Using Free Ebooks To Promote Your Blog or Business

28 Comments August 30, 2007 / Posted in Business Development

Using Free Ebooks To Promote Your Blog or Business

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.

5 Simple Tips To Improve Your BlogThe 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.

28 Comments... What do you think? Subscribe via RSS

28 Comments... What do you think?


  1. mahdi yusufNo Gravatar said on August 30th, 2007 at 11:24 pm

    definitely something everyone should look into, at one time or another! but content is key!

  2. NomarNo Gravatar said on August 31st, 2007 at 1:53 am

    Very nice Nate !! Good work

  3. RhysNo Gravatar said on August 31st, 2007 at 6:10 am

    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!)

  4. KenNo Gravatar
    KenNo Gravatar said on August 31st, 2007 at 6:26 am

    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.

  5. RyanNo Gravatar said on August 31st, 2007 at 4:02 pm

    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.

  6. KingJacobNo Gravatar said on August 31st, 2007 at 5:38 pm

    Its not just good for your blog but also good for your pocketbook if you can find relevant affiliates to throw in your ebook.

  7. Charles LauNo Gravatar said on September 1st, 2007 at 1:30 am

    Yes it’s time! We must have an ebook about ourselves in our blog…

  8. Debo HoboNo Gravatar said on September 1st, 2007 at 4:01 am

    Great use of a sound marketing tool.

    I signed up for your newsletter how do I get a hold to one of your eBooks?

  9. dojoNo Gravatar said on September 1st, 2007 at 6:05 am

    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 :(

  10. Making The MoneyNo Gravatar said on September 1st, 2007 at 6:27 am

    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.

  11. Bloggers BlissNo Gravatar said on September 2nd, 2007 at 12:40 pm

    Definately worth looking into….when i get the chance

  12. DavidNo Gravatar said on September 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 am

    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.

  13. Chris JacobsonNo Gravatar said on September 3rd, 2007 at 10:36 pm

    Very nice marketing there.

  14. SkellieNo Gravatar said on September 4th, 2007 at 6:56 am

    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…

  15. Chris GuthrieNo Gravatar said on September 6th, 2007 at 8:50 am

    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.

  16. Blogs for MoneyNo Gravatar said on September 7th, 2007 at 12:41 pm

    Very interesting idea! :-D

  17. Click InputNo Gravatar said on September 8th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    Certainly worth it, depending on how much time you put in.

  18. VijayNo Gravatar said on September 9th, 2007 at 7:49 am

    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

  19. ScottUANo Gravatar said on September 12th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

    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…

  20. Thomas SinfieldNo Gravatar said on September 17th, 2007 at 3:37 am

    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.

  21. read books online freeNo Gravatar said on November 23rd, 2007 at 5:29 am

    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.

  22. leather reclinersNo Gravatar said on January 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    very informative, thanks for the information, gonna try it out

  23. JackNo Gravatar said on July 4th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    Ebook is a growing craze and it is going to be throughout the world and so think everyone should benefit from it

  24. bhupsieNo Gravatar said on July 4th, 2008 at 11:18 pm

    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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