Hey guys. Just a quick one. I was talking to I guy I coach two days ago and we were discussing product ideas. Long story short, we were looking at the connation’s of the word "ebook" in a customers mind and we did a quick poll on one of the lists. By a large majority, the more seasoned buyers were very wary of the word when they saw it and associated it with sub par content, poor grammar, bad layouts etc, which I thought was very telling. Curious as I am, pedantic OCD IMer that I am I sent out a mail to a section of my list and explained prior to them that I was sending two test ads with dummy links, they couldn’t buy anything but could they let me know which ad they would have felt more pull and response too. The only, only diff between the two? I replaced every instance of the word "ebook" with "digital guide", yes I know but it was an ad hoc test and I will consult my thesaurus later people BUT the ad with etc etc digital guide, the exact same copy in all other ways, in other words, got a higher response rate. I am a devotee of the physiological aspects of language, its one of my other obsessions but this simple change was very interesting. I shall test further and post again but food for thought there I’m sure you will agree.
yes, there is a current post in WF's war room about this very thing. unless you're reselling plr/mrr stuff don't use the word ebook. it has lost all class thanks to low-rate marketers creating garbage PDFs and calling them ebooks. when selling to end user's for the sake of conversions, it's best to call them digital guides, white papers, digital info-products, etc.
Great post! Tweaking words with synonyms will definitely peak the interest of the non-tech savvy audience. I've once experienced this feature accidentally (you reminded me of it) when I started two websites with the same script but changed the name of one website to something similar but different. Both websites did well eventually, but the second one with the different name worked better in the beginning.
Going to test this out empirically on my list this coming Tuesday and ascertain which exact alternate works best. Keep you posted
Interesting, I have to check the Avg CTC for Digital Guide. Hope it will become a high paying Adsense keywords.
Cheers. I will be posting the results of this up on Tuesday once my list reverts. Should be interesting
I have thought this same thing about using the word ebook to sell a digital course etc. Glad to see others who also feel that using ebook is not the way to go.
Just to note, if I did not say it elsewhere in the post, the word "ebook" only really has those connatations in the IM niche. I am in lots of non IM niches and the problem doesnt exist, in other words, ebook is fine with those
I don't use the term "e-book" either. It is associated way too much with "crap." In fact, I don't use any kind of a term, even "book." There is no reason to anyway. *shrugs shoulders* For me, personally, I wouldn't have even tested it. It's just one of those things that does not need to be tested. (Like testing to see if squeeze pages are worth it, which they are not.) Even if it was just, say, 20% of the people, there are just too many who do not care too much for that term. Period.
You couldn't be more right. The term e-book has some very negative associations attached to it, unfortunately. As Linda mentioned above it does vary from niche to niche, but another factor to take into account is what you're actually trying to provide with your e-book..