As faith-based marketers for the last 14 years here at FrontGate, we’re always seeking to engage more Christians with our clients’ web sites, email newsletters, social media pages, and so on. One of the most effective ways to grow your Christian email list or social media following, and ultimately to increase the number of visitors and page views on your web site is to offer a free eBook to the right people, the target audience you would like to engage.
By providing something of very real value designed to appeal specifically to your faith-based target person, you will secure email addresses and social followers with whom you can continue to interact, either through a drip marketing email campaign (a series of pre-planned emails) or through your regular weekly, bi-weekly or monthly email newsletter, or through your social pages like Facebook.
The road of development from first word to finished eBook is often paved with confusion and questions. Here some best practices to build a successful e-Book for today’s faith-based market audience:
-Don’t give your readers what you think they need. Give them what they know they want. Research and flesh out good ideas. Find out what is wanted in your subject area. If your core audience is Christian women, or pastors, or small group leaders, find out very specifically what they are interested in, and build on that.
-Solve a problem. Address a fear. Satisfy a curiosity. Ask your core audience what issues and obstacles they are facing, and seek to solve one or more of them. Start by posing a tantalizing question that the eBook will answer.
– Utilize a very short introduction or none at all. Get right to your material, and keep the attention of your reader. Stay away from lengthy wording in your chapter titles, paragraphs, and complicated jargon unless absolutely necessary.
–For layout, think comfortable. Plain, white space is good. Add generous margins to make the layout pleasing to the eye. The reader is there for the content, not the layout, don’t distract them. Streamlining these items will help focus the audience in on the material.
-Imagery is nice, keep it simple, unless again part of the narrative like diagrams, charts, etc. Remember that in some cases, more elaborate images may not transfer well to older e-readers that are black and white.
-Length is dependent on topic(s). Aim for 2,000 to 3,000 words. You can always break it up and have a series of e-books on the same general topic. Making a two-part series is also a smart way to keep continual engagement with your reader. For example, a series for Christian parents may include books on toddler, school-age, and teen parenting tips, rather than lumping them into one lengthy book.
-Make The Download Process Simple. Downloading the eBook should be easy for the end user, but collect the important data you need. You want to receive value from the person who is downloading such as an email address or a LIKE on your Facebook page in return for providing them with your valuable eBook. A one or two step process that collects an email or requires a social “like” is best. You can provide the download via the thank you page after they submit their email/like or better yet, you can email them as the first email in your drip marketing campaign. Too many clicks or too many fields to fill out will have readers walking away from your offer.
Have more questions about creating or using an e-Book to build your following in the Christian audience? FrontGate will design your eBook as part of our Lead Generation campaign services. Contact us today!