Giving Readers PDF Files and the Formats That They
Want
Question: I noticed with
your follow-up newsletter announcement, that you've
included a web link, a PDF version, and link to a text
version. Wondering why. What's the marketing strategy here?
Answer: The strategy is to give my readership what they
want. When I did my annual survey, 38% wanted to receive
the newsletter by email, 31% wanted a downloadable text
file, 18% liked reading it online, and 10% wanted a PDF
version they could print. (A mere 3% percent preferred
audio.)
It was surprising to say the least. Email is still the
favorite, but I imagine the popularity of text, is due to
the amount of handheld devices that are out there, and the
ability to format and read the newsletter "their" way. It's
also the most portable and reusable format.
I stopped doing an HTML version for a while, as the stories
from the newsletter, were also being posted on the blog...
which is HTML anyways. But now I've stopped blogging the
newsletter stories, and started adding them to my web site,
as static web pages instead.
As for the PDF, 10% may not sound like a lot, but it does
represent over 3,500 subscribers. Plus more requests for
PDFs arrive all the time.
The reason why PDF is becoming more popular, is that it's
portable and searchable. The newer Reader software allows
you to mark-up, comment and even highlight the documents.
You can load them on a USB stick and read them just about
anywhere.
Also, the newsletter is quite long, and some people prefer
to get away from the computer, and read it on good old
fashioned paper. That way, they can print it out, carry it
around, and read it when they want. They can also highlight
the important bits for later.
The reason I stopped providing all three formats, for a
while there, is because I was on vacation. I spent the
better part of a year on a road trip, driving across Canada
and around the USA, working from hotels with my laptop.
But now I've finally settled back into my home office. It's
nice to have a monitor, mouse, scanner and printer once
again. I can finally get back to providing content in a way
that makes everyone happy.
(Hint: Writing is the hard
part. But once you have the writing done, it's easy to
reposition the same content, and provide it in different
formats like PDF, MP3, enhanced AAC podcast, video and
anything else you can put inside of an RSS feed.
They are all findable by Google's Universal search. And
they'll get you into directories like YouTube and iTunes.
Each new format extends the reach of your content, bringing
more subscribers... And who doesn't want a bigger audience.
;-)
