When you think of writing to promote your business, press releases and article marketing are likely what come to mind. However, it’s possible to promote your company with an ebook, as well.

Nearly anyone can write an ebook and if you don’t have the time or inclination, it’s fairly easy to find someone who can do it for you. Ebooks have become common enough now that you can easily use them to promote your business, provided you know how to leverage your writing.

Once you have your ebook, you simply give it away for free, with your business information inside, of course. If you have written a quality book on a good topic, you will find that everyone wants it and will share it with friends.

Choosing a Topic

An ebook to promote your business cannot be written in a very promotional tone. In fact, it’s best if it focuses on answering a question for the potential client and then gently directs them to your website. The first thing to do, then, is select the perfect topic.

Take a close look at your target audience. You need to be sure that you are going to be providing an ebook that offers them some value, so check out what they are interested in and what their most common questions are. Forums are excellent resources, as they will show you exactly what your audience is asking. You may also find some of the answers in the forums, to help you with the research for your book.

Your ebook topic needs to be something related to your field, preferably solving a problem. For example, if you run a beauty salon, you might create a book on how to prepare for your wedding day. A gym could offer an ebook on using weights, how to ingest more protein or how to lose weight, etc. There are endless topics available in any area of business.

Writing the Ebook

With the topic in mind, write down all points that you would like to address in the book. These may be just sub-topics or you may want to address specific questions on the theme. Either way, these points will each represent a section or chapter of the ebook.

The next step is to fill in each section. Depending on how much information you will be sharing, you can choose to write an entire chapter based around each point, or you may just want to write a few paragraphs; the choice is yours.

It’s perfectly acceptable to leave an ebook in solid text, but images can add a lot of interest and break up solid blocks of text to help make it easier to read. Other things to keep in mind before publishing:

Add a table of contents (clickable is best)
Use different sized fonts for chapter titles and subheadings
Include page numbers for easy reference

You will also want to include your website URL in the footer section of each page, so people always have a way to find you. Any references to your business within the book should also be linked to the appropriate webpage and a call to action written at the end, complete with a link. You may wish to give readers a special discount on a product or service, as well, to help sweeten the deal and encourage them to go to your website.

Promoting Your Ebook

Once you have the book written, you will want to convert it into PDF. This can be done with Adobe Acrobat, or you can use one of the many PDF converter resources online. Be sure to double check that the formatting still works after the document has been formatted.

Promotion is required, even if you are giving a book away for free. It’s best to have a cover made up for your book to make it easier to promote. Create a sales page for the book and then start letting people know it’s available and free.

You have many avenues open to you:

Blogging
Guest posting on another blog
Social media
Email marketing
Article marketing

You may also want to contact bloggers and website owners for reviews, since many will be happy to help you promote it. Be sure to let everyone know that the ebook can be distributed for free on their own blogs if they wish. This can even be included inside the ebook so those who receive it through other bloggers will be able to give it away, as well.

Writing an ebook to promote your business can be a relatively unique method of promotion if you aren’t in internet marketing. It’s not common to see a restaurant giving away an ebook, yet it can be a very powerful method of gaining people’s interest. If you write your own book, then it can be completely free to create and usually takes less than a week to complete, proof and to start promoting. This makes ebooks a very efficient and cost effective type of marketing.