E-books as viral marketing tools for your business.
Major publishers such as Random House and Simon & Schuster have partnered with Scribd to distribute e-books for free. These publishers see huge benefits in using free e-books to generate a buzz about authors.
For more details check out this Wired article by Chris Snyder.
E-books are an important part of your viral marketing arsenal. Providing high quality content that helps people and is related to what you sell is essential to marketing your start-up. You should consider doing this before you spend $1 on advertising.
It always helps if your business is your passion. This gives you the edge in the motivation stakes. The more useful your content, the larger you viral footprint will be. In the new marketing paradigm, what goes around comes around. If you create something that people find helpful or interesting you will be rewarded by word of mouth. The magic words are when someone says “read this”, “watch this” or “try this” to their friends. That’s what you are always trying to achieve.
You should also make it easy for people to recommend your articles, e-books, videos etc. For instance, make it easy for them to share your content on the social networking/bookmarking sites. Remember, word of mouth is the most precious thing for a start-up.
