Using e-books for marketing

So you’ve created your own ebook, or have otherwise caused the preparation of the same. Or maybe you have purchased an already existing ebook with its master resale rights or private label right.

Now, you’re contemplating on how much you’re going to sell it to recover your investments. You’re already thinking about hiring a copywriter to create a sales page, or maybe, you’re even studying the basics of copywriting to write your own sales copy.

But is selling the ebook the best step to take? Indeed, you may gain some sales, either through your efforts, or through the efforts of your affiliates, but this will be short term profit. The earnings will only be good for a number of transactions.

Here’s an alternative you may decide to take: give away your ebook for free and make it viral.

At first glance, you may think of this tactic as dismissible. After all, where’s the money in giving something away for free, right?

Well, such an ebook can serve as the seed for a viral marketing campaign, and in the long run, it can provide for you a continuous source of prospects that will be willing to purchase your future offers. How is this possible? How is this done? Do consider the strategies below:

1. Populate the pages of your ebook with your affiliate links. These affiliate links should be properly invoked, meaning, they will be mentioned in accordance with relevant portions of your information product. If you’re discussing email marketing in one chapter, recommend an autoresponder service through your affiliate link. If you’re discussing web hosting, recommend a web hosting service through your affiliate link, or perhaps, even your reseller account. Since the ebook will most likely be passed around (since it’s free), you’d be able to expose your products and affiliate links to more people in the long run

2 populate the pages of your ebook with links to your URL. This URL should point to a landing page where you can capture the contact details of your visitors. Veteran online marketers will tell you that capturing leads is just as important as bagging some sales. Once your visitors subscribe to your mailing list, you can employ your email marketing strategies to warm them up for future sales.

3. Reserve it for use as a bonus for your future offers. This will increase the value of your future offers, and such can justify a higher selling price. Additionally, your future offers will sell faster because of the ebook you’ll be packing in for free.

4. Use your ebook as leverage for joint ventures. Some JV setups will require you to contribute a product to the pool which will be sold as one solid package. Often, these setups will require you to throw in the private label rights or the master resale rights of the same. If you wish to preserve the exclusivity of your other products, use your new ebook instead.

5. Give away your ebook to the members of your mailing list. Such a gesture will surely make them happy. And when they’re kept happy, they’d get warmed up to your future offers.

As you can see, there are many, many other applications for your ebook other than selling it. And the fact that you will give it away free of charge would add a viral exponent to the equation. People love free things, and people love sharing free things with their family and friends. It’s human nature! Your ebook will be distributed in many, many channels, and if you will play your cards right, you’d generate a lot of leads from these situations.