I don't know about you, but I think the hardest thing to do as a marketer is to market myself and my own business. When it comes to doing it for yourself, it's a little bit more of a challenge. It's kind of hard to see the forest from the trees. Kind of like the cobbler whose kids have holes in their shoes.
I have no problem helping other people grab their story, convert it into something useful for their clients, and put it in front of them to help them generate sales.
The Marketer's Journey
I want to take you on a journey, a marketer's journey. It's my journey. It's something that I started three months ago. And It's been a process, to squeeze the thoughts out of my head in a way that will resonate with others. After three months and countless hours, It's almost done.
I decided to create an eBook about creating eBooks. What I started out to do was create something that could explain the system that I've been using for my clients. It is intended to give people the opportunity to read about it, but also to experience it.
What follows is the process that I went through to give you a sense of what it's like to create something that I hope will be a success once it's 100% complete. I think you can learn from some of the steps. That's why I wanted to outline this today.
The Brain Dump
The initial step was just getting it out of my head and into some kind of format I could use. I opened up my word processor and wrote a brain dump. Then, I wrote down everything I thought I needed to explain the system. Next, I had to define the problem to be solved, then the solution, and finally the process of how the solution is implemented. The concept was to go through those steps. What's the problem, what's the solution, and then, what's the process?
It started with a story about myself and my life and my dad's influence on how I got to where I am today. What I was trying to get across is how your story can be used to help promote your business to create better sales.
Polishing The Dump
After I finished that rough draft, I handed it to a writer who could polish it up a little bit. She did the best that she could with that raw material (trying to make sense of the random musings) and sent it back to me for the next step. Now I had a little bit of a better version of that brain dump.
Next, I put it in front of my designer who is the same person who creates amazing eBooks for my clients. The goal, at this point, was to create the structure, or the scaffolding, or a wireframe of the eBook. To give her some fuel for thought, I went into my stock library of pictures. I grabbed ones that I thought could enhance the text and put them into a folder. I handed all those and the original document for her to do some magic.
She took that raw idea and flowed through the text, and made a template set up with all the different pictures that she thought matched the original text. When she sent it back to me, I thought it was awesome (but not so fast there bucko.)
First Review
At this point, I had something to put in front of some of my expert friends and get some feedback. I messaged a variety of people. Some had a background in marketing while others were in sales. Others included potential clients or prospects that I've had meaningful communications with. I wanted to get their initial opinion about what they thought. And I ended up getting some great ideas to make this so much better.
I had a feeling about what the initial feedback was going to be. They all said, “You need to write this more in the voice of the person you're trying to write to”, meaning it had to speak to that perfect avatar that I wanted to read the eBook.
The second most consistent feedback was that I needed to organize my case studies in a little bit more consistent fashion so they were easier to digest and compare to each other.
The third piece of feedback, which I took to heart, was about my story. Although it was good sitting at the front of the eBook, it took too long to get to the main concept of the eBook. I decided to take that and move it to the end of the eBook. The overall concept was meant to show readers how you can use your own story to tell your clients about what makes you special. But unfortunately, my story did not add enough at the opening of the eBook, but I still thought it was important to include it.
Round Two
From there, I completely rewrote the entire eBook from the top with all of that feedback. At this point, my goal was also to shrink it down because the initial eBook was twenty pages. Normally I try to make them around 10 to 15 max. During the first round, it was hard to get people to read twenty pages, so I wanted to remedy that.
When I finished the complete rewrite and reorganization of all the information I floated it into the eBook template, and guess what? It was one page longer, not shorter. That told me that I needed all of that information in there to get the main messages across.
I picked out some new pictures, dropped those in, and then sent the project back to the designer. She tweaked and reorganized it and made it even better.
Next, I had the second version ready to be reviewed by a writer for some literary polish. Then it was time to go back to the initial reviewers.
I sent it back for more feedback. The initial feedback I got from round two was, “This is much better, more on target, and much more clear. Here are a few things that you could do that would make it even more readable…”
Then I incorporated many of their suggestions (not all), and then finally laid out a close-to-finished version.
The Live Beta Test
I created the download forms and pages and started to promote the eBook to a general audience. I'm still gathering more feedback on it and making some grammar, spelling, and word tweaks. The final part is to replicate the system I have outlined in the eBook process. I am working to create all of the parts of the system.
One of my main goals is to give people an immersive example of what it's like to get your story into an eBook and what that does. From that eBook, you can now create blog posts that will draw people back to that eBook. You can create email drips that will remind people why they downloaded it in the first place, and maybe even get them to download it again if they forgot where they put it on their hard drive.
The concept is not only to tell them how it works but to show them that it does what it promised. It's designed to give people a full example of the system itself and how it helps keep your story top of mind in your client's eyes. Hopefully, your clients will do one of three things:
- Make a buying decision.
- Recommend you to somebody else
- Say, thanks, but no, thanks.
Each of which is very acceptable.
Final Thoughts
The journey that I went through with this is really the story for you. I know that if you're going to create your own story or your own marketing pieces, it's tough. The lesson learned is that it helps to get as many people in your sphere of influence to spend time helping you perfect it. You can always return the favor.
If you want to check out the final product, go to B2B-im.com/ebook. Let me know your thoughts about how the system works for you:
- Is it intriguing?
- Does it hold your attention?
- Do the pieces makes sense?
The whole concept of doing this is to let people know that you are different than your competition and that you have something to offer that is unique and definitively you. Putting it into an eBook, fuels an entire marketing system that will help promote your business from now into the future.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this eBook and the process laid out within it. Did you find it useful and of value? Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about crafting an eBook that appeals to your ideal customer.
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