Get Slightly Famous

Marketing with Electronic Reports, White Papers and E-Booklets

Jim Jenkins is a business coach and training consultant. His firm, Creative Visions Consulting, recently launched a new web site to attract visitors and targeted prospects into its corporate consulting programs.

Jenkins noticed a trend in his site's visitor statistics. An overwhelming percentage of visitors were searching for "free team- building exercises," a phrase that appeared in several places on his site. He decided to channel this definite interest in team- building into an effective lead generation strategy.

Free Info-Documents Attract Prospects

Forget costly brochures. Identify the solutions you provide clients in the course of your business, then build info-related materials around them. Free info-documents that address your target market are effective marketing tools when they offer quick, concise solutions to common problems, challenges and concerns.

A person who buys office furniture would probably appreciate an informational booklet on ergonomics–and would be inclined to business with the firm who offered it. A sales manager responsible for setting up in-house sales seminars would probably consider a training firm who has helped her become a better training manager with an educational tips sheet.

Info-documents can become a primary method to attract prospects. Info-documents such as brochures, white papers, and special reports are more effective than costly self-promotional materials because they have real value to your prospects.

The best part? Your prospects will actually ask to receive your info-documents, assuming they are educational, information-rich and provide useful information, rather than being overtly self-promotional.

Some examples of effective info-documents include:

• St. Supery Winery publishes a booklet entitled “Techniques for Living Well”. Inside are low-fat cooking tips, techniques and recipes and sections on cooking and dining with wine. Toward the back is plenty of information on attaining St. Supery’s wines as well as a detailed map on getting to the winery.

• Men’s Health Magazine sends a booklet upon subscription renewal entitled “Special Report: Sex Secrets Women Wish Men Knew. The booklet is offered free as encouragement to renew subscriptions. Content covers the entire range of erotic topics you might expect...and you can be sure that this booklet gets noticed, open and read.

• Galaxy Moving Services published a booklet “Useful Information For People Moving Household Goods In California”. This booklet packaged information required to be given to customers by the state of California. The booklet also provided dozens of tips on packing and other moving-related information. It was offered free in the company's Yellow Pages ad.

Give your info-document a title that will make readers want to send for it: “17 Telemarketing Mistakes And How To Avoid Making Them”, “Deciding To Become A Public Company--Understanding The Process And Challenges,” or “A Glossary Of Office Automation Terms.”

Remember that your info-document has an objective: to get prospects to do something as a result of reading it. An info-document should:

• Establish a bond between the reader and the company that produced it
• Get prospects to heed the advice of the marketer
• Put the prospect/recipient in the debt of the writer/marketer
• Give the prospect something of value they will not throw away
• Encourage the prospect to consider your company when the need for your product/service arises

Make your booklet, report, or tip sheet a cornerstone of your marketing package. Send your info-document to your mailing list. Include it with proposals and display them on tables at trade shows. Mention them in your marketing and public relations efforts.

Unlike brochures, which often get tossed, your info-documents will encourage response from prospects, get passed around among members of your niche, and have the potential to be in your prospects hands for a long time.

Trading In a cash world

While our ancestors might have traded chickens for horseshoes, today's savvy entrepreneurs swap hotel rooms for printing, office space for a night on the town and dental work for vacations in the Caribbean, all with the help of business barter exchanges.

Barter exchanges link businesses together into trading networks where members trade with one another to turn their underutilized capacity into new revenue streams. Instead of cash, barter exchanges issue "barter credits" or "trade dollars" that are used like cash between exchange members. For a small cash commission (typically 10 to 15 percent of each transaction), these exchanges facilitate the trades and provide monthly transaction statements.

For example, the owner of a sign painting company needs to have brochures printed. Instead of paying with cash, he goes to a printer within his barter exchange and pays with trade dollars. Subsequently, the printer can spend his barter credits with any other business in the exchange. He may, in fact, decide to eat out at a restaurant, seek legal advice for his business or defray his monthly courier expense. He does not have to spend them with the sign painter.

When I first joined a barter exchange, I was introduced to a new world that had been beneath my nose all along but that I had been oblivious to. The exchange comprised many local businesses, some of which I was already doing business with, from restaurants to dentists to moving companies. I was immediately plugged into an efficient system that made trading easy a barter exchange representative helped to work deals and serve my buying needs.

Before joining a barter exchange you must know your "cost of trade," or the real cash outlay involved in each barter transaction. A hotel, for example, has a low cost of trade because it costs little to barter an empty room. A printer, however, must consider paper costs.

Barter is particularly effective for service-oriented companies that have few or no out-of pocket expenses. Beware of cash heavy transactions requiring outlays for overhead or equipment. It's also necessary to factor in cash fees charged by the exchange. And barter should supplement, not compromise, your cash business. Despite its appeal, you can't pay telephone bills or taxes with trade.

To make barter work for your business, flexibility is crucial, which often means switching from established vendors to those within the barter exchange. For example, you may need a computer or other piece of equipment. If you have the cash, you go to the store and buy it. With barter, you sometimes have to work with your broker to find what you need, and you may need to have it shipped.

The benefits of bartering are limited only by your creativity. As business becomes more competitive, the concept of trading promises to become more popular. Small business owners are discovering that bartering can become an integral component of their business plans, enabling them to see higher profits, meet like minded business contacts and improve the quality of their business and personal lives.