E-book excerpts used as sponsored content

Harland Clarke, a marketing firm specializing in bank and credit union marketing, launched a 46-page e-book on millennial marketing at the beginning of 2018. It’s won first place in the “Sponsored Content” category of PR Daily’s 2018 Content Marketing Awards.

The book, “How to Master the Millennial Market,” was designed to drive users to register for emails from the company. Communicators saw greater potential, though: They believed the e-book’s contents could be repurposed as sponsored content and earned media placements.

The book is filled with research-backed insights on reaching the millennial market, a demographic that has proved challenging with the firm’s banking clients. The experiment with content that would drive reader engagement focused on elevating Harland Clarke’s brand as a thought leader.

The concept paid off. Two excerpts from the e-book were placed in the executive report of BAI, an industry association; they became two of the most successful articles BAI has published. The association asked to use the articles in other publications, increasing the impressions and click-throughs back to the source material on the Harland Clarke website, which delivered even more e-book downloads.

Ultimate proof of an e-book’s success (or any content marketing, for that matter) is its impact on the business. In Harland Clarke’s case, the e-book delivered 586 high-quality leads, 150 of which came from the sponsored-content placements with BAI.

Congratulations to the team of Scott Handy, Brandy Morton and Janet Reed.