Using Free Reports and EBooks to Build Your Business
One type of content marketing is giving away freebies. Free reports and eBooks can build your business fast by helping you spread your knowledge, establish your expertise and most importantly, collect email addresses for your mailing list. Because, hands down, email marketing is still the most effective method of online marketing that exists.
Make It Laser Targeted for Your Audience
Be careful about the reports and eBooks you create to give away for free. It’s important that they are highly targeted toward your audience. You only want to attract the right audience. Giving things away to too wide an audience can create an email list that is not as valuable as a smaller, laser-targeted list. So, be very particular about the content you create so that you get the right people on your list.
Be careful about the reports and eBooks you create to give away for free. It’s important that they are highly targeted toward your audience. Share on X
Make It Easy for Your Audience to Obtain
Don’t ask your audience to jump through too many hoops to get your free report or eBook. At most ask for an email address and their first name to start with. Once you get them on your list, you can always get more information later. But, you don’t want to turn them off from the start.
In my example below, you can see I’ve only asked for a name and email address.
Don’t ask your audience to jump through too many hoops to get your free report or eBook. Share on X
Make It High Value and High Quality
Your freebies should be of the same quality as the paid work you create. Don’t make something half-way just because you know you’re giving it away. The free item should be something that makes your audience want your paid information, products or services. It should serve as an example of what you can do.
Your freebies should be of the same quality as the paid work you create. Share on X
Brand Your Free Report So It’s Obvious Where It Came From
On every report and eBook that you create, whether free or not, ensure that your branding is on it. Without your branding, they may forget where they got it. Some people download things to read later so the branding, links, and information about your business is an important part of the freebie so that they’ll know where to go to get more.
In fact, I realised that I hadn’t included my new branding on the cover of my 3 Keys eBook! Writing this blog resulted in me going back and redesigning the cover to include my brand as you’ll see in the image above. Always good to practice what you preach!!
Include the Upsell for Your Next Level Product/Service
Your free eBook or reports should also ideally include a call to action to buy your next level product or service. It’s the perfect place to add an upsell or cross-sell item, even another freebie. The more information you can get into their hands, the more likely they are to buy what you’re offering.
Having said that I should practice what I preach, in this case I haven’t as I’m still working on the course that goes with this eBook. When the course is finished I will go back and add the call to action for the course into the eBook!
Your free eBook or reports should also ideally include a call to action to buy your next level product or service. Share on X
Introduce Them to Your Other Information/Products or Services
One of the pages of your eBook or Report should list all the publications that you have created, free or paid. That way they can easily find more information and sign up for other offerings as long as it’s within the same niche. Having links in your report or eBook is an easy way to do this.
List all the publications that you have created in your report or eBook so it's easy to find more information and sign up for other offerings as long as they're in the same niche. Share on X
Once They’re on Your List Over Deliver
Now that you have your target audience signed up for your email list, it’s important to deliver the value you’ve promised – either explicitly or implicitly. You can set up automatic emails, known as autoresponders, to go out through your email service provider and then intersperse some more current information for the best results.
I really like the acronym PRIDE – Personal responsibility for delivering excellence – which for me sums up how you should interact with your audience.
It’s important to deliver the value you’ve promised to your target audience once they've signed up for your email list. Share on XUsing free reports and eBooks to build your business is a tried and true method of content marketing that gets results. Just ensure that your freebies are highly targeted toward your audience to ensure that you get your products to the right people, and get people who want what you have to offer over and above your free offers.
