by Stu McLaren
An eBook can be used for much more than just a standalone product that you are selling. Over the course of this article I’m going to show you ways to give away your eBooks that will end up making you more money in the long run then if you just sold it.
So how can you give an eBook away and still make money?
It’s simple
It can have the ability to increase the number of visitors to your website by using it as a viral marketing tool. Giving away something will always draw more people to your website than if you had nothing.
By providing an eBook to other people and giving it away for free, it creates a viral marketing mechanism that brings you business. It can be used as a great viral marketing tool.
Secondly, giving away your eBook can help generate leads to increase the number of people on your list or improve your database. Use the free eBook as an incentive for people to sign up for your list or provide you information for your database.
You won’t be able to get people’s names and emails easily anymore. In today’s age people are swamped with junk mail and have therefore become very protective with who and where they give away their information to.
In order to get that information out of people you have to win them over by giving them something they want or need. An eBook can work as an incentive for them to give you their email address, name, or whatever piece of information you are looking for because they are getting something out of it.
Here’s one quick side tip that I want to give you, based on that strategy. If you’re setting up a website and you have a form where people can fill in their name and email address then they press submit, often times I see people give the download for that particular eBook on the next page.
What you will find sometimes by doing this is people will just give you a fake email address and name. They give you the false information, which will lead to nothing, but they still get the reward of your eBook.
Personally, I would never do that. I’m all about being transparent, straight up and a honest business man. You gain respect from people by giving it.
So to avoid getting bogus information I take the visitors who submit their email and name to a thank you page that says, “Thank you. The information for where you can download the free eBook has been sent directly to the email address you provided.”
Now the people who gave a real email and name will get rewarded for their honesty. An auto responder will send them an email immediately which will have a link where they can go and download the eBook.
So I want you to think about that because although you might be building a database with lots and lots of names, it’s useless if half of those names are just people putting in some bogus name and some bogus email address. It does you no good to build a database full of crap. So you want to make sure – and you want to protect your database as a business owner. That’s one way you can do it to kind of weed out those types of people.
Lets go back to how to give away your eBook. Research can be a powerful mechanism you can use to learn key information that would help your business. By using your eBook as a reward, you could put it at the end of a survey, so people will actually fill it out.
When we create new products, new services, the best way to do it is by asking your market. Alex Mandossian is one of my mentors. He has taught me so much in the field of marketing, and he is known for the Ask Methodology. That is you ask your market what it is they want to learn.
Here is an example of how Alex uses this. He is able to bring in some of the biggest names in business and put together high-level teleseminars. Some of the people he has done them with are Brian Tracy, Harv Ecker, Mark Victor Hansen and Bob Allen. These teleseminars are with the who’s who in business. You name it, he has probably done one with them.
In fact, I know that he’s actually setting up teleseminars with people like Lance Armstrong, Bill Clinton, and Steve Jobs of Apple.
He has a definite methodology to it, and the way he conducts his teleseminars is he asks people to submit their most pertinent question to the expert that he is interviewing that evening.
By doing this Alex doesn’t even had to create any questions ahead of time because the people who are paying for the call are telling him exactly what they want to know and hear. So he just asks those questions.
You can do the same thing by using this strategy. Surveys will provide you will a ton of great market research. Having an eBook available to those who complete it will also get more people to take the time to do so.
When people are usually asked to fill out a survey, you can see what they are thinking. ‘Yeah great, another survey, taking more of my time, with nothing for me.’ If you give them a reward at the end, it is like providing a light at the end of the tunnel. Providing them a valuable eBook will allow you to conduct market research but for your clients to feel they are getting something from it as well.
The other bonus from doing this is you will get information about what your clients really want. From this you can generate more products and services to fit those needs and generate more business.
As you can see from these quick examples, there are many ways you can creatively give something away to gain more business in the future. Use your creativity and try to think of others.
By exploring your creativity ideas will come to you when you need them the most!
About the Author:
Would you like all your
business questions answered by someone who has worked with some of the biggest marketers online today? On top of written and video responses you also get frequent live help. All you have to do is ask for
small business support!
No Comments »
Filed under: Business