A free book offer and follow-up campaign is an incredible marketing tool that has the power to convert potential patients into active ones in increasing numbers over time. There is a trick, however—people have to actually request your free book! If no one knows you have a book, it doesn’t matter how great the offer is or how effective the follow-up campaign can be. It will never get used. That’s why you have to actively promote your free book offer: so people who might be interested in it actually know it exists and how to get it.

Put It Front and Center

First and foremost, if your free book offer and follow-up campaign is to be at all successful, people have to be able to easily find and request your book. The fastest and most convenient place for this is, of course, through your website. Your book should feature prominently on your website in a place that’s easy for visitors to see when they first hit your homepage. Don’t hide it away under a menu, bury it in a side bar, or keep it on an obscure page that’s hard to find. Have a picture and a direct link to your request form in an eye-catching place on your site.

Remember, Sharing Is Caring

Promoting your book involves more than posting it to your website, however. Even if it features prominently on your home page, it can get overlooked. This is where your social media comes in. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and even YouTube are your friends for sharing information with your community. Periodically post a blurb about your book and a link to the request form on all your social media profiles. You can even make mini-promotional videos for YouTube—and then share those other places, too. Be creative in how you share and promote your book!

Take It With You

The internet is an excellent tool for promoting your book, but it’s not your only one. You can also promote it “in real life.” Take it with you when you go to events or health fairs. As you talk with people and make connections, point them toward your book. If they seem interested, have them sign up for their own free copy to be mailed to them in the future.

You can have copies sitting out in your office as well with request forms or directions to request it from your website. As patients wait to be seen, they can browse the example copy and decide if they would like one of their own. Your staff can draw visitors’ attention to the book as well, encouraging people to sign up for a copy if they are interested.

There are plenty of other options to promote your book, of course—e-mail blasts, radio interviews or ads, and anything else you can think of. The more you promote your book online and off, the more you increase your chances that a potential patient will request it and work their way through your campaign to become an active patient later. As long as someone exchanges their contact information for the book so you can enter them into your list and follow up with them through the decision making process, you’ve promoted it well.

If you’d like to know more about promoting your book, or you’d like help doing so, just let us know! Top Practices has plenty of resources that could help you brainstorm ways to make better use of this incredible marketing tool. You can contact us for more information or to get started by calling (717) 725-2679 or e-mailing [email protected] to reach us.