Most potential customers aren’t ready to buy from you when they first hear about your products or services. They’re more likely to buy sometime in the future. For now, you’ll want two things from them: their contact information and their permission to continue communicating with them.
In short, you want them to become leads you can follow up with later so that when they are ready to buy, you come immediately to mind.
Your book can be used in two ways in the lead capture process: as a lead generator or as an incentive given in exchange for contact information.
One of the more effective ways to use your book for lead generation is to print links in your book to pages on your website that are designed to capture people’s contact information. For example, if your book is about making independent films, then at the end of the chapter on financing you can include a URL to a landing page where readers can sign up for your Financing Your Independent Film newsletter.
This method works very well. Why? Because, by buying and reading your book on the subject, the people who sign up for more information have already demonstrated significant interest in what you have to offer.
Your potential customers are increasingly being bombarded with requests for their contact information through many different media: email, snail mail, TV, magazines, text messaging, newspapers, billboards, voicemail systems, phones, etc. It’s very hard to get your message heard above this cacophony. What you need, therefore, is an exceptional tangible incentive that you can give in exchange for your potential customer’s contact information. One author I work with gives seminars where he offers a free copy of his book to any attendee who signs up for his email newsletter. Another author lets people download his eBook in exchange for an email address and permission to continue communicating. (Many who download the eBook like it so much that they end up buying a printed version later.)
Using your book as a tangible incentive in your lead capture process is incredibly powerful, because while you’re obtaining leads you’re also providing something that will convince them that you’re the expert they can trust and should do business with.
Whether your book generates leads for you or gives people an incentive to become leads, you’ve got to admit: your book is an incredible tool for growing your business.