Special Reports – Stuff to Do With Them

After being in the information product game for 8 years, I’ve put together a ton of (I have no idea how many) special reports. Sometimes I sell them, sometimes I use them for marketing purposes. It really depends on my objective, but there are so many thing you can do with reports and they don’t take too long to put together.

Here are 31 ideas, in fact. They come from the Special Report Club – which is a monthly membership that offers pre-written reports in the Internet marketing niche. By the way, if you are in the market for these type of reports, you can enter coupon code: “save10″ to get $10 off your first month.

Back to the 31 ideas for your next special report:

1. Sell it – and keep all of the profits. The most obvious way of making money with special reports is to sell them.

2. Sell it through affiliates – and keep some of the profits. This is the similar #1, but your affiliates lead buyers to your sales page and pocket a commission from the sale.

3. Sell it through affiliates – and give them all of the profits. How does this make you money? Well, you build a list of buyers plus you can earn money on the back-end, either by promoting other products in the report itself, or as part of the sales process, or both.

4. Give it away – and build your list. Use the special report as an incentive for people to join your list.

5. Give it away – and make affiliate sales. Embed affiliate links in the report, and you can earn commissions by giving it away. Just add a “Resources” page or sprinkle affiliate links where appropriate.

6. Break it up into blog posts. A blog needs regular content. Write blog posts easily from a special report.

7. Give it away as a bonus to a paid product. Increase the perceived value of a paid product by including a special report – or several – as a bonus.

8. Combine a few reports into an E-book to sell. Turn each special report into a chapter, add an introduction, conclusion, new title and cover, and you’ve got a brand new E-book to sell.

9. Combine related special reports into an E-book, to give away. Same idea as #8, but you give it away for list building and/or affiliate sales.

10. Combine related special reports into a physical book, to sell. Turn the E-book from #8 into a book that buyers can publish-on-demand, such as on Lulu.com.

11. Use it as a basis for an article. Get the most actionable points from the special report, turn them into an article, and submit it to Ezine Articles or another online article directory.

12. Create an audio version to give away, or sell. Some people prefer audio products they can listen to while they’re on the go or doing other things. Give in to their demand by converting the special report into an audio report.

13. Use a special report as the basis for tutorial videos – to give away or sell. Videos are hot nowadays, so turn a special report into video format for increased value.

14. Combine the audio and video versions into CDs and/or DVDs – and sell physical products. Physical products don’t cost a lot to produce, but have higher perceived value than digital products.

15. Use the special report as the basis for a series of marketing videos to build your list and/or drive traffic to your site. Get 3-5 top tips from the special report and turn them into a video you post on YouTube and other video sharing sites, for instant traffic for your blog or site.

16. Use it as the basis for videos to promote affiliate products. Similar to #15, but use the videos to drive traffic to products you’re affiliated with, using your affiliate links.

17. Make it a prize on your Twitter giveaway. Want to get more Twitter followers? Offer a special report to all your new followers.

18. Give it away in exchange for answering an online survey to do market research. Set up an online survey and give respondents a free special report for their time.

19. Make it a surprise bonus for your customers or subscribers. Delight your existing customers with a free special report they didn’t expect to get and make them loyal to you, for life.

20. Create a teleseminar out of the special report. Create a list of frequently-asked questions the special report addresses, and set up a teleseminar.

21. Make it a monthly resource in a paid membership program. Add useful special reports in the members’ resource area, or make it the featured content of the month.

22. Break it up into an E-course, to sell or give away. Chop up a special report to create an E-mail course or pre-recorded audio course.

23. Use the special report to create free Web 2.0 sites, such as Squidoo and Hub Pages. Create content for Squidoo lenses, Hub Pages and other Web 2.0 sites that promote your products and/or services, or affiliate products.

24. Break it up into autoresponder messages for your subscribers. Use the special report to give your subscribers useful information regularly.

25. Rewrite it to cater to a different or more specific niche. With a few tweaks, you can make a special report appeal to a completely different niche or market. For example, turn a general business report into one just for work-at-home Moms.

26. Use the content to create a mini-site for affiliate marketing. Set up a mini-site (5 pages or less) to promote an affiliate product. Get content from a special report.

27. Create a podcast. Use a special report as the basis for a podcast, which can be in audio or video format.

28. Use it as an upsell or downsell to another paid product. Offer a special report to buyers of a related product.

29. Turn it into a brandable report for your affiliates to use to promote your product or service. Let affiliates give away a special report to draw leads to your site or list.

30. Cull out the most actionable tips from the special report and turn each one into a Twitter Tweet. Shazam, you’re an instant expert.

31. Put together a coaching program. Turn special reports into hand-outs, checklists or even main resource materials for a coaching program.

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