E-books are one of the most influential assets in content marketing for affiliate marketers. Potential new visitors can be attracted to a company’s website that has attractive and relevant long-form content. Since an e-book is more detailed than a blog, it gives companies such as Endearing Endeavors a chance to go more in-depth on their topic, tailored according to the target audience’s preference.Â
1. Affiliate Marketing Strategies for E-book Promotion
Even after a good effort in content marketing, good content quality does not guarantee success; the e-book needs to be promoted to reach the right audience. When an affiliate product is promoted, there is always a marketing strategy that drives traffic to a company’s merchant sales page. E-book companies must develop marketing strategies to boost traffic on their landing pages. If the topic is great, the e-book has an attractive cover image and a well-built conversion-focused landing page; the last step is to boost traffic on their opt-in form.
There are several ways e-book brands can boost traffic to a landing page and promote their e-book listed here:
- Promoting the E-book on the Website
A website is the first place where companies look to promote their e-books. The focus should be to convert the incoming traffic to email subscribers through their e-book. One of the best ways to do it is to create an exit-intent popup, as they can promote various types of offers and content, including affiliate products, e-books, and new blog posts.
When people finish reading the content and click links to leave the website, a popup right towards the exit can be another effective strategy to promote the e-book. In addition, timed and scroll-related popups can increase user engagement and interest.
More effective strategies include sidebar callouts and banner placements. If the blog is popular and ranks well on search engines to drive a good amount of organic traffic, e-book brands can also place a CTA along with a short message to promote the e-book alongside their content.
2. Social Media Platforms
Social media platforms are another effective way to promote an e-book for free. Strategies to reach new audiences include social media tactics such as creating a buzz among the followers and creating teaser messages. They can be interesting statistics and quotes from the e-book, actionable advice, and quick chapter summaries. However, some promotional tactics work better on specific platforms than on others. These are the ways to leverage each platform:
Instagram is one of the most engaging social media platforms that can promote e-books. However, some things could be improved. Links can only be directly included in posts if the brand followers are at least 10,000. A workaround for this is posting promotional videos and images of the e-book and encouraging users to click the bio link on the brand page to get more traffic on the opt-in page. Brands can identify influencers in their niche using Klear and send them a message requesting them to take a look at your e-book and share it amongst their followers. Finding relevant hashtags can also help companies identify relevant influencers in their niche.
Facebook has a huge user base, but certain strategies can increase the influence of the e-book and help it reach the target audience. Features like “pin to top” can be used to post promotional content for the e-book on top of the brand page. Brands can also replace their page cover image with their e-book cover for extra exposure.
For promotional posts, it is recommended to use social teasers to build anticipation and promote the e-book launch. Any promotional content should be shared in relevant Facebook groups; however, brands should not get overly promotional.
- Facebook Ads
In addition to how Facebook can drive organic traffic, Facebook ads can also play an all-important role in taking advantage of the platform’s accurate targeting capabilities to give the e-book more exposure. Companies only need to pay to advertise the e-book in the newsfeed, sidebar, or messenger of the target audience. In addition, brands can control how many people can see their advertisements, the amount spent on ads, and the types of users that will be able to see advertisements.
If the e-book cover is attractive and looks professional, it can be used in Facebook ads to become the center of attraction for users scrolling their newsfeeds. Brands should avoid using blue and white images as these colors tend to blend in with the Facebook color scheme, which can cause less ad engagement. The image in the ad should grab the reader’s attention; however, it’s the ad copy that motivates people to take action. The title of the ad should arouse curiosity and get people interested. If the e-book covers a specific goal or makes a point, brands can use their ad copy to ask a question the audience is curious to know the answer to.
- Google Ads
Another platform that lets companies advertise their products, such as e-books, is Google ads in paid placements on the search engine results page (SERP); in contrast to Facebook ads that show up in the newsfeed of users, google ads help promote e-books by including them in search results of users actively searching for that particular niche. Additionally, companies can choose keywords for which their ad will be displayed and decide the maximum budget they are willing to spend. Google algorithms determine the position of paid placements in the search engine results page through quality score and maximum budget. The quality score is based on the relevance of the brand’s landing page and ad copy. Google uses the average clickthrough rate to determine the quality score.
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Followerwonk is a great way to recognize influencers in a particular niche who share third-party content regularly. In addition, companies should explore relevant hashtags to identify influencers on x. Once they see a list of influencers in the desired niche, brands should reach out to them directly by sending them a message on x or reaching out to them using email to observe their interest in the e-book being promoted and see whether they share it with their followers. Additionally, e-book brands can also use Facebook to replace their cover image with their e-book cover and pin a tweet at the top of the page to promote the e-book.
Reddit is another influential player in the social media industry. It has over a million groups called subreddits on the platform. It is another place to promote e-books to people interested in that niche. Links can be posted to relevant groups by adding a short description to sell the benefits people can receive through the e-book.
However, if the Reddit account is new, the karma score will be low, and users can react to posts with a positive or negative vote. These votes determine the karma score for the post and the profile itself. New accounts with a low karma score are considered untrustworthy by other Reddit users.
It is important to join relevant groups on Reddit before promoting the e-book. Sharing advice and tips can increase an account’s karma score. Once the account is established on subreddits, the launch of the e-book can be announced.
Pinterest is a visual platform; therefore, it is recommended that infographics and custom images be created to promote e-books. It is important to identify relevant boards and contribute posts if there are no existing followers on the platform. Once relevant boards are identified, companies should directly reach out to board admins and get their consent to contribute. If a brand manages to get a promotional post on a popular board, thousands of visitors can start visiting the opt-in page.
Conclusion
E-books are a powerful content marketing asset for affiliate businesses. It takes more time than a blog post; however, this investment pays off in the form of increased viewership and new email subscribers long after it has been published. Companies like Endearing Endeavors focus on packing in as much value as possible to gain authority in their respective niches and build audience trust. Once e-books are created, the content can be reused to make social media posts, video content, or blog posts. Affiliate businesses greatly benefit from e-books as they are an effective way to start a new affiliate business and get new subscribers who find its products interesting.