Promoting product via 'free ebook' vs. regular blog/niche site/landing page

[markowe]

*de lurk* Hi guys, I am a DP refugee and it's about time I got involved here.

Was thinking about a potential sales strategy and can't see if this has been discussed before: rather than pointing PPC traffic to a product/review landing page I was wondering if anyone has tried advertising for a 'free ebook' that looks nice, discusses the pros and cons of the product in question and generally does the presell before sending the customer on their merry way to the buy page with a link embedded in the PDF?

The PPC ad would say something along the lines of:

Want to buy a pink widget?
Don't buy a pink widget till you've
downloaded our FREE pink widget report!

(well, needs work obviously, but you get the idea)

The pros of this approach would be the lure of something 'free' to download and the potential added authority of a 'print' review of the product. Also, you are probably getting the punter to read a longer presell than they normally would, though I suppose 3-4 pages would be more than enough, Intro, Pros, Cons, Conclusion and Call to Action. You could just pretty much swipe your existing content from the microniche site/landing page if you already have one anyway.

The downside that I can see at the moment is that there would probably have to be some sort of landing page for the ebook itself, so that's kind of adding an extra step, and you would have to make sure landing page quality score doesn't suffer.

What do you think, worth a try? I can't say I've seen this done in the niches that I have looked at - non-MMO, tangible products like, well, everything including kitchen sinks. But then maybe this is old news, that's why I came to WF!

[derekjansen]

Hi Mark

Sure, this is a workable strategy. You can also try developing a mini-course, spread over a few weeks. This gives you the ability to keep in contact over a certain period without being an annoyance or risking unsubscribes...

Hope that helps...

[markowe]

Originally Posted by derekjansen

Hi Mark

Sure, this is a workable strategy. You can also try developing a mini-course, spread over a few weeks. This gives you the ability to keep in contact over a certain period without being an annoyance or risking unsubscribes...

Hope that helps...

Thanks, yes, like it, another use for that aWeber account! Though that would require a product that needs a lot of work to sell. Good for high-ticket products perhaps, where the decisions don't get made overnight.

I'm thinking of this approach with the hope of bumping up leads and conversions, and perhaps make those high-cost clicks go further, it's hard to compete for product keywords otherwise.