Hey, what is going on, guys? Happy belated New Year! Fabrizio Van Marciano here from Magnet4Blogging dot net coming to you with another episode of the Above The Fold podcast show for bloggers and entrepreneurs.
This is Episode 12 of the show, guys, and I know it’s been a few months since the last show. Boy time really does fly. But yeah, I’ve been both busy and feeling a little bit under the weather recently.
Busy working on a new business venture, which I’m pretty excited about. I’m kind of venturing into the music production business, which is not completely new to me. I used to produce electronic music when I was in my early 20s, and I had a lot of fun doing it.
But so much has changed in the last 20 years, especially from a technological standpoint. Yet the knowledge has always been there, so I’ve decided to reignite my passion for creating music again.
As I said, I’m having a ton of fun doing it, and I use a lot of music in my podcasts and YouTube videos anyway, so in the future, I may well end up using my own music rather than licensing music from sites like Artlist or SoundStripe (Aff link).
I hope to be able to share more with you guys in the coming months. In the meantime, like any business, this is a work in progress still.
OK, so if you’ve just stumbled upon this show for the first time, a BIG warm welcome to you. It’s great to have you here, and I hope that you’ll stick around and continue listening in for more good stuff.
Just in case this is your first time tuning in, this show is all about me sharing with you practical and actionable tips and ideas for growing your blog, your online business, website. etc.; I talk about everything from starting a blog or online business, growth and marketing, creating content, growing your audience, technology, productivity, and so much more.
What I also like to do, from time to time, is share with you some of the things I’m doing myself, kind of behind the scenes of my business and blog.
If this is the kind of stuff you’re interested in, keep tuning in.OK, so in this episode, I’m going to talk all about promoting your eBook. Over the last few months, I’ve gotten a ton of comments on my YouTube channel and emails via my blog requesting I do a post or podcast about eBook promotion, so here we are.
Chances are that you’ve already written your eBook and it’s ‘Live’ for the world to see on your website or blog, and you’re ready to start selling it and making some money!
We’re not going to go over where to sell your eBooks, as in what platforms to use, because I have a separate blog post, including a video where I share five best places to host and sell your eBooks on. If you want to check that post out along with the video. I will link to it in the show notes.
Recommended: Best Places To Sell Your eBooks Online! (Video)
Before we get started, I want to talk about the importance of marketing and promoting your eBook. Writing and publishing an ebook is a great feeling. But if you don’t market and promote it properly, no one will know about it, let alone purchase it!
By the way, guys, the whole marketing thing is not rocket science. There are many contexts online that portray digital marketing to be this big, scary, and expensive minefield. It doesn’t have to be. You don’t need a degree in marketing to learn how to promote and sell your eBook online and start making money from it, so let’s get to it!
Right then, let’s go over some of the most effective things you can do to promote your eBook online right now.
I’ll start with your website or your blog, assuming you have one, of course. If you don’t have any of these, it really doesn’t matter. But I would honestly recommend that you create at least a landing page for your eBook, and that’s what I want to talk about first.
Whether you’re planning on selling or giving away your eBook as an incentive to get people on your email list, a great looking, well optimized, conversion-ready landing page can be powerful.
But here’s the thing:
Most bloggers only create and use a single landing page for their eBook. There’s nothing wrong with that strategy, but why stop at one? And if you’re wondering why you should spend your precious time creating multiple landing pages?
Well, there are some benefits of doing just that:
For one, using multiple landing pages allows you to create unique content and call-to-action for each of those landing pages.
Secondly, and this is the big one:
You can test each of the landing pages against each other to see which one attracts the most visits, clicks, scrolls, and most importantly, the best conversion rate. As in eBook sales!
And if you’re now thinking:
But Fabrizio, it’s such an effort to create multiple landing pages let alone one.
If you have a WordPress blog or website, there are a couple of really great tools I recommend you check out and use to help you create an attractive landing page.
Yes, you will have to invest in some tools, but that’s just business! You’re either going to invest in growth or not.
Now the tools I want to mention are:
Thrive Architect and Thrive Optimize.
These two plugins are an absolute must if you’re serious about marketing, growth, and success! And I’m talking from experience. I would not have achieved the growth that I have with my blog without Thrive Themes.
So, what is Thrive Architect and Thrive Optimize?
Thrive Architect is a page and content builder plugin. Thrive Optimize is an add-on plugin that allows you to create variations of your landing pages built with Thrive architect and carry out A/B split test!
Thrive Architect makes creating beautiful landing pages so easy and without touching a single line of code either.
You can add your own content, embed videos, images, design elements, all using drag and drop.
So, the real benefit of using these two plugins, in my opinion, is that it is a huge time saver of a plugin. It doesn’t matter how many landing page variations you create – When you test your pages using Thrive Optimize, the traffic will always be evenly distributed to each of the pages over time.
Then, you’ll be able to collect some useful data and metrics regarding the performance and conversion rates of those pages.
So, if you have a landing page for your eBook and it’s not really working out, start creating multiple variations of that landing page, and more importantly, start testing them. It’s so important to test. Otherwise, you’re just poking around in the dark, hoping to find something.
I have a separate post about creating A/B split tests, which I’ll link to in the show notes. I also have reviews and video tutorials of Thrive Architect and Optimize; again, I’ll link to these below:
Recommended: Thrive Architect Review And Tutorial
Recommended: Thrive Optimize Review And Tutorial
Recommended: A/B Split Tests Tools For Bloggers
So, sticking to your website or blog, the next thing you could consider doing is creating a featured section on the homepage of your website.
I’m quite positive your homepage gets some decent amounts of traffic, and if that is the case, then there’s no better way to divert some of that traffic to your eBook landing page.
If you take a look at my blog’s homepage over at Magnet4Blogging, you will see that I have a section dedicated to promoting my eBook. There is a clear call-to-action that takes visitors to my eBook sales page.
If you decide to create a homepage section on your blog, remember to keep it clean and simple. More importantly, focus on the core value of your eBook.
Let people know exactly what you are offering them and why they should even care about it. Make your CTA clear and concise; avoid using marketing jargon if you can.
For my eBook, my homepage section headline is ‘Plan to make 2021 your best blogging year yet’ with the help of my blog planner. And if you’re looking at my homepage right now, you’ll see that my aim here is to highlight the value of using my blog planner workbook is to save time, be more productive, and reach your goals.
So, let’s talk about promoting your eBook on social media platforms. There are over a dozen ways to share content related to or promote your ebook.
I’m not just talking about posting a link to your landing page every so often. You have to be a little bit more creative. So, here are some ideas to think about –
So, again these are just some ideas for you to consider when promoting on social media. The other thing you can do, of course, is consider using paid ads on social media.
I don’t want to elaborate too much on this because I don’t often boost my social media posts. But from time to time, I do, and it can work really well.
It doesn’t have to be costly, and you can use paid posts to target specific audience interest and direct the traffic to a lead generation page rather than your eBook sales page if you wish.
Facebook and Instagram are both great platforms for boosting posts. It’s inexpensive, in my opinion, and if you target your ads correctly, set your budget, experiment with different visuals, etc., you can succeed with it. But don’t go overboard with paid ads. Have it as an option in your marketing strategy plan.
I said that at the beginning, I wouldn’t be discussing too much about where to host your eBooks. However, one of the best ways to promote your eBook without a doubt is to host it on more than one platform that is not your blog or website.
Assuming, of course, you’re planning on selling your eBook and not giving it away as a freebie.
How many platforms should you use?
The more, the better, in my experience, but just make sure you check each platform’s terms and conditions first. From previous experience, I know that some platforms prefer to have eBooks sold exclusively on their platform. I’m not sure if that is still the case but just double-check.
Don’t forget to check out the link in the show notes to the blog post where I share the best places to sell your eBooks online if you haven’t already done so.
Just to reel a few off the top of my head:
Payhip (Aff link) is the one I use the most. It’s simple to use and super cost-effective. The other one is Selz (Aff link).
If you have a blog, chances are you have a lot of existing and relevant content that you can use to promote your eBook. Don’t just randomly link to your eBook landing page using anchor text links; there are smarter ways to use in-content promotions.
You can use visuals, such as custom banners. You can use excerpts from your eBook. Maybe pull out a quote or section. If the blog post topic is highly relevant to your eBook, this makes the process easier. And you’re more likely to see better conversions.
You can also create new content. For instance, I have many posts that talk about productivity, getting organized, and motivation that I can use to promote my Ultimate Pro Blog Planner eBook. So, figure out and make a list of what new content you could create to help promote your eBook.
Of course, creating marketing content shouldn’t just be reserved for your blog. You can also do guest blogging, create videos for your YouTube channel if you have one. Do an interview on another blog, talk about your eBook, do email outreach, create a podcast show, etc.
Before we end this episode, I just want to say that promoting your ebook takes time. You’re not going to see results overnight. It wasn’t until a few months after I started promoting my eBook that I saw sales come through. But just persist with it. The more work you put in now, the better results you will get later down the line. Make sure you have a plan and document everything that you do, OK?
OK, so that is it, peeps, that’s all I have for you in this episode. I hope you’ve found it useful. If you have any questions about promoting or selling your ebook online, you can leave me a comment if you’re tuning in via my blog at Magnet4Blogging dot net.
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider supporting the podcast by subscribing via my blog. You can also leave me a short review over on iTunes if you wish, I do appreciate it, and I appreciate you.
If you want to get more hacks and tips on growing your blog or online business, head over to my blog at Magnet4Blogging dot net. I also have a YouTube channel with lots of blogging and WordPress tutorials! Until the next episode, do take care, stay safe, peace.
