Using FREE to Build Your Small Business Brand
Using FREE to Build Your Small Business Brand
"Free" content is becoming more and more prevalent and is being embraced as a way to build sales by many companies, particularly in the software sector. It's not uncommon for many software applications to have a free version available - the idea being that offering free content will build brand awareness and result in upgrades and sales of more robust products. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, is leading the way in establishing the business case for free content and plans to release a new book dedicated to the subject sometime in 2009.
From a marketing and PR perspective, well known blogger/author David Meerman Scott has preached the benefits of free content as a way to share your ideas, assume a thought leadership position, and build your brand.
Free or Gated.
There are two opposing viewpoints regarding the accessibility of free content:
1. Free content should be totally "free". Users should not have to provide personal information or have to register in order to be able to access your free content.
2. Free content should be "gated". User should have to perform some call to action in order to access free content i.e. provide contact information such as an email address, etc.
Types of Free Content.
There are many different ways to offer free content on your website including:
eBooks - Are you passionate about a topic or idea? Write an e-book and use it to:
* provide prospects/customers with useful information.
* assist in solving your clients problems.
* helps your target market learn something new about their business.
Articles - Create an articles section on your website. It's best if the articles provide useful information for your target audience and add value to a visitor's experience on your website.
Documents - Become a resource provider to your target market. One of my clients, a business lawyer, recognizes that her value is in the service she provides and not the documents that are used in the process. As a result, she provides document templates such as non-disclosure agreement, contracts, etc for free. Her goal is to create a resource tool that will attract a target audience to her website, expose her brand and create word of mouth.
Some other forms of free content include:
* Whitepapers.
* Blogs.
* Case studies.
* Research findings.
Benefits of Offering "FREE" Content.
* Creates brand awareness.
* Builds word of mouth marketing.
* Engagement - facilitates a connection with your audience and helps build relationships.
* Helps develop trust with your target audience - visitors accessing your content without having to register won't need to worry about whether they will start receiving spam from your small business.
* Creates a great opportunity to expose your ideas.
* Removes any barrier to your content and results in more downloads.
* Viral - free content is more likely to spread online through linking on other websites, mentions on blogs and forums, etc than gated content.
* Empowerment - gives your target audience control in deciding for themselves if your content is valuable without having to give up their permission asset i.e. an email address, etc. With gated content, people that do register may not actually be interested in future communication from your small business - they simply want to access your content to see if it of value to them. As a result, any email you send after they are forced to register will likely annoy them and be treated as spam.
* Free content helps generate sales leads. As your content gains exposure it helps build brand awareness - if your target audience likes what they see, it will lead to relationship building and new business opportunities.
* Search Engine Optimization - the more pages you have on your site, the better the chance that your small business website will be found by potential customers. More free content helps build search engine rankings.
* Becomes a business card/brochure for your small business and provides your target market with an insight into who you are.
* Your target audience has a reason to repeat visits to your website (and will usually stay longer when they are there).
Using FREE to Build Your Small Business Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Mark Smiciklas's Website.
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I ended a recent article with the suggestion that all of your website content should be offered for free. I thought it would be a good idea to follow that statement up with some ideas and rationale on why free content helps create awareness and build brand equity.
"Free" content is becoming more and more prevalent and is being embraced as a way to build sales by many companies, particularly in the software sector. It's not uncommon for many software applications to have a free version available - the idea being that offering free content will build brand awareness and result in upgrades and sales of more robust products. Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, is leading the way in establishing the business case for free content and plans to release a new book dedicated to the subject sometime in 2009.
From a marketing and PR perspective, well known blogger/author David Meerman Scott has preached the benefits of free content as a way to share your ideas, assume a thought leadership position, and build your brand.
Free or Gated.
There are two opposing viewpoints regarding the accessibility of free content:
1. Free content should be totally "free". Users should not have to provide personal information or have to register in order to be able to access your free content.
2. Free content should be "gated". User should have to perform some call to action in order to access free content i.e. provide contact information such as an email address, etc.
Types of Free Content.
There are many different ways to offer free content on your website including:
eBooks - Are you passionate about a topic or idea? Write an e-book and use it to:
* provide prospects/customers with useful information.
* assist in solving your clients problems.
* helps your target market learn something new about their business.
Articles - Create an articles section on your website. It's best if the articles provide useful information for your target audience and add value to a visitor's experience on your website.
Documents - Become a resource provider to your target market. One of my clients, a business lawyer, recognizes that her value is in the service she provides and not the documents that are used in the process. As a result, she provides document templates such as non-disclosure agreement, contracts, etc for free. Her goal is to create a resource tool that will attract a target audience to her website, expose her brand and create word of mouth.
Some other forms of free content include:
* Whitepapers.
* Blogs.
* Case studies.
* Research findings.
Benefits of Offering "FREE" Content.
* Creates brand awareness.
* Builds word of mouth marketing.
* Engagement - facilitates a connection with your audience and helps build relationships.
* Helps develop trust with your target audience - visitors accessing your content without having to register won't need to worry about whether they will start receiving spam from your small business.
* Creates a great opportunity to expose your ideas.
* Removes any barrier to your content and results in more downloads.
* Viral - free content is more likely to spread online through linking on other websites, mentions on blogs and forums, etc than gated content.
* Empowerment - gives your target audience control in deciding for themselves if your content is valuable without having to give up their permission asset i.e. an email address, etc. With gated content, people that do register may not actually be interested in future communication from your small business - they simply want to access your content to see if it of value to them. As a result, any email you send after they are forced to register will likely annoy them and be treated as spam.
* Free content helps generate sales leads. As your content gains exposure it helps build brand awareness - if your target audience likes what they see, it will lead to relationship building and new business opportunities.
* Search Engine Optimization - the more pages you have on your site, the better the chance that your small business website will be found by potential customers. More free content helps build search engine rankings.
* Becomes a business card/brochure for your small business and provides your target market with an insight into who you are.
* Your target audience has a reason to repeat visits to your website (and will usually stay longer when they are there).
Using FREE to Build Your Small Business Brand - To learn more about this author, visit Mark Smiciklas's Website.
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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I've created this section on my site to share some of the incredible tools that I've used to build my business. I hope you too can benefit from them and look forward to hearing your feedback on the reviews! - Visit Evan Carmichael's Website |
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Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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