As you may know, content marketing can be one of the best methods of promoting your business and driving traffic to your website. However, while most content lives online, you can also produce downloadable content, like an e-book.
Downloadable content is a bit different from other types of content marketing because it’s often more valuable and requires more of an investment from the user. While everyone can read a blog post, only motivated customers or leads will want to download something more comprehensive.
When done correctly, a downloadable content strategy can provide your business with a dual boost.
On the one hand, you can increase your site traffic and subscriber list, allowing you to promote new products and services to new visitors. On the other hand, you can sell your content as an extra, low-cost revenue stream.
If you’re not sure where to start, let’s dive into how to create downloadable content and see how your brand can develop a strategy that works.
What Is Downloadable Content?
As the name suggests, downloadable content is a content piece that a user can download and read or use at their leisure. Some examples of downloadable content can include:
- E-books
- Case studies
- Product packets and manuals
- Software
- Digital templates
- Digital items (i.e., stickers or Gifs)
- Tutorials
Sometimes, you will want to create unique downloadable content that a user can’t find on your website. In other cases, you may offer both a web and downloadable version so a customer can pick the option that’s right for them.
How to Create a Downloadable Content Strategy
Although it may be tempting to just start producing high-quality content, having a comprehensive strategy makes more sense. This way, you can be sure you’re heading in the right direction and putting your time, energy, and resources behind content that will convert.
Fortunately, creating a downloadable content strategy is as easy as one, two, three! (And four, five, six.)
Step one: Identify your target audience
First and foremost, you need to know who the content is for. Audience research is essential when building any kind of content strategy, especially when you’re trying to get someone to download something.
Now, you may have already done some of this research for other marketing campaigns. However, it’s imperative to tailor that research to fit this specific strategy. Some questions to ask may include:
- Why does this person want to download this content? Does it solve a problem or add value to their life?
- How valuable is this content to our target customer?
- Can this person get similar content from somewhere else?
- At what stage of the buying journey is the customer when downloading this content?
By answering these questions, you can determine which pieces will fit into this strategy and which ones are better for other campaigns.
Step two: Come up with downloadable content ideas
There are many types of downloadable content, including e-books, webinars, tutorials, and more. Also, you can even repurpose old content and turn it into something downloadable. This option is ideal if you have a lot of material on your website that is mostly sitting in your post archive.
During this step, it’s imperative to understand which ideas will add the most value. Basically, don’t just create something for the sake of creating it. Instead, you should have a compelling reason for its existence.
Overall, write down a list of five, ten, or more ideas and flesh them out with some additional information or content structure.
Step three: Determine when to promote specific content pieces
This step is crucial because it validates the ideas you created in step two.
Now, the trick is to figure out where your downloadable content will have the most impact. Realistically, you should pick touch points in your sales or marketing funnel where this kind of content will have the most traction.
Sometimes, it’s best to do this step during the idea phase. This way, you can pinpoint areas that can benefit from downloadable content and work backward to determine which type of material will have the most impact.
Step four: Rank content by priority
Now that you have some ideas and know where they’ll fit into your marketing and sales funnels, you need to know which pieces to produce first. Since downloadable content is more involved than a simple blog post or landing page, you have to plan it out first.
Since the goal is to maximize your return, you should rank each piece based on how valuable it is to the funnel. For example, if a tutorial can help the sales team close deals, that may take precedence over an e-book or pitch deck.
Step five: Start producing downloadable content
Ideally, you can produce multiple pieces at once, such as an e-book and a corresponding webinar. Once you have a few made, it’ll be much easier to produce new content since you’ll have a system in place.
During this step, it’s best to have deadlines and a content production schedule so it’s easy to know if you’re on track or falling behind schedule.
Step six: Analyze the results and solicit feedback
As with any marketing strategy, you need to know if your efforts are paying off. Once you’ve started implementing downloadable content, try to get feedback from customers and leads. From there, determine which pieces are the most valuable.
You also want to look at data and analytics to see if your content is really moving the needle or not. Just because you’re getting positive feedback doesn’t mean you’re achieving your marketing or sales goals.
Finally, make sure you have the tools and infrastructure to change any materials that aren’t working. This way, you don’t have to cut your losses entirely.
Create High-Quality Downloadable Content With WriterAccess!
Knowing what kind of downloadable content you want is much different than producing it. If you don’t have an in-house copywriting and development team, it’s hard to turn ideas into reality.
Fortunately, WriterAccess can help you produce all kinds of downloadable content by connecting you with world-class graphic designers and writers. Plus, with affordable rates and AI-powered content matching, you can implement your strategy faster than you thought possible.
Start your free two-week trial and see how downloadable content can enhance your business!
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