Jump Start Your Online Sales with eBook 2.0
Brad Beiermann Ph.D., Cimstrat Inc. - Content Creation 0 Comments | Add Yours
About The Author:
Brad Beiermann is the co-founder and president of Cimstrat Inc., a consulting firm focused on innovation management and marketing for S&P 500 firms. He has over nineteen years experience as a business leader, author, speaker and entrepreneur. Beiermann holds a doctorate degree in Management Information Systems along with an emphasis on web based marketing. www.cimstratcorp.com.The tough economy has driven a very strong appetite for free products. When it comes to giving away something for free, not even a low cost competition can beat it. Think about your current online offerings. What are you offering your online visitors for free? Let’s take a look at freebie that can generate traffic and sales.
eBook 2.0
There is a secret “free” online product that seldom gets any discussion. In fact, some organizations have turned this free online product into a real money maker. It is a free product that has online viral potential. It is a free product that can be leveraged on just about any type of website. It is a product that can contain just about any message you desire. What is this product? A free ebook. Forget what you already know about ebooks that are purchased through Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Those are text books in electronic format. The revenue comes from the sale of the actual ebook. Consider those texts to be the basic eBook 1.0. A free ebook is an entirely different animal when it comes to online electronic books. It is a marketing platform that has a targeted objective. Unlike eBook 1.0, the revenue comes from affiliates, Web traffic, and advertising. There is a bit more complexity in this type of publication. This generation of publication could be considered eBook 2.0.
Getting Smart
Organizations that are smart, have affiliate links inside their free ebooks. When a reader clicks on an affiliate link inside the ebook, and it results in a sale, a commission check is earned. In essence, they are giving away a free book that earns them money. There are countless affiliate programs out there, and sprinkling in a few of their links in a free ebook can pay dividends.
The Secret of Content
Free ebook content should be focused on the subject matter it titles itself after. Keep the subject matter honest. For example, if you offer a free ebook about furniture design, it should be about furniture design. Honest material that helps online shoppers, has a much greater chance of going viral. The mistake often made by authors, is creating a free ebook which is nothing more than a large infomercial about their own products and services. It is okay, and necessary, to include some of your own self promotion. However, if you want the ebook to catch word of mouse, keep self promotion limited. Remember, people come to the Web to find information or socialize. Give them great information and they will be willing to bookmark your site in their favorites. Better yet, they might post your site on Digg or StumbleUpon. At the very minimum, make sure you have your website mentioned in the ebook. Each page can contain a small header or footer with your logo or website. Going a step further, I have seen some free ebooks with paid advertising subtlety done in their sections. Publish your self promotion in the foreword or author biography sections. Most readers expect to see something about the origins of the writing in these sections. Once they get to the main chapters, they expect the writing to be highly relevant to their curiosity of learning.
The eBook Mobile
For those of you who remember the book mobiles that stopped by your school, they still live on. They live in the form of handheld mobile devices. Products such as the iPhone, Blackberry, and Kindle are enabling new platforms of entertainment, communications, and marketing. They are also perfect for reading your free ebook. You need to get your ebook format compatible with these mobile devices. Why? These devices are now main stream and Web friendly. If it is Web friendly, it is free ebook friendly. The most common format for free ebooks is an Adobe PDF. It is universal to almost any browser with a PDF viewer installed.
Writing a Freebie
Many clients have asked me, “How long does it take to write an ebook?” or “How do I write an ebook?” The answer is fairly simple. For those of you writing in a blog daily, weekly, or even monthly, you have the perfect ingredients of an ebook. You can simply compile some of your best entries together as paragraphs and chapters. If you have written a series of articles in the past, they too can be ingredients for an ebook. Remember, this is a freebie. There are no refunds with a free ebook. They only investment consumers are making, is their time to read. If the reader walks’ away feeling their time was well spent…it’s a winner!
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