How to Create Your Mindfulness Ebook to Grow Your Impact Faster
Ever find yourself visiting a website with one simple question in mind… and the next thing you know you’ve got their free guide on “7 Steps to Fill in This Beautiful Blank” in your Downloads folder?
You’ve just experienced the power of a “lead magnet” in marketing lingo. A lead magnet is often something like a free guide, an ebook, a worksheet, a video training, or even a guided meditation. It promises to give you something valuable in exchange for your email address.
Now, as a mindfulness teacher, you may be thinking… “What does this lead magnet thing have to do with helping me serve more people with mindfulness?”
Well, when used mindfully, a lead magnet such as an ebook can be a powerful tool for good! It can help you:
Impact more people’s lives by bringing them practical insights and wisdom
Reach more people with your message in a shorter amount of time
Get more new clients and students signed up for your offerings
Now, don’t let the word ebook scare you. We’re not talking about a full-blown book here. An effective ebook or guide can be just a few pages and doesn't have to take you more than a few hours to put together. The bottom line is that the ebook provides helpful insights packaged in a nice format that people will be interested in downloading.
So let’s go through some of the basic steps of why and how to put such an ebook together – along with some ideas on what to write about within your mindfulness niche.
5 reasons to create your own mindfulness ebook
Mindful marketing is all about being client-centric. It’s a way of approaching marketing as a tool to positively touch lives and have a greater impact. With that said, here are some ways that creating your own ebook will help you do just that:
1. Provide value before they start working with you
An ebook is just one of many ways that you can reach more people online. But it’s especially powerful because it gives you more space (than a social post, blog, or a newsletter) to provide value, insights, or practices that people can put to use right away.
It’s also perceived to be more valuable than other plain text types of content like social posts or blogs . This means that people will be more likely to act upon the information in a way that can truly help them lead better lives.
2. Raise awareness of mindfulness topics and practices
With what’s going on in the world right now, there can never be enough good content about mindfulness, applied in a way that helps people live better lives. Writing your ebook is your chance to get more good quality content out there that will help people understand mindfulness better. It’s also an opportunity to write about mindfulness specifically for your niche and through your unique background and experience.
3. Establish your credibility faster
When you have an ebook or a free guide available on your website, it tends to boost your website visitors’ perception of your brand. If they don’t know anything about you yet, just the fact that you took the time to create something for them (and offer it for free) elevates their perception of your credibility in the mindfulness field.
4. Grow your high-quality email list
Instead of asking people to subscribe to your newsletter, give them something they’ll be excited to exchange their email address for. People who download a guide or ebook about a mindfulness-related topic are usually genuinely interested in the content.
That means that once they’re on your email list, they’re more engaged and more likely to respond to your new offers, classes, and services. (And you don’t have to feel bad about emailing them because you know they’re interested in learning more!)
5. Generates benefits long after you’ve put it together
The beautiful thing about using a lead magnet like an ebook or a guide is that you only have to put it together once. Once you have it in place and put it up on your website, it can impact people and generate leads for you literally while you sleep. Now, of course you’ll want to share and market it as well - but as far as the actual material - once you create it, it’s done. It’s an evergreen marketing asset that you can use over and over again.
What to write about in an ebook for your mindfulness niche?
Writing the content for the ebook is often the part where many people get stuck. So don’t worry - if you can’t think of what to write about, it’s not just you. So that’s why I’m offering you some ideas to start with so you have some inspiration and can start writing your wisdom out today. (You’re welcome :-))
Not sure what target audience within mindfulness you should focus your marketing efforts on or haven’t fully defined your ideal client profile? Soak up some more inspiration to narrow down your mindfulness niche here.
Ok, here are some general topic ideas you can use as inspiration within some broader-mindfulness categories:
Mindfulness for workplaces and organizations
How to use mindfulness for (or # tips to):
Increase focus, clarity, and attention
Spark more innovation
Boost employee wellness
Mindfulness for parents, students, teachers
Beginner’s guide to mindful parenting
Empowering children’s self-awareness through mindfulness
How to decrease reactivity with mindfulness
Mindfulness for individuals (personal growth/self-care/resilience etc.)
Boost your self-care through mindfulness
How mindfulness can help you take better care of your body
Mindfulness for deeper connection with others
Once you pick a topic that you believe your audience would find helpful to learn about (and that you’ll enjoy sharing your insights on), it’s time to put pen to paper and let those ideas flow. :-)
Since not everyone enjoys writing, another option to save time and still get your awesome unique ebook is to hire a mindfulness copywriter to write the ebook content for you. But if you’re ready to flex your writing muscles and start writing, here are some guidelines to help make the process smooth and easy.
How to structure the content of your ebook or guide
Before you start writing, create an outline that summarizes the main points you want to get across. Think about the ultimate goal of what you’d like your readers to take away from your ebook. How is it meant to help them? Write this goal out at the top of your page and use it as your guiding light.
1. Start with a brief intro
It’s likely that many of the people who come across your ebook have never heard of you or your business. Give them a quick overview of who you are, who you help, and how you help them. This need not be longer than a paragraph or two. Make it personable and written in a tone that matches how you'd naturally speak to your audience.
2. Compile your content
Your topic should be something within mindfulness that you already have some experience with and have perhaps have talked or written about before. Instead of starting completely from scratch and reinventing the wheel, consider content you already have that you can use as inspiration (or even repurpose since you're the one who wrote it). Maybe you’ve written a blog post or an article about this topic before. If so, take pieces of it to integrate into your writing or to expand upon in more depth as needed.
3. Start writing
Once you have the main points outlined and perhaps some chunks of content to get started with, start writing. Allow yourself to simply do a brain dump - don’t worry about editing for spelling or grammar just yet. Just let your ideas flow and write. Then give yourself a day to let the writing rest and then go back in to start editing for structure, grammar, spelling etc.
4. Don’t forget a call to action
At the end of your ebook or guide, invite people to take the next step that will help them integrate the knowledge you just shared. Is it to work with you directly? Is it to sign up for your course? Is it to sign up for a webinar or a conference you’ll be speaking at? Whatever it is, have a few sentences that invite them to learn more. Include a button to sign up, a link to your website, or your contact information.
How long should your ebook be?
Remember, when it comes to an ebook or a guide, it’s more about what they can do with the information now rather than the length. Somewhere between 5-10 pages (text and photos) is usually good. But remember, it all depends on your audience and on the type of content you’re sharing with them.
How do you turn words into a lovely ebook that captivates them?
Last but not least, let’s take your wonderful wisdom and package it into a beautiful ebook that people will want to download. There are many free online tools for integrating your words into graphics and PDFs. But the most popular one (that I personally use) and that you may already be familiar with is: Canva.
To start making your ebook, go to www.canva.com and either log in or create an account. Then type “ebook” or “ebook template” into the search bar at the top. Browse through the templates til you find one that you like. Keep in mind that you can customize almost anything on the template: colors, fonts, photos, and other design elements.
Once you’ve chosen your template, copy and paste your text into it. This may take some playing around to get things adjusted. Have fun with it! Replace photos with ones that resonate with you and make it unique and your own. This is also another task you could potentially delegate to a designer or freelancer if you wanted to save yourself the time.
Marketing your ebook effectively
Creating your ebook is only part of the marketing journey in reaching more people…although a very important one. Now it’s time to get it out there and make sure people see it, download it, and use it.
Don’t be shy about sharing your ebook once you’ve put it together. Have it be an incentive on your website for people to download in exchange for their email. Share it on social media. Use it as a value-add when emailing new potential clients or students. Put it in the featured section of your LinkedIn profile.
The more people see your ebook and download it, the more lives you can touch. Once these lovely souls get on your email list, don’t forget that they are beautiful beings who are curious to learn more about what you have to offer! Don’t be shy about contacting them. Here’s a guide on how to use a lead magnet to grow your email list.