Today is Day 15 of the Be A Better Blogger series. We’re using the outline offered by Collis Ta’eed in his article titled 31 Days To Becoming A Better Blogger, and our topic for the day is:
Day 15. Write a 10-page report or mini eBook. A few hours work will result in a free report you can distribute to feed subscribers only, give out to your readers and encourage them to share, or otherwise leverage to bring more traffic back to your blog. If it’s really useful, it might even go viral...
The interesting thing I picked out of today's task was to offer our report to feed subscribers only. Depending on your personal objectives, you might choose to give your report to email subscribers or to feed subscribers - or to both.
This will help you to build your subscriber base, and your overall readership, as new visitors get updated with new content from your blog.
The report you create needs to be on the same topic as your blog, or of direct interest to your ideal reader. The goal with this type of report is to build a relationship with your readers, so you dont have to load it with affiliate links - just deliver good solid content and make sure they know who you are and where to come back for more (your blog).
You may also consider writing two reports. One that you give away free when a reader subscribes, and a second low-cost report that you introduce them to in the first one. This gives you a back-end option, and also a separate product to sell at the same time. This works best if both reports are on related topics, or if the 2nd report is more detailed and valuable information after a good lead-in and curiosity builder in the first.
For more on this topic, see: Writing Reports
Best,
About Lynn Terry
Hi Lynn,
So how would I set this up if I'm using Feedburner to track my RSS subscriptions?
Jeff
Hi Lynn,
If I'm not mistaken it appears to me that the blog post that you are referencing called"31 Days to Becoming a Better Blogger" was written by Skellie, not Collis. It has Skellie's name at the top of the article. Skellie is a woman.
Just thought you might like to take a look.
🙂
Creating a Report is always a great way to get your readers more involved and help you build your subscriber base.
Oooh, I like the idea of the second low-cost report idea.
I have been giving out a free report to my new subscribers but dummy-me, I didn't include the sign-up form on my blog sidebar (don't ask)...it's there now. Anyway, I'm getting ready to put together a down-loadable "photo album" of all the projects featured at my blog and this would make a great second report to promote in the first. (I'm already referring people back to my site in the first report.)
Thanks for the tip! 😉
The two report idea is a great way to mometize your site. You can use the free report as a lead in for more than just another report.
True Cynthia - thanks for pointing that out 😉
Good question Jeff... I'm honestly not sure. If they subscribe by email you can set it up in your autoresponse. But if they subscribe by RSS... well, I wonder if you can customize your feed to deliver a download link? Good question...
Thanks, Lynn.
I hope you're feeling better. Haven't heard a peep from you in quite a while.
My blog's been redesigned. Go by and tell me what you think. I still have some cleanup to do but you know...
Jeff
Thank you Jeff - I'm finally starting to feel a bit better and have been overwhelmed with catch-up work 😯 lol. I sent you a message through the forum already so I imagine you got that - I'll see you there 😉