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Oblivious Webmasters and E-zine Publishers Sitting on a 24 c |
by:
Duncan Carver |
It continues to amaze me that everyday I see more and more
webmasters and e-zine publishers still worrying about the high
costs of online advertising and promotion when all this time they
have been sitting on a 24 carat goldmine. A goldmine so valuable
that it promises to end their worries for months if not years to
come.
As the webmaster of Carvers E-Book Marketing Center
http://carver.bizland.com I see day after day visitors who
are sitting on what promises to be one of the most effective and
exponentially growing free advertising mediums that they've ever
explored. A free advertising medium that is so effective
(unlike the majority of the rest) that it literally made me drop
all my other online ventures overnight and focus entirely upon
e-book marketing.
Before I continue it would be best to explain a little about
e-book marketing as the majority of online marketers that I meet
seem to know little to nothing on the subject. To put it simply
effective e-book marketing harnesses the power of giving away
"substance for free" in an attempt to build ongoing trust and
future purchases from potential customers. We see this everyday
with major corporations such as Microsoft giving away free
software and companies such as Hypermart that provide free web
space in hope to on sell other products and services.
While many of us just can't afford to be throwing away such
elaborate software products there is still room for even those on
the tightest budget to harness the same power and bring similar
results as the major online players. How do we do this? E-book
marketing of course!
E-Book marketing works in much the same way as publishing an
e-zine, helping to develop trust within potential customers and
continually building on that trust by maintaining consistent
interaction with your online business. Not only that but it also
acts as an exponentially growing free advertising medium which
literally pulls people to your web site.
Mark Joyner the CEO of the Aesop Marketing Corporation
(http://foreverweb.com) created his first e-book titled "Search
Engine Tactics" a subject that is directly related to the products
and services that his company sells. Since its release in early
1998 it has now been downloaded over a million times which
equates to 1 million readers! A fair estimate based upon
independent research would be that at least 95% of those
readers visited his web site and depending upon the
conversion rate of his sales pitch at the time can you even
begin to imagine how much extra revenue was obtained
from his e-book?
Terry Dean of Bizpromo (http://www.bizpromo.com) has
experienced similar results. Here is a direct quote ripped straight
from his e-zine,"Web Gold" Vol. 2, #40, October 8, 1999:
"We produced our first electronic book for download back in
December of last year. It was titled "101 High Profit Businesses
You Can Start Online with Little Or NO Money." I announced it
as a Christmas gift all of my subscribers could download. The
first couple of months it was online, it received 500 to 2,000
downloads per week... I currently estimate that around 1/3 of my
current business is still being generated by this one e-book
being given away for free on hundreds of sites. I consider it the
most valuable promotion my business has ever done!."
There's no doubt about it e-book marketing works and is
effective. Even the highly intelligent and respected people at
IMC (http://www.marketingchallenge.com) have
realized this and released their own e-book of articles that
they've previously published both in their newsletter and on their
web site - so what about this 24 carat goldmine I mentioned you're
probably sitting on? Well we'll take two examples that will
clearly show how many of you can begin to tap into this medium
almost overnight.
The first being the content from the web site of a person who
visited Carvers E-Book Marketing Center several days ago. You
can find their web site "The Small Business Knowledge Center" at
http://bizmove.com. This is prime example of an online business
that is truly sitting on a 24 carrot goldmine.
On their home page you will notice 8 major sections all quite
distinct but at the same time all similarly related to small
business information. Here I already count 8 unique e-books that
if complied in the appropriate manner and released for free
distribution could see this web masters web site promotion blues
gone forever! Imagine if just one of those e-books brought
similar results as that of Mark Joyner's. Imagine if 2 or 3 of
them did!
While this an extremely good example anyone with a set of
articles, a short tutorial, back issues of their e-zine or
collection of useful information can create an e-book. Let's
take a different example. Take a quick visit to "Golfgateway" at
http://www.golfgateway.com. You will find a link on the left side
titled "Tips from the Pros". While this web site lacks any
articles as such, even golf related web sites could harness the
power of e-book marketing.
Compiling an e-book of all past pro tips effectively titled
"The Little Golden E-Book of Super Golf Tips from the Pros"
and then giving it away for free they would have then created a
book that I'm 100% certain people will begin to pass on to their
friends. The beauty is that these friends share the same
interests and are therefore the same highly targeted prospects
that are the most desired visitors to the Golfgateway web site!
I'm also 100% certain that they would find or already have
associated web sites that would gladly like to offer their free
e-book for download as an incentive to attract more visitors to
their own web sites.
It's also probably quite ridiculous the amount of money that both
webmasters from these examples spend on web site promotion
each and every month. When you consider that the small cost
to begin and continually harness the power of e-book marketing
it's almost crazy they themselves and others aren't exploring it.
While this article couldn't possibly provide you with all the
techniques and methods that are required to successfully explore
and experience the results of e-book marketing I hope that I have
brought this relatively new medium to your serious consideration.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Duncan Carver is a student at Victoria University, Wellington,
New Zealand. Visit he's eBook Marketing Center for tons of free
eBooks Internet Marketing related eBooks and eBook Creation
Software. Visit: http://carver.bizland.com today!
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