Why you should create an in depth, educational guide for your potential customers to download
When it comes to downloadable guides and lead generators, I’ve downloaded many. Sometimes in the consumer mindset. Sometimes in the “I’m conducting an audit” mindset.
Some of the guides have been very..I mean VERY basic. Depending on who your customer is, and where their current knowledge level is, basic can be the perfect. On the flip side, if your customer base is a group of people who are trying to learn more about your topic, going the basic route can lead to a, “downloading that guide was a waste of my time” effect.
Personally, when my clients are creating downloadable guides as lead generators, I always advise they go the in depth, educational route. When someone downloads the guide and reads it, I want to ensure they learned something useful that they didn’t know before. Regardless of whether or not they ever become a customer, I want to know that we left them with something tangible they can implement into their life today.
EXAMPLE TIME
Several months ago I was doing some research on a company called The Upside. On their website they had a free, downloadable guide called, “The Pricing Playbook.”
I downloaded it (duh), and as I read through it I thought to myself, “Now THIS is a guide worth downloading.”
This guide was written specifically for the independent consultant, and within the guide, they broke down several types of pricing structures, and how to create your pricing per service.
Whether or not I ever decided to become a customer of theirs, that guide educated me on information I didn’t know before. It was very much not a waste of my time, and it left a positive impression on me.
I still happily receive The Upside’s emails, and they are still in the back of my mind as a company I may very likely purchase from when the time is right.
LET’S BRING IT HOME WITH SOME TIPS
Don’t fall for the B.S. statement that no one downloads and reads anymore. People who are interested in learning more will read.
If you decide to create and test out a downloadable guide for your business, but don’t have a large budget to hire a graphic designer, that’s ok. Go download a guide like The Pricing Playbook, and copy the aesthetic. They kept the color scheme neutral. The majority of the guide is filled with content, and the content is broken up by rectangular lines. They change font sizes to section out the information. Simple. Effective.
As I continue to grow my paid publication, I intend to audit very specific projects, and share deeper insights with my readers.
In one of those future audits, I’m going to take a lead generator I created for a client that performed very well (42% conversion rate), and dive deeper into details such as:
How I knew what topic to choose for the guide
Who wrote the rough draft content
Who finalized the content
Why we decided to put more focus into the design of this particular guide
How we used the content within the guide to create multiple emails, and social media posts
A lot of goodies coming down the pipeline this year for my paid publication.