Content marketing: using digital publishing to your advantage

In MARKETING
27 January 2022
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As the digital world continues to evolve, businesses are finding new ways to take advantage of the opportunities it offers. A strong trend that has been building in recent years is digital content marketing.

The idea behind this trend is simple but powerful: when businesses offer insight, information or inspiration related to their industry online, they can attract the attention of users interested to learn more. By providing value to readers, you can boost awareness, grow your audience and encourage sales.

In this article, we will explain why digital publishing is a natural fit for content marketing, and five ways Calaméo can help implement your strategy.

Publish a digital magazine

A great magazine is a classic format for capturing readers’ attention and can be a useful part of your content marketing strategy. Build articles and visuals around your industry or your product to entertain and inspire potential customers. For example, Callaway teamed up with Whalebone magazine to produce a special issue focused on all things golf:

Publishing digitally with Calaméo makes the magazine accessible for golf fans all over the world to browse online.

Include links to your site

Creating connections between your content and your business is a key element of successful content marketing. It couldn’t be simpler with digital publishing—just add links to your website! External links provide readers a seamless transition between enjoying your publication and visiting your business’s site.

💡TIP: Our advanced statistics can help you track which publications drive the most traffic to your site.

Offer a bonus

Everyone loves getting something extra—so why not offer your audience bonus content when they visit your site? Whether it’s a recipe collection or a look at company culture, digital publishing allows your standalone content to shine as an interactive flipbook with professional polish. Plus, in just a few clicks you can embed your publication on your blog or website for your readers to discover.

Share a printable

Printable templates are a favorite for content marketers in every industry. Take relevant information, format it so that your audience can print and use as they like, then publish! The example below shows a printable from Shambhala Publications’ book, Real Life Rules:

Our PREMIUM and PLATINUM plans allow you to enable printing so that your readers can print directly from the viewer.

💡TIP: Pinterest is a perfect place to share your ditigally published printables. Check out our post on Pinterest for digital publishers for tips to get started!

Generate leads

White papers, reports and guides can help establish your business’s knowledge and authority in your field. The Race Director’s Guide to Digital Marketing is a great example from Big Run Media:

This type of publication can also be an effective way to develop a subscriber base or generate leads. Consider asking for your readers’ email address in exchange for downloading your publication and be sure to include a “Contact us” button.

There are plenty of smart strategies for using content marketing with digital publishing to grow your business. No matter how you want to reach your audience, our solution provides the features you need to share your expertise.

Are you interested in testing the full range of our professional features? Get in touch to request your free 14-day PLATINUM Demo!

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MARKETING

All you need to know about newsletters: Part one

In MARKETING
10 March 2022

We have all seen a bad newsletter: messy visuals, too much text, a confusing format, boring content. In short, neither engaging nor fun to read. Luckily, the Calaméo team is here to help with all you need to know about newsletters! Publish newsletters that people actually want to read, with the aid of digital publishing and Calaméo’s easy-to-use platform.

  1. What is a newsletter?
  2. Why send a newsletter?
  3. Define your objectives
  4. Engaging text
  5. Simplified formatting
  6. Spice up your visuals

What is a newsletter?

A newsletter is a publication about a specific subject that is destined for a limited audience. Newsletters have been around a long time – even the ancient Romans used them – and are still a great means of communication today. Most newsletters are not very long (only a few pages) and include both text and visuals. Newsletters are similar to magazines, but magazines are typically longer and written for a wider audience. On Calaméo, your newsletter appears in its entirety in a flipbook, scroll, or slide format with turning pages and interactive details, rather than a flat and mundane PDF. (This article will focus on online newsletters that are hosted on digital publishing platforms like Calaméo, not email newsletter campaigns.)

Example of a newsletter from Neuropedia.

Why send a newsletter?

There are many reasons for creating and distributing newsletters. Companies may want to send out internal newsletters to employees to update them on company policies, events, or big news. An external newsletter is a great sales and marketing resource to send to clients and prospects. Clubs may send newsletters to members, religious institutions to congregants, local government administrations to residents, and educators and academic institutions may send newsletters to students, parents, or staff.

If you are currently distributing a paper newsletter, consider making the switch to a digital version. Not only will you save natural resources, your publication will also be dynamic and engaging, available online for consultation 24/7. If you are sending your current digital newsletter in a PDF format, now is the time to publish it on Calaméo and take advantage of our fabulous interactive features! Read on for our tips on publishing digital newsletters.

Define your objectives

There are questions you will need to ask yourself before creating your newsletter. First, what is the purpose of this newsletter? Are you creating a newsletter in order to share information, sell or market a product, or another reason?

Next, who is your audience? A group of people with similar interests who already know the topics included in the newsletter? Or a larger group that is unfamiliar with you or your organization? These questions will help you decide if you need to include background information or if you can use subject-specific language without needing explanatory text or visuals.

Finally, how often do you want to publish issues of your newsletter? Weekly, monthly, quarterly? PREMIUM and PLATINUM members can plan publications in advance to save time and keep to a regular schedule. Defining objectives around your newsletter will help you construct a relevant publication that people will actually read.

Engaging text 

Throughout the pandemic, newsletters have been an excellent tool for keeping employees and clients (and other audiences) updated regarding changing health regulations and conflicting information. They are excellent channels for providing up-to-date news.

So special consideration should be taken while creating the content of your newsletter. The body of your newsletter should have enough text to relay your information but not so much that your reader gets lost in the details. Make the content of your newsletter dynamic and engaging. Your articles should avoid too much fluff or filler; get to the point and show your subject knowledge or industry expertise by sharing relevant information. If your company has made a recent policy change, or your club has updated its calendar, those should be included. Announcements should appear in a prominent location in your newsletter. 

Simplified formatting

Formatting is usually an afterthought. However, good formatting will help your newsletter flow and draw readers’ eyes to critical content. You want your readers to retain the most important information and leave your publication feeling better informed, not overwhelmed by a wall of text or wasted space. 

Have these tips in mind for a well-formatted newsletter:

  • Keep it simple
  • Limit the amount of text on each page
  • Stick to your brand style guide (use same font and color scheme as your other publications)
  • Include calls to action in visible places
  • No unnecessary visuals
  • Avoid background images 
  • Make use of Calaméo’s Zoom feature (PREMIUM and PLATINUM accounts)

Spice up your visuals

A good newsletter must include graphics (but not too many–see above!). Because newsletters are a visual format, take advantage of charts, graphs, and other visual aids to help share your information and illustrate your articles. Avoid clip art and other amateur graphics, especially if your newsletter is a professional publication.

The beauty of using an online digital platform like Calaméo to host your newsletter is that you can use our Editor tool to enrich your publication with dynamic visuals, like videos and GIFs. With Calaméo, you can also embellish the viewer. Personalize the theme of your viewer, add your logo, or even use our White Label feature.

💡 TIP : Make sure to optimize your documents before publishing!

Stay tuned


Part one of our newsletter series was all about the content of your newsletter, and part two will focus on the important steps to take before and after sending to ensure its success. Stay tuned for the next article in this series about newsletters. And in the meantime, sign up with Calaméo today to get started on your digital publishing journey!

MARKETING

How to promote content with LinkedIn

In MARKETING
24 February 2022

The Digital Publisher’s Guide to Social Media

Thanks to social media, delivering content to thousands of people at once is as easy as hitting the “Post” button. But it isn’t always easy to achieve the results you have in mind. That’s why we’re bringing you a new series all about making these channels work for your digital publishing needs. Next up: how to promote content with LinkedIn.

Why use LinkedIn to promote content?

If you think of LinkedIn mostly as a place to look for job openings, think again. Over the past several years, the social network built for professionals has added lots of new features and tools designed for content. Although it’s not the biggest social platform, LinkedIn’s 810 million users represent a particularly valuable audience of executives, entrepreneurs and employees.

As a result, LinkedIn has become a key channel for distributing B2B digital content. In other words, businesses that sell their products or services to other businesses want to be seen in LinkedIn Feeds. In fact, it’s the #1 social media network for B2B marketers with a content strategy. A recent study found that 95% said they published non-sponsored posts on LinkedIn. (More focused on B2C? Keep reading—B2C marketers use the platform, too.)

Since 30 million companies have joined LinkedIn, the importance of B2B influencers has exploded. Also called “thought leaders,” these users can attract big audiences to their reflections on trends, tools and ideas in business. Consider how your digital publications, from brochures to white papers, can help your company join the conversation and reach the right readers. Then, get ready to promote content with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Network icon

Choose the right format

The first choice you’ll need to make when posting your content to LinkedIn is what format to use. Because LinkedIn offers different options than most other social platforms, this can be a little more complicated than usual. For example, personal profiles and business pages don’t have the same posting possibilities.

If you’re posting from a business page to promote content with LinkedIn, you’ll have three main choices. You can create a classic Link post, an Image post or a Document post.

Link post

  • A Link post is great for sharing important sales and lead generation content, like your professional digital publications on Calaméo. Whether embedded on a landing page or ready to browse in our full-screen viewer, your publications can benefit from readers coming from LinkedIn.

Image post

  • An Image post will contain a featured .jpg or .png file, plus your message. To achieve an Image look while still including a link in your update, first enter the post text and link. Then, LinkedIn will pull a selection of images from your link to use in your post. Choose the image you prefer and hit Post!

Document post

  • A Document post allows you to publish an entire PDF file within a LinkedIn update. Readers will be able to view your document without ever leaving their feeds, which means you can share more complex content directly in the Feed.

If you’re posting from a personal profile, you also have access to LinkedIn’s Articles feature. The Articles format is similar to a blog post: longer than the messages that accompany Link, Image and Document posts, but more limited in scope than a digital publication.

In short, the post format that works best for you will depend on why you want to promote content with LinkedIn. For instance, Articles and Image posts might help you find new followers and build an audience on the platform. However, Link posts to your digital publications may be most effective for nurturing prospects and gaining customers.

LinkedIn Learning icon

Optimize your message

In addition to its professional user base, marketers love LinkedIn for its generally high engagement rates for organic posts. You should expect to see 1-2% of the people who see your update to comment, click, react or share. Meanwhile, engagement rates on Facebook and Twitter are only about half of that: 0.50% to 1%.

What’s more, LinkedIn has been open about the factors that make a post likely to get better reach. Above all, engagement matters. Getting your followers—and their followers!—to respond to your posts is the key factor to effectively promote content with LinkedIn.

So what can you do in concrete terms to encourage engagement? There are lots of ideas out there, but the most common advice is to focus on your post text. For every type of post format, you’ll be able to include a message of up to 700 characters. Use that space to speak to your audience! Explain why they should click, ask what they think, tell them a story about your content. To finish, add a few well-chosen hashtags to make your post easier to discover.

LinkedIn Messages icon

Watch for conversions

Once you’ve started sharing on LinkedIn, you can begin to evaluate the kinds of content that you’d most like to emphasize. For many B2B oriented companies, online content marketing with guides, case studies, white papers and more has become an important way to find new customers. And you’ll want to know how well these digital publications are performing.

LinkedIn provides a number of useful statistics about your updates, which are visible to company Page Administrators in their Analytics tab. Besides gaining valuable insights into your audience, you can check the reach, clicks and overall engagement rate of your posts. Unfortunately, there are no more specific details available about the digital publications that you’ve shared. In other words, even Document posts won’t have data about publication views.

Therefore, you can get the best out of both worlds when you promote content with LinkedIn that is part of your sales and marketing strategy. Create a post about a digital publication embedded on your website, where a pop-up form can generate leads. Or enrich your business’s catalogue with Shopping links, then share to support sales. Your digital publications on Calaméo come with advanced statistics that help you dig deeper into audience engagement.   

Ready to start?

Now that you’ve got all the details about how to promote content with LinkedIn, it’s time to turn your online documents into great digital publications. Sign up for your free Calaméo account today and explore what digital publishing can do for you!