Using Free Ebooks To Promote Your Blog or Business
28 Comments August 30, 2007 / Posted in Business Development
As many of you know, last week, I launched a new online business. Developing this business has allowed me to experiment with some new direct marketing techniques which I have only recently learned about. One specific example is releasing a free ebook in order to promote your blog or business.
John Chow, Jane May, and Mitch Harper all do this. All are also successful bloggers and entrepreneurs. Obviously, there has to be serious benefits to using a free ebook to promote your blog and business.
Increasing Conversions
There are many ways to encourage people to take action towards a desired task. One of the most common is giving away something for free in exchange for people signing up for an email list (free newsletter). People who are signing up for your email list are referred to as “opt-ins.”
Recently, my business, Unique Blog Designs, distributed a free ebook. Why did UBD give away a free ebook?
The Advantage of an Ebook
An ebook is a unique way to distribute information. Unlike a blog entry, which is available to everyone, an ebook is essentially exclusive information depending on the terms of its distribution. In our case, the ebook is only available to those who sign up for our email list.
The ebook that UBD launched was titled, “5 Simple Tips To Improve Your Blog.” Like I said, we released the ebook to encourage people to sign up for our email list. I will talk about the advantages of an email list another time, but the point is that the free ebook is a means to an end and an opportunity to show your customers that you offer valuable information.
Of course, it’s best if the ebook you are releasing contains highly useful and applicable information. If that is true, then you are showing potential customers that they can associate “quality” and “usefulness” with your brand.
Time To Produce an Ebook
Many people think that writing an ebook is a time consuming process. That doesn’t have to be true. The free ebook UBD released is only 8 pages, but contains highly applicable information that new bloggers can use to improve their blogs. That ebook only took around 2 hours to write. It is well worth the investment in time considering it will certainly increase our opt-in rate.
Not only that, but giving away something for free has a lot of power. It shows your potential clients that you are willing to go above and beyond the normal expectations of doing business. This in of itself makes releasing the free ebook a worthwhile investment.
Increase Conversions
The fact is that by giving something away for free, you are increasing the conversion rate (number of opt-ins) for an email list. Mitch Harper of Interspire even says “every blog should have an accompanying ebook.” If Mitch says that, it’s good enough for me.
If you are interested in receiving the free ebook, “5 Simple Tips To Improve Your Blog,” then visit Unique Blog Designs and sign up for the newsletter.
Matt Blancarte
Josh Mullineaux
definitely something everyone should look into, at one time or another! but content is key!
Very nice Nate !! Good work
I always thought ebooks were dead in the water, but apparently not (my housmate made a fortune on them selling “online gambling hints and tips”, was surprisingly enterprising actually!)
For me, it’s more like building a relationship with a reader and converting to higher visitors life time value. A visitors who come back for more, definitely worth it.
Its weird. I had been thinking of email lists and ebooks as sort of obsolete until reading this. I suppose it is the exclusivity that will keep it going in the long run.
Its not just good for your blog but also good for your pocketbook if you can find relevant affiliates to throw in your ebook.
Yes it’s time! We must have an ebook about ourselves in our blog…
Great use of a sound marketing tool.
I signed up for your newsletter how do I get a hold to one of your eBooks?
I always knew about the benefits of viral marketing, but never found the courage to write an e-book. The problem is that many ebooks are useless: badly written, made just for the traffic. I don’t download them since I don’t like my email to be collected, and maybe this made me not want to work on the aspect too much. The bad thing is that there are nice e-books made,but the crappy ones just make many people not interested in them anymore. And it’s a pity
Along the same theme, but I’ve always found that free software works even better than a free e-book. It’s finding something that you can give away (exclusively) that can be a problem but can also bring great rewards.
Definately worth looking into….when i get the chance
Will you be doing another e-book? I am interested in trying to write one, but I haven’t come up with an “expert” opinion I want to spread in that format yet.
Very nice marketing there.
If you don’t mind me asking, does anyone know how the eBook graphic was made? Is there software which does that? I’ve always been curious…
I’ll have to check out this eBook. I also agree that giving it away will increase conversions for newsletter subscriptions, but isn’t that kinda obvious? If it’s free people will sign up for it.
Very interesting idea!
Certainly worth it, depending on how much time you put in.
And I certainly agree with this! However, the ebook needs to be of value however small it is and should be somewhat or completely exclusive instead of an aggregator of content from around the web
Excellent post Nate! I always use some sort of freebie to market my site. In fact, one little ebook that I give away on my blog/site has managed to help create a full-time income for my business. Never underestimate the power of giving stuff away…
I never realized some of the free ebooks where so short. I had always tossed the idea around, but then baulked at the idea of writing 20-30pages.
This site gives a excellent information regarding The Advantage of an Ebook.An ebook is a unique way to distribute information. The ebook is only available to those who sign up for our email list.
very informative, thanks for the information, gonna try it out
Ebook is a growing craze and it is going to be throughout the world and so think everyone should benefit from it
This blog is supposed to be the commentable blog for ebook readers…so get in touch with ebook publishers and kindle service providers for the best service which you need.
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