An e-book at its simplest, is just the digital version of a book. But as a marketing tool, they are far more than that and have been enjoying double digit growth for years according to the International Digital Publishing Forum. For your prospects, they are often the entry point to your company and require your time, energy and perhaps most of all, creativity. You may or may not know what an e-book is, but there are literally hundreds of...

Much like your blog, your information product should offer unique content that your prospects cannot get anywhere else, or that collects the information they are looking for in one location. Let’s face it. Following the “other” guy rarely works and even more important, it instills very little trust. Your business is still in business because you do something different than everyone else. That quality needs to carry...

Two of the fastest emerging information products you can create for your small business blog are podcasts and videos. Podcasts are simply audio recordings you create and upload to your site that allow your prospects and blog readers to click and listen to on your site or download and listen to later on an iPod. Videos are well, the video counterparts to audio information products. Neither are difficult to create, nor will they cost you...

There aren’t many things of value your business can give away or sell that costs you nearly nothing to produce, but that’s exactly what information products can do for you. With information products, you are only limited by your creativity. Whether you decide to write an e-book, a newsletter, a white paper or some other information product, the cost to you is bound to be next to nothing. So what does it cost? There are really...

Information products are incredible tools to drive traffic to your site, build trust in your company, increase awareness of your brand, inform and educate your prospects and increase sales. But by themselves, they are very difficult to market, disseminate and track. So how do you handle these problems? You can scour the Internet for the tools that will help you increase the value of your information product, or you can follow along with...

One of the best information products you can create for your small business blog or website is a white paper or special report. The only problem is that most people we talk to have no idea what these things are, how they can create one or what to do with one if they were to create one. Throughout this month, our goal is to answer all these questions and more. So what exactly is a white paper or special report? White papers are digital...

What is it that you or your business can offer that will immediately gain the trust of your prospects, requires no storage space and costs you absolutely nothing in inventory costs? Your expertise. One of the reasons you should have a blog for your small business is that it helps establish you as a thought leader in your industry. It should also help differentiate your company from your competitors. So how can you speed up this...

What is an e-book and how can it help your small business grow? There are so many answers to these questions that it’s hard to give just one. E-books in their most simple form are just digital books, typically in PDF format, that you read on your computer or for the dedicated, on a portable PDF reader. As someone that collects e-books, however, I’d have to say they are far more than that. To me they are instantly transferred...

The best way to take advantage of your opt-in mechanism is to offer a free product to your prospects, capturing their e-mail addresses in the process. Why is this important? Building up your e-mail list should be a very high priority for your small business blog, and there’s simply no better way to build yours than by offering valuable information that prospects of your business will find useful. Don’t let your white papers...

Podcasts are quickly becoming a must-have feature of many blogs and they can only help make your small business blog even better. By offering audio commentary on issues concerning your industry, you will build your credibility and vision, as well as make it easier for your readers to get the information they are looking for. Not only can they listen to the podcast on your blog, they should be able to download them for later use and make...