Freemium Profits – Five Part Course

Subject line: First Lesson of Freemium Profits

Hello PowerAchievers subscriber,

Welcome to your first lesson in the Freemium Profits Five Part Crash Course.

Each day for the next five days you will receive a lesson that will help you learn how to quickly create, distribute and profit from your own freemium reports.

In this first lesson let’s talk a little bit about what freemium is, what you can do with freemium reports and what they can do for you.

“Freemium” is a term that blends free and premium. It is a way of doing business that builds enthusiastic customers by offering them quality free content they can use, while charging for specialized or advanced content. By giving away useful bits of your knowledge in the form of quality free content, your customers and clients begin to trust and know the kind of products you produce. That way they are ready to pay premium amounts for the complete solution, higher level products you develop.

Let me ask you this question….

How often do you see the words “free report” when you are surfing the Web looking for information?

About a million…. right?

It doesn’t matter what topic you’re searching on everybody seems to be offering a free report on the subject.

The big question is, why?

Why should anybody go to all of the time, trouble and effort to produce a report that is going to given away for free?

You see the point in NOT to sell the report you create and make a boatload of money from the sales. The entire point of a ‘free report’ is to give it to people in exchange for their names and email addresses.

Not that the report isn’t valuable in itself, but the real value is in the names and email addresses of those who download your report. They are much more valuable than the report will ever be!

The truth be told, with the thousands of freemium reports that are available online, there are only a few very, savvy marketers who know exactly how to put together a ‘free’ report and market effectively so that it takes on a life of its own and continues to produce phenomenal results for weeks, months or even years after the report is released. These savvy marketers use their reports to build massive mailing lists, quickly and efficiently.

Don’t get me wrong. The free report list building technique isn’t limited only to Internet marketers. It spills over into brick and mortar marketing as well…or maybe that’s where it started. Who knows? The lines between Internet marketing and Brick and Mortar Marketing have become a bit blurred over the years.

If you don’t believe me, go and perform a search for ‘free marketing reports’ using your favorite search engine. You’ll find freemium reports about all kinds of products and services. You will find freemium reports about marketing beverages, sports, music, B2B marketing and dozens of others. The point of these freemium reports is the same. The idea is to give your potential customer valuable information to in exchange of his or her name and email address for the purpose marketing products and services to them in the future.

One important key to effectively using freemium reports to build an opt-in list, either online or off-line is that it must contain good, solid
information. The information does not have to be completely unique, but it must be accurate and freemium reports must be well written…no poor grammar or misspelled words are allowed. The information needs to be presented to readers in a clear way, as well.

Another key is that good reports, whether they are free or paid for, must be helpful to the people who read them. Make sure you check your facts and include relevant, timely data.

As you’re creating your report you also want to keep in mind that the whole point of your free report is NOT the actual report. The report is only a means to and end. In the planning stages you will want to decide exactly what you want your report to accomplish and keep those goals in mind as you are writing.

Look for your next lesson tomorrow. We will be going over how you can write your own free report in only 60 minute. But until then, I want you to take some time and think about the reasons that you’re writing your report and exactly what you wanted to do for you. Be sure to take some notes and jot down some ideas, so that you will be ready for the next step.

Thank you again for joining me for this Five Part crash course,

Power Maven, PowerAchievers.com

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2

subject line: Second Lesson of the Freemium Profits

Hello PowerAchievers subscriber,

It’s time for your second lesson. I hope you found lesson one
helpful and that you had a chance to think about exactly what you
want your free report to do for you.

In this lesson we will go over how to choose a topic and gather
information so that you can begin writing your report. This part of
the process is actually the most time-consuming, and one you
have mastered your research and gathering techniques you will be
able to quickly write your reports in 60 minutes, sometimes even
less.

As we discussed in the last lesson freemium reports are a popular tools
used by Internet marketers to build their mailing lists and make big
profits fast. The reason so many savvy marketers use freemium reports
so often is simply because they work.

Once you understand that people search the Internet because they
want or need information it easy to understand why freemium reports
work so effectively. People are constantly seeking for information
on subjects that will make them feel better, look better, get
smarter, or solve a problem. If you provide them with a free report
that will help them solve their problem, you will look like an expert
in their eyes and that alone can do a lot to increase your
reputation and your selling power.

Reports can take many forms but no matter what the form, a report
is simply a written document that provides information about a
specific subject.

Don’t worry, writing a report doesn’t have to be a tedious or time
consuming task. A short report can be written in as little as an
hour provided that you have access to sufficient information on the
subject and since the Internet really is the “Information Super
Highway” information on almost any subject is readily available
with a few clicks of your mouse.

Today we’re going to talk about creating your first report from
scratch. The first thing that is required for your report is a topic.

The topic that you choose to write your report on should be one
that is directly related to the topic of your website or product,
because you want the people that will be downloading and
reading to be interested in the information that you are providing
for them.

The easiest method that I have found for deciding on a topic is to
choose a broad subject first and then narrow it down to two or
three specific points. A good way to do this is to ask yourself
some simple questions.

For instance;

What does my product or service have to offer consumers?

What are the major selling points of my product?

Who are the people that will be reading my report?

What are their needs concerning this topic?

Once you have answered these and any additional questions you
may have concerning your audience, you can then begin to
formulate your objectives. Your objectives will indicate exactly what
the readers of your report will go after they have finished it.

For example, for a web design report one objective would be
“After you have finished reading this report you will be able to add
an image to a web page.”

If you get stuck for ideas try asking your current list of subscribers
or customers and see what they need help with. Do some
research by visiting blogs and forums that relate to the products
and services that you sell and see what their customers, thoughts
and concerns are.

Another good way to do some quick research is to set up a free
account a fairly new website called ask500people.com.
This site allows you to post your questions in a format that makes
it easy for you to receive hundreds of responses from people all
over the world and you can use this information to narrow down
your choices quickly.

Once you have settled on a topic for your free report, the next step
is to gather information that is related to that topic.

This can be easily accomplished by referring your favorite search
engine again. This time just plug in some key words related to the
topic that you have chosen. Don’t worry that you won’t be able to
find enough information to work with. In fact, most of the time it’s
the exact opposite. Chances are, you will find too much
information rather than not enough. Be prepared because you are
going to have to sift through and consolidate the information, but if
you have narrowed your topic down properly, it won’t be all that
difficult.

That’s it for today’s lesson, but you do have homework. I want you
to get out your notepad and start doing your research. Remember
to think about what your product as to offer, narrow down your
topic and main objective, then start jotting down some ideas and
links to information that you can use to write your report.

In the next lesson we’re going to talk about how to construct an
outline for your report, so that your job will be much easier when
you begin writing. Plus another way that you can construct your
reports without doing all of the writing yourself.

Again, I appreciate your joining me for this crash course.

Power Maven, PowerAchievers.com

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3

subject line: Third Lesson of Freemium Profits

Hi PowerAchievers subscriber,

It’s “your first name here”, with your third lesson

the first thing we are going to talk about today is constructing an
outline for your report, so that when you begin to write your job will
be much easier.

If you want to write a really good report from scratch you need
organization and form. An outline supplies both. If you are trying to
write a report within one hour, the best thing is to keep your main
points to only three. Three well-discussed points are better than a
half dozen that are only briefly covered. Once you have organized
your research and written an outline, it will take you less than half
an hour to type up a five or six page report.

A good outline will break down the different parts of your report
and help you to organize your thoughts so that the writing process
will go smoothly. Think of it like a table of contents.

First, write a brief introduction describing what your report is about
and what your reader will learn by reading it.

Next to organize your main points into a logical order and break
them down into subcategories if necessary.

Now when you begin to write your report, you can address the
main points individually. This is much easier then trying to write
the entire report at one time. Begin by writing anywhere from one
to three paragraphs on each point. Keep in mind that this is a
short report that you’re giving away for free, so you don’t have to
delve too deeply into each point. Remember you want them
coming back to you for more information.

After you have addressed your individual points write your
conclusion and your report is finished. Please don’t be concerned
if your first report takes a little longer than an hour. Once you have
mastered this process you will be able to create one report after
another in no time at all!

Now let’s move onto a way that you can quickly create reports
without doing all of the writing yourself.

Another way that you can produce a free report in under an hour is
to download one that is already written from a PLR (Private Label
Rights) site. There are many such sites that are available on the
Internet. You will have to be a member of a PLR site to download
reports from the site. Memberships in these sites are usually
rather inexpensive and they provide you access to a lot of material
that is almost ready for you to use.

You will still need to do a lot of rewriting on the reports that you
download and if you download articles that you plan to consolidate
into a report, you will need to make a good outline of your report
so that the information will be presented in a logical sequence.

You can either download a report from a PLR site or several
articles that contain the information that you want to include in your
free report and combine the articles to make one longer report. All
material that is downloaded from PLR sites should have at least
some rewrite done before you use it on your own site, anyway.

Rewriting is easily and quickly done. There is even software that
will accomplish part of the rewriting task for you but if you use this
software, be sure that you carefully read it to check for
grammatical errors and to make certain that the finished product
actually makes sense.

Yet another way to create a report in an hour or less is to
download articles from free content sites and then combine and
rewrite the information that is in them. The articles that are on free
sites must be rewritten extensively.

The purpose that the authors of those articles had for placing them
on sites for free use is to get credit for having written them. These
articles can be used as reference but they may not be reproduced
word for word.

A word to the wise: Always check the accuracy of statistics or
facts that are included in articles downloaded from free sites. You
can use the basic ideas of these articles as well as the facts that
are contained in them but you must NOT reproduce them without
giving credit to the author… that is plagiarism and it is a crime.

Again… consolidating articles into a report requires that you make
a good outline before you begin.

There is one more way that you can achieve getting a free report
produced in an hour or less but in this case you won’t be the one
doing the writing. You can hire yourself a good ghostwriter to write
your free report for you. All you will need to do is to provide this
ghostwriter with the subject and the material that you wish to have
included in the report… not the actual material but the subject
matter.

The entire process will take less than one hour of your time and
they will do all the work for you. There are several places that you
can find a ghostwriter, like; Hireaghostwriter.com, Elance.com or
Guru.com. Of course there are many others but you get the idea.
Just be sure to do your research and check out the references, so
you can be sure that you higher the best person for the job.

After you receive a report read it and then pay the ghostwriter. The
report then belongs to you. You can list yourself as the author and
do whatever you choose to do with it. Including giving it away for
free!

Look for your next lesson tomorrow we’re going to be talking about
how to put profit centers inside your free report so that you can
make the big bucks.

See you tomorrow!

Power Maven, PowerAchievers.com

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4

subject line: Fourth Lesson of Freemium Profits

Hi again PowerAchievers subscriber,

I hope you are learning a lot from the Freemium Profits

Today we are going to talk about placing profit centers inside your
free report.

Now that you understand the basics of choosing your topic,
constructing your outline and writing your free report. It’s time to
talk about how to turn it in to a profit pulling machine.

The question is, how do you get the most mileage out of a
free report? After all, that ‘free’ report is only free to the people
who download it. It sure isn’t free for you, the marketer. You have
spent time, effort and energy writing it yourself or you have paid a
ghostwriter to write it for you, so you need to get something back
in return, right? Yes, you do need to get something back and that’s
exactly what we are going to talk about today.

The first, and maybe the most important thing you get, is the name
and email address of the person who downloads your free report.
That is usually the main object of producing a free report, after all,
but your benefits don’t have to stop there. There are other ways to
profit.

In a free report, you can strategically place advertisements for your
affiliate products or even for your own products. Now… the free
report cannot be a blatant advertisement… that is just not
acceptable, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t place links to
products or services that you will make a profit on, does it?

You do need to use good judgment and possibly some restraint in
placing links to products and services that you can profit from.
Remember that the people who have downloaded your free report
didn’t expect nor want to get yet another advertisement. They
intended to get information and information should stay the main
focus in your free report.

You can add links to products and services that you make a profit
on but only within the context of the information being supplied to
the reader. For example: if within your report you are discussing
the importance of providing a dog house for a dog, you can
include a link to a dog house product that you will make a profit on.
What you can’t do is expound on the virtues of the dog house that
you will make a profit on. In other words…you can’t advertise it.

Another way that you can make your free report even more
valuable to you is to sell advertising space in it to other Internet
marketers.

Paid advertising needs to look like paid advertising, however. It
should not be disguised to look as though it is a product that you
are specifically recommending in your free report. It really isn’t
surprising that people expect to see advertisements. It’s true. You
really expect to see advertising, don’t you? Others expect to see it
as well and it will not aggravate those who download a free report
if the advertisements look exactly like what they are…
advertisements.

The amount you can charge for advertising space in a free report
varies with the report and the size of the circulation it will achieve.
A long report can generate a larger advertising charge than a
short report. A report that will be downloaded thousands of times
can bear a larger advertising charge than one that will only be
downloaded a few hundred times.

Advertisements can be shown as sponsorships. Example: “This
free report is sponsored by” just above the advertiser’s logo. This
kind of advertising is less annoying to a reader and puts the
advertiser in a better light than just an advertisement.

Remember, however, to hold your advertisements down to a very
reasonable number… even if you list them as sponsorships. Too
many advertisements make a free report appear to be nothing
more than a cheesy way to slip advertising in disguised as
something other than what it is…and people really hate that.

There is even one more way in which you can profit from a free
report. You can provide a capture method so that you can collect
the names and email addresses of those who have not yet
downloaded your free report.

You can give your free report a viral quality.

For example: You can use a quiz in your free report and have the
answers posted on your website. Quizzes are by nature viral and
those who download your free report will be more likely to pass
them along to their friends if there is a quiz included.

Each visitor to your website is a potential customer or, at the very
least, a potential member of your opt-in list. Another way to give
your free report a viral quality is to include coupons that provide
dollars off on a product or service that would be of great value to
those who download the report as well as to their friends, family
and coworkers. People love coupons!

Each of these techniques to add to your opt-in list or increase your
potential for profit from a free report by selling advertising space
or strategically placing links to products and services that you
profit from or by giving your free report a viral quality is worth your
time and effort to investigate and put into action. freemium reports are
only free to those who download them…they are supposed to
make money for you.

Look for your final lesson tomorrow when we will be talking about
how to distribute your free report for maximum exposure.

We’d love to hear from you! Please let us know
what you think.

Power Maven, PowerAchievers.com

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5

subject line: Fifth Lesson of Freemium Profits

Good day PowerAchievers subscriber,

Now that you were coming to the end of this crash course. There’s
one more thing we have to talk about, and that’s distributing your
free report for maximum exposure. After all, there’s no sense in
going do all the work of creating a report full of fantastic
information and strategically placed advertisements if no one is
going to read it.

We all know that no matter how great a product or service is if it
isn’t actively marketed nobody is going to make any money. That
is just the facts of marketing… all marketing. The old saying, “It
pays to advertise” is alive and well in the market place. There are
now and there always has been certain constraints placed on
advertising and those constraints get more binding everyday.

There are some things that just aren’t done. It is absolutely illegal
for example to send bulk marketing emails to people who have not
expressly consented to receive them… that one is thanks to the
CAN SPAM act of 2003.

But, what if you aren’t selling anything? What if you are giving
something (a report) away for free? Do those same advertising
constraints still apply?

Well… sort of.

If within your free report, there is even one link to a product or
service that you will make a profit on if it is purchased or even one
advertisement by another company for a product or service, then
many of the same constraints could apply. It would be a fine line
and not one that you should be comfortable getting too close to.
The fines are stiff as are the penalties for violating the CAN SPAM
act.

The fact that a report is free, however, does take some of the
constraints off of marketing it. You aren’t selling anything…you are
giving something away for free. If you are into marketing at all, you
are more than likely already posting to blogs and forums that
pertain to the products and services that you sell. These sites
usually have strict rules that forbid posters from advertising their
wares.

But… if you are giving something away for free, those advertising
rules will not apply. You can post a link to a download of your free
report and not be accused of posting advertising on most blogs
and forum sites. The people who populate these sites are your
very best prospective customers…and giving them a free report
can’t hurt.

Another way to advertise your free report that would not be
allowed for a product that was being sold is to post links to it on
such sites as My Space or Yahoo Answers. Since the free report
is not a product that is being sold, you are within your rights to post
links to it on those sites.

It goes without saying that you should post a link to your free report
on your own website of course, but it would also be worth your
time to contact other website owners in your particular niche and
offer to let them post links to the free report on their websites. You
may be pleasantly surprised at how many take you up on the offer.

Reports themselves are usually too long to be placed on article
bank sites. There is most often a limit of about 750 words and a
report by nature will be longer than that. You can, however, take
excerpts from the report, make articles out of them and submit
them to article banks with a link to the full report. When you do this,
don’t give the main points away, just use them as a tease to
encourage people to click on the link and download the full report.

Reports can be submitted to E-Book banks as they are. Content
is still king and website owners and E-zine publishers regularly
use material that they download from E-Book banks and
repositories to fill all of that beautiful empty space on websites and
in E-zines.

You can contact marketers who have nice long lists and offer your
free report to them directly. List owners always love to be able to
offer something of value to their list members that is not only
valuable but free as well. Contacting these list owners can’t prove
to be a very effective way of distributing your free report to those
who you most want to have it.

Do banner exchanges with websites that sell products and
services that are related but not identical to the products and
services that you sell. Your banner should be a link to your free
report and the banner should say “FREE REPORT” and the name
of the report.

Place advertisements for your free report in E-zines that have
topics related to the subject of your report and the products and
services that you sell. Readers might ignore an advertisement for
a specific product or service but they very rarely ignore an offer for
something for nothing. Advertising in E-zines is one of the most
effective and cost effective methods of advertising available.
Make use of it.

Now is one free report is good, just think how great a series of
freemium reports could be! Once you have written articles and
submitted them, the second and third parts of your report won’t
require that effort or your time. You will have already laid the
groundwork for subsequent parts of a report. The same thing is
true for link exchanges. Those E-zine publishers and those related
website owners will be almost required to use subsequent parts of
your free report.

Dividing a very long report down to make three shorter reports will
give you more bang for your buck as well as for your time.

All of the above methods of distributing your free report are
doable. They will all require some time, effort and energy from you
but it will be time, effort and energy that has been well spent.

I sincerely hope you have learned a lot about creating, distributing
and profiting from your own freemium reports inside the Freemium Profits Five Part Crash Course. I wish you much success in all of
your online ventures.

Power Maven, PowerAchievers.com

Originally posted 2011-08-05 01:46:12.