A (Short) Guide to Understanding Guides

Today's topic came from last week's Club Catch Up.

We were discussing marketing ideas and found that a lot of thought goes into creating a successful eBook/guide.

So I'm going to share everything I can think of, starting from the ideation.

First - to come up with a successful eBook, think about the specific problems you help solve for clients.

The more unique to a niche, the better.

For example, my main "guide" is Freelance Finances Made Simple. If someone comes across it online, those within the niche get extreme value—and those outside won't bother downloading it.

It may feel odd to turn away potential subscribers but at the end of the day, it's worth it.

You'll have better subscribers, better conversions, and for those who get a lot of downloads, a cheaper email plan (because you don't have a list full of random contacts while most platforms charge in tiers of subscriber count - below):

If you don't have a niche to market to, think about the topics or problems that most people reach out to you for - or where you provide the most value in a planning relationship.

The purpose of a guide is to show your expertise and help someone get one step further in their financial journey, whatever it may be.

If you work with retirees, they probably have a lot of questions about social security, or tax-efficient income.

But if you work with millennials in tech, the value is different.

Rather than social security, they're probably focused on maximizing benefits and financial freedom.

I got my first client with the help of a free guide on the home page of my firm's website, and it was intentionally created with recent grads and millennials in mind.

After you've established the demographic, it's time to think about the positioning of the guide.

To come up with a title & topic, I like to frame them in a few different ways:

• Ultimate Guide - should be super in-depth and actionable . . . treated like a 'whitepaper'. Anywhere from 5-50+ pages.
• • The Ultimate Guide to Retiring Early
• Listicle - 3 Things to Know, 5 Mistakes, 4 Tips . . . these should be shorter and treated more like blog posts. Anywhere from 2-10 pages.
• • 5 Ways to Maximize Social Security
• Checklist - a short, actionable list to help someone get a general understanding of a topic . . . designed more as a one-page handout
• • An IPO Checklist for AirBNB Employees

How to Create Them

Canva is a godsend. I use it for 99% of everything I make.

If you download one of the Club guides, you'll see a general format in regards to heading & paragraph sizes, what to include on pages, and how to structure a simple guide.

But everything in this graphic (including the PDF itself) was created in Canva:

I'll share a video next week about how I think about creating and designing a guide.

Where to Put Them

I like to always put some form of "guide" on the home page of a site. It's the most visited page and when someone goes there for the first time, you want to have the best chance possible to collect their email (or get them to schedule a call).

Typically, I put the graphic & a call-to-action at the bottom so someone can read about the service/business first, but if you had a strong, targeted topic, I could see it performing well if it was placed in the hero section too.

Then, I think putting a call-to-action at the end of blog posts is an easy way to pick up emails over time. If someone's reading an article and you link to a more in-depth guide, there's a decent chance some of those readers will convert to subscribers. Same thing with posting about it on social media. If you made something valuable, you should share it anywhere possible.

Below is how I include a call-to-action at the end of blog posts on my personal website:

And for a tangible example of "guide marketing", I'll share what we've done at AllStreet.

In 2022, we posted 12 personal finance guides for millennials.

Each month we wrote, designed, and marketed something entirely new. The topics varied across the different financial planning disciplines - from health insurance to investing for retirement:

The monthly cadence created a somewhat "exclusive" feel and gave someone a reason to download the latest guide (or else they'd miss it).

Once someone was already subscribed, they'd get the new guide in the monthly newsletter without any further action needed.

But now, we have one main guide: 11 Tax Moves for Business Owners

It's not the most highly downloaded, but it's super valuable for those in our niche.

In return (while positioning other marketing messaging towards business owners), we got more business owner clients in 2023.

Writing a new guide every month was a heavy lift, but it established a foundation. It let us understand what resonated and what didn't, and we doubled down on the niche that we could provide the most value to (and those who valued our service).

At the end of the day, all a guide should do is show your expertise, collect someone's email, and allow you to continue marketing to them via email.

You'll likely need to test different guides to see what works best and over time, your niche & expertise may evolve but to get started, put something out there around a topic that clients come to you for. If they needed help, someone else will too.

Next week: I'm going to record a video breakdown of creating a guide with ChatGPT, editing it, making the PDF, and then adding it to a website.