8 Benefits of Creating eBooks for Your Business

Last updated: July 17, 2023

Inbound marketing is all about providing valuable content to target audiences. Doing so helps them make informed buying decisions and positions your brand as the service provider of choice.

Content marketing teams use different types of content to attract and engage potential customers – blog articles, videos, podcasts, and eBooks.

Let’s focus on eBooks.

Electronic books (eBooks) provide an in-depth discussion of a specific topic, something that isn’t suited for blogging formats. No one’s going to read a 10,000-word blog post. However, the same information in a downloadable medium is less overwhelming.

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According to this chart from the Content Marketing Institute, 51% of B2B marketers use eBooks to offer industry insights, report revenue, or highlight company values.

If eBooks aren’t a part of your content marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a cost-effective way to increase acquisitions and improve customer retention. Ebooks can deliver on your business goals, whether it’s sharing your industry knowledge, growing your email list, or angling for the top rank on the search engine results page.

In this article, you’ll learn eight eBook benefits for business. Let’s get started!

1. Cost-Effective Marketing Tool

The eBook benefits for businesses in the realm of marketing can’t be denied. Ebooks are a great solution if you’re looking for a way to reach customers without breaking your marketing budget.

Inbound marketing costs less when compared to traditional marketing channels like billboards, newspapers, and TV or radio ads.

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The above graph shows that the average cost per lead is 60% less in inbound marketing ($134 per lead) than in outbound marketing ($332 per lead). This levels the marketing field for small businesses that can’t compete with large companies in traditional marketing spaces.

Even if your eBook is free, it will help move leads down the sales funnel, eventually generating sales. The best part is inventory is unlimited, and you can edit or update content without incurring additional costs.

2. Provides Valuable Information to Customers

Ebooks can also provide valuable information to customers. They allow you to share real-world examples, case studies, actionable insights and practical tools. It’s easy to convince prospective clients to buy your product when you demonstrate that you understand their pain points and how your solution will fix them.

There is no hard and fast rule about how long your eBook should be. However, you should make it visually appealing with illustrations, charts, or screenshots, which break up the text. That means you must choose a suitable eBook format to publish your content.

Ask yourself two questions: what are the contents of your eBook, and how will you distribute it?

TXT is a simple format. However, it doesn’t support images or graphs. AZW (for Kindle readers), EPUB, and PDF support dynamic designs and images.

If you’re distributing your eBook through Amazon’s Kindle store, you must use the AZW format. Note that other online retailers like Apple and Nook don’t support this format, limiting your distribution paths. Apple and Nook support EPUB, and it is also suitable if you’re distributing your eBook from your website.

Another factor to consider in choosing an eBook format is digital rights management (DRM). It includes various tools and measures to limit the unauthorized use of digital works. AZW, EPUB, and PDF offer varying degrees of copyright protection. EPUB restricts who can download and view content. AZW limits access to digital works to Kindle readers and apps. While users can easily download and share PDF files, you can add an encryption password to protect content.

Ebooks are instantly available to customers regardless of where they are in the world.

Note, though, that when you sell eBooks, they can be subject to taxes. If you’re in the US, filling out SS4 forms enables you to easily secure an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for tax reporting and filing purposes.

But what happens if you sell your eBooks outside the US? Fortunately, there are publishing platforms like Payhip that can help you report and pay digital VAT.

3. Establishes Authority

Brand authority is the degree to which customers perceive companies as trustworthy sources of information or experts in their field. When the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention (CDC) issues a health recommendation, generally, people take it seriously because the organization is an authority in the health field. The same concept applies to business.

One of the best ways to frame your company as an industry expert is to write an eBook. There’s only so much expertise you can demonstrate in an infographic or social media post. Ebooks allow you to go in-depth into topics customers want to learn about. They are your opportunity to showcase the real-world benefit of your product or give your professional two cents on conversations trending in your niche industry.

The upshot of establishing authority is people trust your brand and your products.

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This Edelman Trust Barometer report shows that 81% of customers across markets, ages, gender, and income, consider trust as an essential factor in purchase decisions.

When potential customers see the volume of high-quality content you have, they begin to rely on your brand for decision-making information. Salesforce research shows that they are even willing to spend more.

Authority building takes time. However, if you consistently produce creative and educational content with easy-to-read formats and compelling eBook designs, you will earn the trust and loyalty of customers.

4. Increases Brand Awareness

Ebooks are a great way to increase brand awareness. Think about it. On your eBook, you usually include your company name and logo.

Check out the example below. You see the logos and names of the companies behind the eBook on the cover page at the top:

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So, if people don’t know about those brands just yet, they’ll know them once they see that eBook’s cover page.

Ebooks are a great way to increase brand awareness of your other values, too. Every business has a mission and a vision statement. Why not tell audiences the why and how behind these statements?

Let’s say sustainability is an integral part of your unique value proposition. You can create an eBook around your production practices and environmental and community impact. If innovation is a key brand value, highlight the employees that develop your products and document their creative processes.

Don’t know what your brand values are just yet? You can use an AI content generator like chatGPT or Ask Writer to give you ideas about what your unique value propositions could be. You just need to insert a prompt, and the tool will give you a list.

Brands with high brand awareness boast high sales. A compelling story in your brand voice can set you apart from competitors. It can help foster trust and loyalty with customers that share and support your values.

Another way eBooks increase brand awareness is through backlinks. When you create a piece of high-quality content, online journals or industry blogs will cite or share it. Not only does this introduce your brand to new audiences, but it also increases your brand authority.

5. Generates High-Quality Leads

One of the best eBook benefits for business is lead generation. HubSpot research shows that 27.7% of marketers use eBooks as lead magnets.

But that’s not all. Check out the conversion stats below.

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Research eBooks generate leads with a conversion rate of 46%; that’s higher than video and social media content.

Ebooks help marketing teams identify and cultivate potential clients with high buyer intent. For instance, long-form content like eBooks is more challenging to consume than videos. No one downloads a twenty-page book about topics like How to execute an impeccable email marketing automation for fun. So, this type of content distinguishes between qualified and unqualified leads.

Your content topics must reflect customers’ interests and pain points and position your product as the solution to get those conversions. One way to find relevant topics is by analyzing popular keywords in your niche industry. Alternatively, you can survey the current customer base about what they’d like to learn more about.

You should also use emails to gatekeep your eBooks. Otherwise, you won’t be able to nurture prospects through your sales funnel (more on this below).

6. Allows for Data Collection

Earlier, we saw how eBooks help businesses generate high-quality leads. The specific mechanism that facilitates this process is the lead capture form. These forms allow site visitors to share personal data like name, email address, or telephone number.

Nowadays, customers are sensitive about what information they share. People aren’t likely to share this information unless they get something in return. Your eBook is that something.

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In the example above, leads enter their name, email address, and business concern to access the eBook. Now, the company can communicate with the target and have an angle on how to nurture relationships with them.

You can collect all sorts of data on a lead capture form – industry, job title, company name, location, revenue, and more. However, be strategic about what you ask and how you ask. You can turn customers off quickly with long forms that ask for too much information. Many businesses reduce the form fields to name and email to minimize this friction.

If you need more data to understand prospects’ needs better, consider breaking the lead form into multiple steps.

Check out the example below.

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The form looks less overwhelming than a single form with seven fields. It also has an 86% higher conversion rate since people are more likely to complete the lead capture when they’ve committed to the first step.

7. Improves SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a marketing technique for raising brand visibility and awareness. What better way is there for online searchers to find your products than the top ranks of the search engine results page (SERP)?

SEO drives organic traffic to your websites. The first page results get 92% of all search traffic. Therefore, the higher you rank, the more traffic you get. Further still, it delivers more conversions with less effort when compared to other inbound marketing strategies. The chart below illustrates this point.

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Content is the backbone of a robust SEO strategy. Offering electronic books that cover customer pain points and industry hot topics is a surefire way to get clicks.

In addition to creating desirable content, you must incorporate relevant keywords in your eBook titles and preview copy so the right audience finds you. For instance, if customers with high employee turnover issues use search terms like ‘how can I improve employee engagement’ or ‘ways to decrease turnover,’ use these keywords in your engagement e-book.

8. Creates Opportunities for Collaboration

Ebooks allow you to collaborate with other brands and build and nurture business relationships. Picture this scenario: You want a comprehensive eBook on events marketing. You offer copywriting services, so you can give valuable tips on writing copy. But good marketing entails the use of images, too. So, what’s your best option? To collaborate with a graphics design company for the eBook.

This type of collaboration can help you in other ways.

For instance, you can reach a wider audience (the other brand’s audience).

Also, establishing authority and improving SEO can be a slow-going and challenging process for new businesses. EBook collaborations allow you to leverage the authority of established brands or high-ranking websites.

Here’s an example of an eBook co-marketing campaign.

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Allbound and Magnetude Consulting collaborated to create an eBook about marketing strategies. Allbound shared its expertise on partner relationship management, while Magnetude provided insights on B2B growth and marketing strategies.

The brand you choose for your collaboration doesn’t have to be in the same industry. However, the chosen company should align with your goals and have a similar customer base. For example, if your target market is companies in the expansion phase, you shouldn’t partner with brands oriented toward startups.

Conclusion

There are many eBook benefits for businesses. Ebooks are an impressive way for businesses to share valuable information with target audiences. If you want to make your content marketing strategy robust, eBooks add informational depth that social media, blog posts, and perhaps even videos can’t.

You learned eight specific eBook benefits for business. They contribute to establishing a brand as an industry authority and increasing brand awareness and SEO. For startup businesses, partnering with other brands to create eBooks help boost their credibility and online presence.

Ebooks also enable organizations to collect data and generate quality leads. After all, people with high purchase intent are willing to share personal information and consume lengthy content. This doesn’t mean your content can be lackluster. Complement text with high-quality images and graphics. Choose formats that are easy-to-read and offer copyright protection for your digital content.

Even though eBooks production can be time-consuming, the benefits, including cost-effective acquisition, make them a worthwhile project.

Monetizing  Your Ebooks

If you’re fascinated by eBooks and would like to be able to earn money writing and selling them yourself, we recommend reading Payhip’s guide on How to Ebooks.

Join over 130,000 creators who have successfully created their online businesses with Payhip. Go to Payhip and sign up for a free account today to publish your eBook in less than 5 minutes.