
Learn More
To learn more about why your business needs ebooks and whitepapers, contact the inbound marketing experts at Leap Clixx today. Your consultation with us is friendly and free, and we guarantee you’ll learn something valuable that you can use immediately to improve your inbound marketing profile. To help you understand more about inbound marketing and inbound marketing best practices, check out our FREE eBook:
Topics: Inbound Marketing
