Offline Marketers: Outsourcing Giveaway Reports for Clients?

I have used $97 Ebooks (Beamer) and she delivers!
Also used another person that got a 'real' job and doesn't have time to write anymore. Check out Beamer, she's running a sale. Quality is great but you do pay for what you get, it isn't a cheapy. She's done one for a client that impresed the hell out of him. Lol.

Dex -

Special reports are 2009. For less than it cost to make copies of some bland paper report you could do much, much better.

Tim

Dexx,

I would suggest you check out the Warriors For Hire section right here.

The nice thing is, they are fellow Warriors and if they have some reviews and testimonials you know they're probably going to be reliable.

Hey Dexx,

Interesting to see what feedback would be on this... also agree that I did not understand what Tim was throwing out there for us to chew on...

Hey TIM, can you please reply with a better explanation of your thought for us? :-)

Many Blessings,
Jerold

I think what Tim was saying that if you create a 30 page report and hand it out to clients, it may not be the best strategy.

It isn't something that personally I would do, because I've had success with customizing things for companies. I've found the typical business owner doesn't have the time nor the desire to sit down and read a 30 page report on internet marketing. They want to know the benefits quickly, and understand how you can do this for them hands off.

One thing I do is offer to produce businesses a short 30 second video that I will then upload to YouTube for them. I just throw a few slides together of their business (usually taken from their website, or worst case scenario stock photos) and put it to music.

When I have the meeting with the client, they are typically pretty impressed to see their business up there on YouTube. There is a pride in knowing "cool, my business is on YouTube", especially if this is a company that hasn't paid for expensive commercials and such. They probably saw this as being something out of their reach.

Matt

The 'report' is not on IM. It is something potential clients of that business want or need in exchange for an email address. For example, a septic system maintenance manual to capture emails of septic system owners interested in that business's product or service (be it septic biotics or a local pumping business).

Dexx never mentioned paper reports, he said "get prospects coming to their websites to download."

well if you provide qaulity info in a free report for your customers, believe me this will make them to believe in you and your product for the fact you are giving it out for free

Here's my take on this having created over a hundred free reports for clients since 2008.

So a lot of my clients are interested in the whole idea of "Free reports" given away to potential customers, and I have used my interview template with them to figure out what exactly would be the hot buttons to get prospects coming to their websites to download.

You can never go wrong with information products. What you can trip up on is giving a free information product away to someone who does not realize the value or even need that information.

Free reports can be in different formats i.e. PDF, downloadable audio, free s&h audio product, DVD etc

What I do is work with the client to understand their area of expertise first because that's what they know and can talk about ... forever, without even thinking about it - I then help them identify what exactly out of that knowledge is information that their target audience would find valuable.

If we get stuck trying to gain clarity and I am unfamiliar with the niche (which happened in the case of first entering the Chiro niche) I work with them to focus on the problems their target group face. Problem solving special reports have a greater pull.

Have any of you ever had short reports (the free download kind...not to be sold) outsourced before? How was the results?

No. I have not come across a topic that cannot be captured and simplified in-house and I have covered a lot, and I mean a lot, of subject areas. The thing to remember is this. The report is not aimed at baffling the reader.

I help the business owner / service professional understand the goals of free reports, some of which include:

• To attract business
• To gain visibility with their target group
• To get the reader into an automated follow-up system that starts to build a relationship
• To highlight that there professional (I work heavily with service professionals) or business owner can help them solve their problem
• To get them to sample the services of the local business in a low-risk way
• To lead to next steps being taken which is usually a meeting

Of course these are just some of the functions.

I gather all the information I need and more by simply discussing the topics of expertise with the business owner and probing and asking simple questions such as:

• What's the problem?
• What does it look like? i.e. how does it manifest itself?
• Why does the problem exist?
• How hard is it to get a solution?
• How hard is it to get rid of the problem?
• Why is it that hard?
• What would they advise (this is the lead in to getting the person to consider the solution the service professional is offering as one of many)

With this information, I am able to pull a report together in a day or two. The report is highly conversational no matter how skilled the business owner is or how technically inclined they are and this is on purpose - because their audience wants simple and easy to read information that they can use after digesting the information.

As people with internet marketing knowledge there's a temptation for us to over-complicate things and this is the biggest mistake I see being made.

A short and powerful information product can be 5 pages in total including the cover, disclaimer and call to action at the end. I've never tried anything longer for a client to their client than 12 pages. Audio products (if I interview the business owner to create a free product) I keep to 5 minute sound bytes (5 minutes sections) generally.

I don't outsource because I don't see a need to. I also don't want the unnecessary step of having to go from client, capture information send to outsourcer, get it back, review etc when it can be done fairly easily.

Exception - Audio products. I always get all products that contain audio outsourced to professional voice-over talent

HTH.

Hey Dexx,

We're developing a product catalog for download - instead of the classic "info report".

There's some info in there too, but the main offer is definitely the products catalog.

If people want it, they need to opt-in.