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 imperative 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.

Make It Easy for Your Audience to Obtain

Don’t require your audience to jump through too many hoops to get your free eReport or eBook. At most ask for an email address, and 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.

Make It High Value and High Quality

Your freebies should be of the same quality as the paid work that 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.

Make It Branded 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.

Include Affiliate Links That Make Sense

Free reports and eBooks are a great way to make money in more ways than one. You can get them on your email list, so that you can market to them later, but you can also recommend products and services with affiliate links which can help you earn a little money off each eBook or report that you give away for free.

Include the Upsell for Your Next Level Product/Service

Your free eBook or reports should also always 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.

Introduce Them to Your Other Information/Products or Services

One of the pages of your eBook or eReport 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.

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 to go out through your auto responder, and then intersperse some more current information for your list for the best results.

Using 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.


A Message from Norma...

In case you're curious, I started working online in 1997 - in the dinosaur days of the internet. My purpose here at HomeFreeMedia is to help YOU build the business of your dreams by developing and recommending top quality products and tools. This will also result in profit and affiliate commissions for me, so we both win!
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