Who doesn’t love seeing those words?  “FREE EBOOK!”  We are all thirsty for knowledge and at the same time wary of spending money to buy a book and then realizing it’s not what we’d hoped.

As a consumer, I love free eBooks because I can look at the content and see if it’s what I need.  If not it’s no big deal, I just delete it and move on.

As a marketer, I also love free eBooks.  For one, it helps get my name out there, and positions me as an expert in my field.  It’s a great credibility boost, as I mentioned in last week’s radio interview with Dale Little.  For another, it can be a great motivator for a call to action on a landing page or web site.

Some may disagree, but using a free download of any kind is a great way to get people to sign up for a mailing list.  As we all know, getting people to opt-in to our lists is no easy task, and is near impossible if they see no clear and immediate benefit to doing so.  Having a free eBook to offer just makes it all that much easier.

In fact, I got an email from a young university student in the UK yesterday telling me she downloaded my ebook and wanted to include it in the bibliography for one of her research projects.  Even though it’s academic, it’s still a form of sharing, and as such it adds a social element to the ebook.

Free ebooks can take another form.  This kind is completely free with no restrictions except the reader is not allowed to plagiarize the book or accept money in exchange for it, or any part of it.  It’s freely distributable, and the author/publisher does not require an email address or mailing list sign up or the submittal of any other information about themselves in exchange for accepting the book.  The purpose of this form is to promote yourself, or a product or service you provide.

I created three types of eBooks recently.

In January I published a complete guide for small business owners to help them understand what goes into the process of designing a good web site.  This book is available in the Amazon Kindle store for $4.

Then I cut out the details and left only about half the content, which included the core concepts and a little bit of meat, but not too much.  I also added more promotional content at the end of the book, to include more information about how the reader could benefit by using my services (or reading my pay-for book).  This version is called the abridged version, and is available for free as a gift when the reader signs up for my mailing list.

And finally, I made a completely free version of the same book, which anybody can simply download from my web site and freely distribute.  This version has the most promotional information in it.  I completely cut several chapters, and a lot more of the meat.  I sprinkled various promotional messages throughout the content which tell the reader how they can get more info about that particular topic at various and sundry online locations.  Those web sites further attempt to sell the visitor my services.

This last book just came out two weeks ago and I have not done a good job of promoting it… yet.  But you can get it here if you want.

So you can hopefully see the various levels of usefulness for each of these different types of eBooks.  Try them all to see what works for you as a marketer.  You may get different results depending on the type of customers you have, but you won’t know until you try.

Talk about being stuck in a rut.

I recently ran across the web site of a local company here in Northern Virginia.  I won’t name names, but it is a PR company based here in my town.  They’ve been around for a while — longer than I have anyway.

First of all, their web site is not that great.  It uses bleedy jpegs and old-fashioned table-driven layouts.  It’s OK if you don’t know what that means, just trust me it’s very last decade.

According to their About Us page, they don’t do web design (but they do do web development), so I guess they can be excused for the 90′s design.

Basically they are a traditional PR company.  Everything about their list of “What We Do” items screams WE ROCKED TEN YEARS AGO.

Oddly enough they did tack on Social Media to their Interactive Advertising line item (“Interactive and Social Media Advertising”).  Wow, that says it all.

But the biggest sore thumb is the content.  Everything on their site talks about them.  What they do, how they do things, how great they are. “Our unmatched market knowledge”…  really?  “Our focus”… seriously?  What about the client’s focus?

It’s completely impersonal, almost barren of personality.  I wouldn’t trust my advertising campaign with this kind of company.  Now, in reality, they’re probably much better than their web site indicates, but how would anyone know?

The point is their web site is not only not working for them as a sales tool, but it could actually be a turn-off.

I hope you don’t fall into this trap with your own business.  Just look at your copy — for every time you say the word “We” or “Our” or use your name in the third person, that’s an opportunity to turn that sentence around to focus it on your customer, his pain, their challenge, or her need.