11 August 2020

7 eBook Design Tips That Attract Qualified Leads for B2B SaaS

Starting with a compelling ebook cover, strategic ebook design helps capture the attention of the right kind of leads for your B2B SaaS company. Powerful ebook design also ensures the content of your ebook flows seamlessly in a way that’s easy for your leads to digest and put into use in their own businesses.

In this article, we’ll walk through 7 tips for nailing an ebook design that attracts leads.

Tips for strong ebook design

eBooks require a lot of research and time to write. When creating an ebook, you can maximize the potential of your ebook with thoughtful design that will not only help with lead generation but keep your readers engaged until the end. 

1. Create a compelling cover

The ability to deliver a solid first impression is crucial to knowing how to design an ebook. Your SaaS ebook cover and title are key factors in your prospects’ decision-making process when they’re considering whether to download your ebook. A well-designed ebook cover helps pique interest and support your brand’s credibility and is great to use when promoting the ebook on social media and landing pages.

The cover of an ebook titled "SaaS Customer Success: How to Keep and Grow Your Customers" published by InSided. The ebook's title is in a white simple sans serif font against a light blue background. A simple illustration in the flat "corporate art" style shows  a woman holding a large magnet which is attracting bubbles containing people and smiling emojis.

Source: inSided

2. Stick to a consistent style

Consistency in your ebook design helps your SaaS company look professional and creates a better experience for your readers. Ensure that your design elements for things like headers and lists remain the same throughout your ebook—just as you would with your writing.

The image shows a screen capture of a page from an ebook with repeated use of the brand's color palette (sage green), exemplifying consistency across the company's brand assets.

Source: Sage Intacct

3. Use your brand colors

eBook design gives you an opportunity to tap into the full range of your brand’s color palette in a way that many other marketing materials don’t due to space constraints. Incorporating your corporate colors into your B2B SaaS ebook helps build brand awareness and delivers a cohesive experience for readers. 

Check out how Zuora’s brand flows seamlessly from its home page to its ebook.

A screen capture of Zuora dot com. The brand colors on display are dark green, white, turquoise and tan.
The cover of an ebook published by Zuora showing the same colors as the brand's website. The title of the ebook appears in white text superimposed over a photograph of a car's dashboard display, which shows a navigation map displaying a route. 
The colors of the photograph have been edited to invoke the company's brand.

Sources: Zuora website (top) and ebook (bottom)

4. Include visual elements

Visuals break up large chunks of text and offer another way to communicate your message than simply through words. That said, charts, graphs and images shouldn’t be window dressing—rather, they should help explain complex ideas or call out important points. Try to avoid stock photos where you can – Here are a few examples of visuals you can use in your book design:

  • images
  • boxes
  • color bars
  • infographics
  • pull quotes
  • statistics
  • charts
  • icons
A page from an ebook by Freshworks shows data from a survey. The graphic design uses both size and color to communicate information, comparing the benefits of customer experience by company size.

Source: Freshworks

Quick tip: Use original photography and custom graphics whenever possible—stock photos just don’t resonate as well.

5. Call out quotes and statistics

Highlighting social and scientific proof is part of knowing how to design an ebook. Using pull quotes is a great way to call attention to a valuable piece of information. In addition, using large, colorful, bold numbers to display statistics helps increase their prominence on the page.

A page from an ebook contains an illustration presenting a variety of ways Google Apps for Business can help companies improve their security. In each case, statistics are called out with large, contrasting numbers (red text on white background).

Source: Lander

6. End with a call to action (CTA)

Designing a CTA rather than simply writing one out will draw your reader’s attention to the graphic element. This improves your chances that they’ll take the action you want them to take after reading your SaaS ebook.

Your reader has likely already given you their email address to download your ebook, so your ebook design should entice them to click a CTA that drives them to a product page or a demo, moving them along the path to purchase.

The "conclusion" page of an ebook published by Uplift Content (CTA) features a clear call to action at the bottom of the page. The CTA reads "Want to chat about your particular case study challenges and how to overcome them? Call or check us out online." Beside this call out, the company's contact details are listed.

Source: Uplift Content

7. Don’t leave the design until the end

If you’re working with a graphic designer, send them each chapter of your ebook as it’s completed so that they can get started on the designed layouts. This will keep the project moving along and help you avoid a large batch of edits at the end of your writing phase.

And once you have one great design under your belt, you’ll have an ebook template you can work from for the next one, which will make things a lot easier.

Next step?

Now that we’ve covered ebook design, it’s time to learn how to promote your ebook so that you can share your hard work—and your B2B SaaS company’s valuable content—with the world.

This is the fifth post in a 6-part series on how to write a B2B SaaS ebook. If you missed the previous post, you can check it out here: Writing an eBook: 7-Step Process for B2B SaaS Marketers.

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Learn how you can get well-written, informative and actionable lead magnets with Uplift Content’s SaaS book writing services.

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Emily Amos

As the founder of Uplift Content, Emily leads her team in creating done-for-you case studies, ebooks and blog posts for high-growth SaaS companies like ClickUp, Calendly and WalkMe. Connect with Emily on Linkedin

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