Let's say you want to use a public domain product to improve your lead generation. This method is hyped as a source of free content for your website. How do you know if it would be worth your time?
Giving away or selling low-entry books is a great way to identify profitable customers in your market. This stealth marketing strategy provides a way to sneak into markets while building your mailing list for future marketing efforts.
Unfortunately, information availability makes it difficult to ramp up and profit from public domain products. Also, if the product doesn't sell you could be stuck with thousands in setup costs and no leads for your core service.
The public domain market has changed since Google dumped thousands of titles online. It can be difficult to publish your own books, nor can you republish Google's works commercially. That means you'll have to start from scratch.
How do you test markets without losing your shirt?
Why not promote existing books via affiliate programs until you are sure you could sell your own version? Or better yet, do lead generation for your own services, using affiliate marketing to lower acquisition costs.
Very often complementary affiliate products can help prove a list for qualified buyers. Could generate sales with an affiliate program before investing in our own product? Yes, and you can do one better using affiliate marketing as a testing tool.
I've handled a number of public domain works, they required many hours of setup, did not always produce income. If you test using an existing affiliate program, properly done, you'll know for sure which title is worth your time.
Why Affiliate Marketing Is A Powerful Way to Practice Copywriting
Better yet, properly done you can use affiliate marketing to build your mailing lists while qualifying prospects for your business. This assumes the purchase of such information product identifies someone as the buyer for your solution.
Using affiliate marketing can save you time over repurposing public domain materials for lead generation. Choose products that identify buyers, and that leads to the sale of your own product on the back end.
© 2008 B2B Website Profits, All rights reserved.