web analytics
Flippingbook 5400

Flippingbook – Customize it with audio, video, images, and links

So, as I’m sure most of you guys know, I finally launched my photography business three weeks ago. If you’re new to the blog check out my previous posts which have documented much of the planning and preparation I have done leading up to this point. I’ve spent the past five days researching marketing techniques that other small photography companies have used to land new clients. I’d made a shortlist of marketing techniques I wanted to try out by the third day and was all rearing to go. One technique I read about on a blog post from a competitor was turning my website into an interactive flippingbook and then sending that to a potential client. My competitor, according to his blog post, had landed some pretty big-ticket clients using this technique, especially as a lot of people aren’t using this method yet, so it is still different and novel enough to grab people’s attention. The idea is to take key sections of your website, so in my case it was; about me, services, previous client work, price list, and contact details and save that info as a PDF or Word file and then convert that lifeless document into a dynamic, interactive flippingbook brochure. Thing was, the competitor detailed the whole process but didn’t mention the actual flippingbook software he had used! There were screenshots in his blog post but I couldn’t make out what the actual software was. I emailed him and sent him a Facebook message asking about it, but no reply. There was only one solution. Finding it myself.

Finding The Perfect Interactive Flippingbook Software

I started where everyone does when looking for something. Google. I cast a wide net and Googled a tonne of phrases. I made a shortlist of 4 flippingbook software packages that looked promising and got downloading. I thought to myself, surely one of these packages has got to be the one my competitor had been using.

I opened up the first piece of flippingbook software. It crashed on me immediately and hit me with 12 random popups all listing obscure error messages. The second software package wasn’t much better, it was incredibly dated, with a garnish color scheme and large buttons everywhere – this wasn’t the one. By now my confidence was waning. Opened the third flippingbook software suite, and as you might have guessed, this wasn’t the one either. Low on confidence, I logged onto the site of the fourth and final piece of flippingbook software which was a web-based program and my eyes lit up. This was the one! And it was called Yumpu Publishing.

I opened my PDF in the software window, made some adjustments, and hit export and within less than 3 minutes I had gone from stale, boring PDF to engaging, interactive flippingbook. Amazing! And what’s more, it looked better than my competitor’s one (well, I thought so anyway). With so much time to spare (was not expecting the software to churn out a stunning flip page publication so damn quickly), I thought I’d explore the other features the platform had to offer. After 45 minutes my mind was fully blown! The online software suite could do more than I would have ever imagined. Below are some of the highlights;

Some Of The Incredible Things

Hotspot Editor – I read about the Hotspot Editor in the software’s help section and it genuinely sounded too good to be true but thought I’d give it ago and see if it really was as intuitive and as effective as they said it was.
I’ve had this marketing video I had made for my photography business sitting on my hard drive for weeks and just dragged it into the software window, set the size and position, and lo and behold. The video is perfectly embedded in the flip page publication and could be played directly from the page without having to take you to a separate site or open any external window. Incredible! And it’s not just video content, I quickly realized that you can embed sound files including those from Soundcloud, and slideshows. In short, using their state-of-the-art Hotspot Editor you can really turn a static text and image-based publication into an interactive, rich media one full of sliding images, engaging videos, and captivating sound.

Optimized Content Delivery – This feature was a big deal to me. I have long seen the stats online about how every year a larger proportion of total internet traffic is coming from smartphones and looking at how my blog traffic is broken down between mobile and desktop was only confirming this trend. So when I realized that the software optimizes content for all screen sizes I couldn’t help but grin.
I tested this out and true to what they said, the content was fully optimized. I opened my finished flippingbook on mobile and the images were resized without losing clarity or proportion and text was resized without it being cut in weird places. The pricing tables were also resized to fit the smartphone screen perfectly without becoming chopped or blurry. I was thoroughly impressed. I now knew that regardless of what device a potential client would open my digital brochure on, they would be able to see all the brochure’s content and engage with it fully.

Plug Into The Massive Reader Community – I came across this info by accident whilst clicking the help section of the platform, and I am so damn glad I did. In short, when you export your interactive flippingbook from the online tool you get the option of placing the publication in front of their reader community which includes millions, yes millions of readers.
You can tag the publication with relevant terms so when people interested in what your publication is about search on the reader platform your publication will be one of the search results. This was huge. I know first-hand that new clients can come from the most unexpected places so I fully knew the value of my brochure being exposed to literally thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people – and for no extra cost. Brilliant!

It is FREE!

Oh, and I can’t believe I forgot to mention this. Everything I mentioned above and a hell of a lot more are available in the FREE version of the platform.

Unlike the free versions of all the other flippingbook creation software packages I tried which either didn’t let you export your work or severely restricted which features you could use making it impossible to make a high-quality publication, with Yumpu Publishing, the free version gives you access to tonnes of features and you can create, edit and export as many publications as you want. Truly amazing.

I’ll Keep You Posted!

I will keep you guys posted on the leads and sales, if any, I generate via this method, either through me sharing this flippingbook via email and social media or through the incredibly huge and diverse reader community. And if any of you want to give this technique a try for your business, I highly encourage it and fully recommend you use Yumpu Publishing to do it and save yourself the same trial and error hassle I had to go through before landing on the best piece of software for the job. What have you got to lose, it’s free!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.