There’s a funny thing book publishers always tell first time book writers when they get their first deal:
“You don’t want to write this book for money. It’s a reputation builder. It will get you paid speaking gigs and it’ll will elevate your career.”
It’s actually true. Because getting a book deal really won’t make you much money unless you are Stephen King, JK Rowling, or Tim Ferriss. And it does get you speaking gigs. And it does elevate you above the crowd.
For professional writers, however, this all sucks.
But these are very reasons are why your company should publish a book. In today’s crazy world of content marketing, having a book that demonstrates your brand expertise to its customers is perhaps one of the best things you can do for your marketing efforts. There are lots of reasons, but here’s five:
- Arm your sales force with a killer book that they can give away.
- Demonstrate you expertise tangibly.
- Give it away as an ebook as a lead magnet in email marketing.
- Differentiate your brand.
- Adapt the content into blog posts for content marketing purposes.
So what kind of book should your brand produce?
The book should be a guide to getting problems solved. A plumbing company should product a guide to avoid household plumbing issues. Something a Do It Yourselfer would find useful.
Now if that sounds nuts, trust me on this one. You can show someone exactly what to do to solve a problem and most of the time they are going to call you anyway, because you have demonstrated the expertise on how to solve problem easily. And they won’t want to do it themselves, because they may make a mistake and mess up and have to call you or someone else anyway.
This works equally well for B2C companies as it does for B2B companies. All customers have problems. And all companies want to solve those problems for a service fee. Or sell a product that helps the issue.
A water filtration company recently came to the door of our home in Tampa because we have awful water quality here. The sales guy was the 10th person to knock in a year and I turned them all away, except him. They all occurred like scam artists. The guy that got invited in was genuinely interested in educating us about water quality.
Now if this company had guide book on water quality, tips and trucks and low cost solutions that solves of these issues with step by step instructions that I could try myself and then an overview of the water solutions I could buy including theirs, I would have started to develop a trust for their brand, and probably called them sooner.
I knew I was going to buy a system, but I didn’t trust anyone who was selling them, even though they came to my doorstep.
In a book, if they had a 1-800 number where I could called for further questions and even a coupon the back of the book, that would have helped too. They are lots of things you could do.
Producing a nicely designed giveaway book that it professionally written and educates, creates trust and makes a company stand out in its market it will do wonders for a brand’s reputation. Will it do that for your company? You’d be surprised at the amazing reaction you’ll get.
