Content Marketing Today

Do you have a lot of knowledge to share? Consider an eBook

If you or your organization has one or more areas of expertise that you’d like to share, consider producing an eBook. If you have a lot to communicate, but want to say it more colorfully than a white paper and more portably than a website, an eBook may be just the ticket.

Does this sound like a lot of work? Actually, extracting the knowledge and explaining it simply may be the hardest part. Otherwise, creating an eBook may be easier than you think.

My co-author, Joe Pulizzi and I are writing a print book on content marketing( Get Content. Get Customers.) that will be published later this year. But we are preceding that with a free eBook that has numerous benefits for us and for our readers:

• It forces us to clarify our thinking and boil down our ideas into a short–20+ page-format
• It enables us to provide valuable content to a broad audience of professional marketers
• It is very inexpensive to produce using readily available tools–MS PowerPoint and Adobe Acrobat.
• It will help establish us as content experts.
• We will get feedback that will help us improve the final print product.
• We will prime the pump for our print book.
• It will demonstrate to potential reviewers that we have something worthwhile to say
• We will be able to build a highly qualified list of marketing pros who care about content marketing.

You may never want to publish a 200 page book with all the work that entails. But, if you have knowledge and wisdom to share, you’ll find a lot of great reasons to create and distribute an eBook.

Web marketing guru, Stephanie Diamond, blogged recently about getting the the importance of word of mouth:

A 2004 RoperASW report shows that 90% of Americans consider word of mouth their best source of information and ideas. I’m sure this doesn’t surprise you.

My belief is that a great eBook may be just the catalyst to jump start positive word of mouth about your company and its products and services.

Here are two great examples which are well-designed and also happen to have truly relevant content:

From Stephanie Diamond: Small Business 2.0

From David Meerman Scott: The New Rules of PR

You may also want to download our free eBook, Get Content. Get Customers. It’s chock full of practical tips on how to develop a content marketing mindset and strategy. And did we mention, it’s FREE.