E-books and white papers can be great marketing tools for a website or company.
An e-book is usually shorter and focuses on a problem, while a white paper is usually longer and describes the benefits of a service or product.
While e-books and white papers are a fantastic way to increase engagement on your website, you need to make sure that they are high quality and offer real value to your users. E-books and white papers can be a helpful way to explain both concepts related to your work, and how to use your products or services. Providing these on your website can be a great service for your users, and good ones will make users want to spend more time on your site and tell their friends about it. However, as stated earlier, you do need to be sure that they are high quality and offer value to your users.
What makes an e-book or white paper attractive and inviting?
If you’re looking to collect leads from prospective clients, one way to make your website more attractive to them is by requiring their name and email address before they can download a document. This way, you can create a database of prospective clients and their fields of interest. Then, you can target them specifically by emailing them content that they’re more likely to be interested in.
Investing in design is a good way to increase website traffic and make sure your brand is represented properly. An attractive, informative document is more likely to be shared, exposing more people to your website. Your website’s name and logo in the document will help build interest in your site.
Top 11 Design Principles for Successful Marketing Ebooks
In light of these images, let’s explore 11 design principles that will make your e-books and white papers so great that users will want to read them all night long.
1. Solve a common problem that confronts your target audience.
This is a crucial point that many ebooks fail to do– make the topic something that the target audience actually wants to read.
Before you decide on a topic for your book, think about what issues your audience is facing and what they want to achieve. What is at the top of their mind? If your book doesn’t address a problem or present a solution, people won’t be interested in reading it.
2. Make the title clear, specific and beneficial.
Your ebook’s title is very important because it is the first thing that your audience will see. A title that is too complicated or clever can turn people away. A clear and simple title is usually the best option.
Look at these great examples:
- Seven questions you should ask before you choose a virtual accounting service,
- 10 Ways to Improve your bottom line
- Marketing tips for non-marketers
Can you spot the characteristics of these winning titles? Each one:
communicates clearly a promise,
appeals to the audience’s self-interest,
arouses curiosity or offers the reader something useful, and/or
speaks to a specific audience.
In order to be successful, try incorporating these features into the title of your ebook.
3. Make the content readable.
An ebook is not as formal as a white paper. It is expected to be an easy read that is informative.
To make your content readable, use short sentences and plain English. Write in a way that matches how your target audience talks, and avoid jargon unless your target audience is already familiar with it.
You’ll want to come across as professional yet approachable in your writing. A good way to test the tone is to ask yourself if you would say your phrase or sentence aloud to a client. If your writing skills aren’t great, it’s worth hiring a professional ebook writer.
4. Make an amazing cover design.
If you’re not successful in getting people to read your e-book or white paper, then this whole post is a waste of time.
If your cover design looks unappealing, people will be less likely to want to read the document inside. However, if the cover looks eye-catching and exciting, people will be more likely to want to check out the content. This means including an interesting image or graphic on the cover, as well as your logo. You should also give your e-book or white paper an awesome title, using large and attractive fonts so that it stands out and is easy to read.
5. Create a killer title for your document.
Your e-book or white paper’s title, along with the cover design, are key factors in whether people will read it. Keep the title short, informative, and attention-grabbing. You might use numbers or adjectives, or ‘wh questions’ (why, what, where, when, which, who, and how).
6. Provide a clear & interactive table of contents.
If your readers want to find a specific topic quickly, a table of contents will help them navigate through the document. You can also hyperlink chapter or section names in the table of contents to the chapters or sections themselves, which can be helpful if you’re publishing online. Here are three useful guides:
7. Highlight chapter title pages.
Every new chapter in your e-book or white paper should be easy to spot by having its own title page. This means that each chapter must start on a new page, rather than appearing on the same page as the end of the previous chapter. This can be done by:
- Using a very large font for the chapter heading.
- Using a different font for the heading than the one used for the subheadings or text underneath.
- Using a different color for the chapter heading.
- Including an image on the chapter title page.
8. Optimize your ebook for search engines.
You can’t skip SEO good practices just because your ebook is going to be published as a PDF.
Google will index your ebook in the same way as it would a web page, so it is likely to generate more traffic than a standard web page.
This is good news for your lead magnet, as long as you find the keywords that your customers use when talking about your product or service. Look for phrases that attract significant searches but aren’t too competitive.
The most important part of keyword research is to think from the perspective of your customer, not from the sales rep or engineer. What kind of words does your customer use? How do they phrase their questions? Even though keyword research can be tricky and time-consuming, it is crucial for the success of your ebook. Therefore, you might want to consider hiring an SEO specialist.
9. Make it more in-depth than a blog post (but don’t write a tome).
If someone is taking the time to go through the process of opting-in to get your ebook, they are expecting it to be a good read. Don’t disappoint them. This is your chance to show off your expertise. A thin ebook that doesn’t deliver on its promises will only hurt your credibility.
Offering an ebook can help generate leads, but it can also do much more. Companies use ebooks to improve their brand, show that they are trustworthy, establish themselves as experts on a topic, and get people to subscribe to their content.
This means your ebook needs to be more detailed than a typical blog post, but you don’t want it to be 100 pages long. You’re creating a booklet with informative content, not a book for knowledgeable scholars.
The average ebook is typically between 10-12 pages, but there is no solid rule. I have observed a trend in certain industries, like marketing, for more pages with fewer words on each page. The reasoning behind this is to maintain both reading speed and engagement simultaneously.
Most informative ebooks typically have 3,000 to 5,000 words. However, it is more important that the ebook is readable and delivers its promise than having a certain number of words.
10. Provide value, uniqueness and originality.
If you want people to read and share your e-book or white paper, you need to make sure the content is interesting and original. Check out what other people have written on the same topic and try to make your document stand out by providing more information, useful examples, better graphics, or new ideas.
11. Include a call to action.
It’s great that your white paper or e-book provides useful information and shows that you’re trying to keep your website users satisfied. However, you can make it work even harder for you by including a call to action on the last page. That way, readers will know what to do next, and they’re less likely to go to a different website. Some good ideas for a call to action may be:
- ‘Contact Us for More Information’
- ‘Did You Like this E-book? Share It With Your Friends’
- ‘Help Us Make Our Next E-book Better! Give Us Your Feedback’
- ‘Go to Our Website to Find More Useful Tools’
A call to action should be linked to the relevant information, have a share button, or contain contact info so users can provide feedback.
We have covered 11 design principles for creating successful e-books and white papers. I hope you find this post useful when you decide to write an e-book or white paper for your business. Keep in mind that there are many great ideas and tips when it comes to good design. I would love to hear your ideas about the subject as well!
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