How to give away Great Content

"Selling" the free stuff - you need to!

Let's say you got something great, and it's free!

And you've got a bunch of interested people, maybe even raving fans. Perhaps readers of your blog, personal fans of you, or people who really dig your Web site.

What you've got, maybe a special report or audio mp3/CD or whatever, is good enough to sell. Maybe you'll even sell it but first are offering it for free to your favorite fans, maybe for feedback, comments, or just because you're a nice guy or gal.

You let everyone know about it -- and they yawn. A few people download it. No one comments about it.

You know it's great because everyone you've personally shown it to raves about it. They love it. No one else much cares!

What went wrong? Simple.

You've got to "sell" free stuff, same as non-free stuff.

This is not my opinion. It's fact.

You need to create something, let's call it a "sales letter," explaining why it's so cool and why people want it. This "sales letter" might be a blog post, a Web page, an email, part of a presentation to your local pigeon fanciers club or whatever.

In your letter or presentation, you need to stress the BENEFITS. What it'll do for you, not the FEATURES, what it is.

Example - Aspirin:

•     Features - round, white, and small - yawn
•     Benefits - Will make your headache do away - cool! (especially if you have a headache! i.e. it fills a need, real or perceived)

Now here is a real-life example from last week:

I'm fanatical about fly fishing for striped bass and have a pretty popular Web site on the topic. Traffic is exploding. I've got an associated email list with equally fanatical fly fisherman.

I wrote a little special report on fishing. I'm going to sell it eventually.

I email my list and tell them. It's free, just for you, just for now. Friends who reviewed it really love  it. I only get a few downloads. Yawn.

A week letter, I send another email to my fly fishermen friends, stressing:

• Benefits: You'll double your catch, you'll get 'skunked' less, you'll have more fun fishing etc.
• Urgency: Download it NOW, it won't be up long and then I'm selling it
• Social Proof: I added a comment/testimonial from a friend (just one tip caught him more fish last weekend)
• Exclusive: Just for my friends who are currently on my email list

This is all basic sales stuff - and by the way, I neither understand nor like sales!

Net result? FOUR times as many people downloaded it! WOW!

So, you put together something. Maybe a "white paper," special report, ebook, or even a coconut creme pie.

It's GREAT stuff! You NEED to sell it.

Think of it this way:
You're Ripping Off your potential audience if you don't convince them - after all, if it's  great, it will benefit them enormously.

Trying to give away Great Content? You need to sell people on it, just like paid stuff.

Comments

[Greg Grove]

Ted, this is starting to make perfect sense. I put together a free ebook last year for my target market. I knew what they wanted based on research -- I asked my target audience via a survey many of them eagerly filled out and one on one in many cases too.

I gave them what they wanted.

Then I announced it via a "here it is" type announcement and everyone yawned. Very few downloaded it. It didn't require an email/opt in even.

I'll contact you later this week and see if you can help me "re-launch" or what the corrct term may be. Thanks in advance.

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Greg,
Asking your target audience what they want is very smart -- what we might think they want and what they really want aren't always the same.

I'm around late this week and look forward to hearing from you and maybe working together again.

[Douglas Haider (a.k.a. The Wi-Fi Jedi)]

Ted,

What a simple, yet powerful idea that you have to sell free content, just like paid stuff!

Do you have good resources for how to promote blogs? I already read both of your books, which were excellent and provided insight into this area - now I am hungry for more! (When are you going to write your next book...)

At any rate, thanks again for the great idea that got my brain jump started this morning!

[T Demop, Blogging for Business]

Douglas,

Here's an idea for you - I'm going to write an article on the two types of killer content for your blog.

One type almost everyone understands and strives for, the other (based on niche keyword research) is less well understood, but both help increase visibility and traffic.

If you like it, you could write a post on how you're applying (or not applying and why) this as a guest post here, with links back to your blog of course.

If I don't write this post within a couple of weeks ping me - overloaded right now!