From InDesign File to Issuu Flipbook: How Artists, Architects, and Designers Can Elevate Their Content Marketing

While we think of art, architecture, and design to take shape and make an impact in our physical world – like the paintings that adorn the walls of museums or the buildings in which we live and work – effectively sharing these creative outputs requires clever marketing. Because in today's highly digital world, consumers everywhere are bombarded with marketing messages across all channels, all day long. There’s a lot of noise, and it’s increasingly difficult to stand out and get people to tune in. 

So, as the push to capture audience attention within the digital space becomes more competitive, the ability to create interactive content is essential to making your work stand apart from the rest. Art, architecture, and design professionals need to create and share impactful digital content across channels to showcase their work, attract new clients and prospective employers, and share special projects.

With savvy audiences who expect accessible and engaging information on every device, easily shareable formats coupled with interactive features and social media integrations are essential to enhance discoverability and foster real engagement. Let’s explore how creative professionals like you can take their InDesign files to the next level – making them stand out, immerse readers, and drive measurable actions and outcomes. 

Incorporate Simplicity Into Your Workflow

Adobe InDesign has been the premier creation tool for designers for more than 20 years, with many organizations relying on the creative benefits of this application. As the trend toward mobile technology increases, it’s essential to partner with a service like Issuu that delivers your brand marketing to audiences across multiple platforms without impeding your creative workflow. 

With Issuu, you can turn a static document like an art portfolio or presentation into an on-brand, interactive flipbook using nothing more than an InDesign file and the Issuu plugin. Instead of relying on the PDF or slide deck sharing process, Issuu incorporates InDesign export options to post content files on your website, social media channels, and content management systems. Premium features like Fullscreen Sharing give readers the full field of view, ensuring your content immerses audiences in an experience free of any distractions. This is especially valuable for creative publications that need to be pixel-perfect, like architectural plans, portfolios, and artwork.

The Embed feature further streamlines the sharing process by allowing you to quickly copy and paste the auto-generated code to websites and other platforms without requiring any technical know-how. Embed works with major website builders like Squarespace, Wix, and WordPress, which includes options for customizing your flipbook layout and colors to further enhance your brand marketing and make each publication your own. You can even select the preferred features or layouts to present to your audience, offering a custom experience that can't be achieved through traditional methods of content publishing and distribution.

If you need to make changes or update your content after your flipbook is published, simply alter your content in InDesign and publish the updated version using the Issuu plugin. Because no additional steps are required to flatten your design or maintain your fonts, your content stays up to date while preserving your graphic design, all with minimal effort on your part.

Make Your Work Discoverable

The importance of search engine optimization (SEO) in today’s digital landscape cannot be overstated, as it has become a crucial asset for increasing online visibility. Optimizing your digital creations ensures higher search engine results, which leads to greater audience exposure. SEO tools also help you target audiences with tailored content, improving your reach while limiting costly advertising expenses.

Digital flipbooks created through Issuu are optimized for search engine indexing. It’s effortless to repurpose and share them in other formats, too. The built-in Social Posts feature drives traffic to your content via your social media accounts. You can also create QR codes and GIFs to further expand your reach and entice audiences. By sharing a digital flipbook and correlating posts on social media, like the Tweet below, you can boost engagement and stand apart from other creative professionals by providing unique and beautiful content in a format designed to promote user interaction.

Measure Your Efforts

Ever wonder how much of your work is viewed, read, or interacted with? Without analytics, you won’t know whether a campaign, piece of content, or even your brand marketing is effective. Issuu incorporates a robust Statistics feature, which allows you to track your content’s performance by calculating read time, impressions, and clicks. These analytics can measure an entire flipbook or specific articles and pages of your choice.

Having audience consumption data is essential to driving engagement and creating more targeted content in the future. Use the Statistics tool to view detailed reports and identify trends in behavior, further pinpointing the areas of success or weakness in your content or marketing campaigns. In addition, because the Issuu data files are portable, you can integrate this information into your existing platforms or reporting software if desired.

Grow Your Revenue 

With data models forecasting content marketing revenue to exceed $130 billion by 2026, there’s never been a more opportune time to upgrade your creative content and monetize your content. With an Issuu subscription, you can securely sell your digital content locally or internationally with zero commission fees. It’s your choice whether to sell a single issue or create recurring subscription options for your readers. You can also allow audiences to preview a pre-determined amount of content before purchase while you seamlessly track their access. Best of all, this doesn’t require any formatting changes or technical knowledge of the different platform specifications.

Articles are optimized for mobile devices and promote your brand while enabling readers to access your digital content immediately. They also generate content that builds brand identity and enhanced searchability within multiple channels while continuing to promote reader engagement. You can even share specific portions of your content with desired audiences. Combine that with Links that go directly to product pages and you can start driving sales for your creative collection like never before. Even more, you can include web links to make important contact information instantly available to interested viewers.

InDesign x Issuu: Do More With Less

Smart integrations ensure the InDesign export is seamless while offering multiple format options, including flyers, sales catalogs, ebooks, and presentations. You don’t have to be a technical wizard to create content in a variety of formats that meet today’s digital standards. Instead of separating the steps for publication creation into development and marketing tasks, you can create, publish, and promote your content in a single workflow, which saves you time, money, and effort.

You also save by not having to buy and learn how to use complicated tools for SEO enhancements or website integrations. Instead of worrying about the technical aspects of transferring your document to others or selling it online through multiple platforms, you can focus on creating beautiful, engaging content. Dive into the benefits of using InDesign and Issuu together, with tips on how to do so successfully, in our eBook:

Take the Next Step

The explosion of digital content formats and consumption has tremendously impacted publication design, ushering in a new era of interconnectedness. With the adoption of smart devices at both home and work and an increased reliance on mobile access, simply creating beautifully designed content is not enough. You must also create connected experiences for your audience and analyze real-time data on how your digital content is consumed.

As a user of Adobe InDesign, you can streamline the creation process with the Issuu plugin. Taking your creation from InDesign to flipbook is not complicated, especially if you already use the InDesign export to web or InDesign to PDF tools. Instead of using the InDesign export-to-site approach, you simply connect your Issuu account to the plugin before publishing your digital creations. No matter the size of your business or the complexity of your platform, once you complete the InDesign export to Issuu step and publish your content online, you are ready to monetize it and share your work with others.

Issuu simplifies the process of creating stunning digital flipbooks by incorporating a powerful suite of interactive tools. Its platform draws over 100 million visitors a month, making it the ideal place to promote your creative efforts and build your brand with top-notch content marketing assets. No additional formatting or technical development is required, which saves you time and money.

You don’t even have to purchase a stand-alone website to take advantage of the InDesign export to flipbook options. Simply use the plugin to export your InDesign flipbook to the Issuu platform and customize it according to your brand marketing needs before sharing via the Social Posts feature. If you opt to use your own website or want to post your creation to your content management system, the Embed feature makes cutting and pasting the code simple, without requiring the help of a web developer or programmer.

Keeping up with the latest trends is critical to maintaining a competitive edge and promoting a positive experience with your brand. By transferring your design to Issuu, which offers a variety of tools to take your creative work to the next level, you ensure your content is modern and relevant, helping drive referrals and repeat business.

It’s time to start generating digital content assets that look as good as your designs do, with little effort required. Learn more about using Issuu to transform static designs into interactive flipbooks audiences will love, and get started today.