Why your business or your education technology provision or your Computing department needs an ebook (or two)
This is an expanded version of an earlier article I wrote for the Bee Digital marketing website. It was originally aimed at businesses, but the points made can apply just as well to schools. In the amended text below, the blue text indicates how the point may (or may not) apply to a school context.
Introduction
It can be very useful to create an ebook that visitors to your website can download, or view in situ. The main benefits to your business include the following:
It can establish your authority.
It can be used as a means of obtaining visitors’ email addresses.
It enables people to read your case studies or white papers without having to be online.
It can help to create brand loyalty.
Let’s examine each of these in turn.
It can establish your authority
Ebooks are the perfect medium for “going niche”. Let‘s say your product is an online creative writing platform. A video explaining the benefits of encouraging creative writing will likely be either too long or too short. A document is probably far better, but creating and distributing a printed book is too much of a faff. An ebook is not hard to create and can be used as a means of showing potential clients that you know what you’re doing.
There is something about books, even ebooks, that serve to impress on people that you’re an expert. Thus if you, as a Head of Computing, or leader of Computing in a primary school, created an ebook containing your scheme(s) of work, information about the courses you offer, perhaps some staff biographies (with photos), that would be a great marketing tool. It would also be useful to give to new students, so they can discover who' who and what’s what, and a nice thing to give out at options evenings (perhaps on a USB stuck).
If you’re an education technology co-ordinator or, whatever your title, your job is to encourage other teachers to use the ed tech facilities, an ebook is a marvellous device. Containing all the most useful information and given to all members of staff, that too would act as a marketing tool.
It can help to create brand loyalty
This is directly related to the preceding point. By demonstrating that your company is an authority, you encourage website visitors to keep on returning.
What does brand loyalty mean in the context of a school? Well, it stands to reason that when it comes to choosing their GCSE options, students have a lot of choice (at least in theory). So brand loyalty means that they carry on with Computing even after they don’t have to. Might ebooks help? Of course! Besides the informational ones given out at options evenings or available from the school website, imagine if each programming project was the star of its own ebook. Or if all the terms required to be learnt at GCSE level were contained in an ebook dictionary. I would argue that while such things are unlikely to be the main reason that anyone would choose your subject, they certainly wouldn’t hurt. They wouldn’t even be that much extra work if you’re producing such materials anyway.
It can be used as a means of obtaining visitors’ email addresses
It’s fairly standard practice for companies to make an ebook available in exchange for contact details. If you have a newsletter, the ebook can be used as a lead magnet.
I’m not sure that you want to get into collecting visitors’ email addresses via the school’s website, because it’s the school website, not your subject’s website. However, if your school’s website contains links to individual subject areas, you may well wish to give visitors the opportunity to be kept informed of developments, such as if a new courses is offered. To be honest, though, I’d avoid this sort of thing because of data protection issues, and quite frankly you could be creating a whole new level of work for yourself. This is one area, I think, where you’re better off advising visitors to check the web page for changes every so often.
It enables people to read your case studies or white papers without having to be online
Some ebooks are intended to be read online, but it’s always a good idea to create a version of your ebook that can be downloaded or read on a device.
Definitely. Remember, though, that a lot of people will wish to read the ebook on a phone, so make sure it’s mobile friendly. See below ("Best practice tips") for formatting information.
The remainder of the article applies equally to schools.
What exactly is an ebook?
Ebooks come in various formats, such as for Apple, or the Amazon Kindle. However, although it is possible to convert ebooks from one format to another, the simplest, and arguably the best option is to create a PDF version. That will be able to be read on most if not all devices, and the software with which to read it is free.
How to create an ebook
I’ve been experimenting with several options. The simplest one by far is to create a document in a word processor, and then save it in PDF format.
If, however, you want something a bit more exciting to look at, and your company does not have the requisite design skills in-house, there are some online applications, such as Visme (free) and Designrr (paid). These provide professional templates, drag-and-drop functionality, and the possibility of importing or copy and pasting material from elsewhere.
The screenshot below shows an example of a fictitious case study I created. As you can see, I can change the title, the colours (theme), add media and data, plus several other options.
Ebook being created in Visme, by Terry Freedman
This kind of application makes it easy for people with no design skills (such as myself!) to very quickly produce something that will not be ashamed to show its face in public.
The output options typically include creating a flipbook (that is, an online document in which the pages appear to turn over), a PDF and sometimes even an embed code. The embed code enables you to place the ebook where it can be read on a web page. That can be useful for keeping visitors on your website for longer.
The best option will depend on what you want the reader to do with the ebook. For example, if you want them to be able to download it and print it off, your choice will be different from a book that includes animation or even video or audio clips.
Good practice tips
Think of the target user and their use. If you anticipate them printing the document off, nothing will prove more annoying to the user than huge swathes of black background with hardly any words on the page.
If you want them to be able to read it on a phone, then large graphics and embedded multimedia are probably not ideal. (It’s worth bearing in mind that some services have an upper size limit, like 25 mb, when sending files. Above that, other services, such as Dropbox, have been utilised. While easy to do, why place an extra obstacle in someone’s way?)
It’s worth using your software’s security options to prevent unauthorised people from changing the document.
Concluding remarks
Ebooks, especially PDFs or web-based ones, lend themselves to any kind of content. They are easily accessible and can be used to enhance your brand’s image and garner the email addresses of potential clients.
In the context of a school, creating departmental ebooks can be great for branding and marketing and, let’s be honest, helping your department to stand out from the crowd!
What’s not to like?
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