Internet Marketing Strategy

Why Viral eBooks Fail

by Chris Audet on January 21, 2008 · 99 comments

There are two key "pieces" missing from nearly all viral eBook campaigns… and if YOUR eBook is missing either of these, you’ll be settling for a fraction of the results you could be getting!

Here’s the problem: Most marketers who write viral eBooks format these as text files, Microsoft Word documents, Adobe Acrobat PDFs, and in other common formats. These formats are pretty universal, so most people will be able to read them… but they’re missing two HUGELY important features:

Track the number of copies distributed: Once you start letting people share a text file, Word document, or PDF you’ve created, you’ve got no idea whether it’s been read by 10 people or 10 million people!

This might be acceptable under the name of "branding" if you’re a big-name company like Coca Cola or Nike — but if you’re a small business owner, you’re looking for hard proof of results! That means that you’ll want to know EXACTLY how many people have downloaded and registered a copy of your eBook.

Capture reader contact information: Say someone downloads your eBook "101 Resources for Customizing Your Golf Cart" as a Word document or PDF. They really enjoy the eBook and would definitely be open to hearing from you with related offers or information, such as a limited-time discount on golf cart accessories.

Your eBook has just won you a highly targeted potential customer for your products and services… but you’ve got no way to know who they are, so you can’t follow up with them! And unless they happen to see your other marketing efforts, they’ll probably never make a purchase from you!

When you think about it, distributing a viral eBook that doesn’t (1) track the number of copies distributed and (2) capture reader contact information is like going to a party and introducing yourself to lots of new people… but not listening when they tell you their names!

So when we added viral technology to the latest version of eBook Pro, we made sure to include features specifically designed to fill in these "missing pieces" in any viral marketing campaign.

When you create a viral eBook using eBook Pro, you can specify exactly what contact information your readers will be required to enter before they can "unlock" their copy of your eBook. If you want to keep things simple, you can request just their name and e-mail address, or if you prefer, you can request their postal address, phone number, or other information as well.

This information is automatically stored on the eBook Pro web server, where it’s available to you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even if someone registers their copy at two in the morning, their contact information will be available to you instantly. At any time, you can see exactly how many people have registered your eBook — and view contact information for each reader.

Armed with a growing "opt-in" list of contact information, you’ll be able to get in touch with your readers at any time to let them know about other products and services you may offer that are related to the content of your eBook. And if they enjoyed reading your eBook, there’s a very good chance they’ll be receptive to any other offers you send them!

And you may be surprised to learn that collecting contact information can actually result in an eBook that’s far MORE likely to be shared!

Think about it: If your eBook DOESN’T collect reader contact information, your only hope for getting your readers to take action is by including a sales pitch right in the body of the eBook. This can work — but in the end, readers are far less likely to share it with friends if it looks like a sales pitch.

By using eBook Pro to collect contact information up front, you take away the pressure of having to get your readers to take action right away. This lets you skip the sales pitch in your eBook and focus on simply providing quality information.

Your readers will appreciate not getting a "hard sell" in your eBook… and as a result, they’ll be far more likely to pass it on to a friend! Then, since you have the name and e-mail address of everyone who downloads your eBook, you can easily follow up with a product offer later!

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