2.Teleconferences. Use a book as basis of a series of teleconferences.

3.Website incentive. Create a special report or email registration incentive based on a government booklet.

4.Autoresponder series. You can offer a ‘mini course’ as a series of lessons delivered at weekly intervals.

5.Articles and speeches. Books can be repackages in shorter units, adapted to current conditions.

6.Checklists and worksheets are always welcome and can be easily assembled from copyright-free sources.

Often, original, copyright-free work can be used ‘as is.’ The owner of a fly-fishing camp located a ‘fly fishing coloring book’, which he sends him clients to give to their children.

Putting public domain content to work basically involves four steps:

1.Goals. What do you want to accomplish? Simply keep in contact or motivate fence sitters to act right now? Your answer will influence amount of information you need, as will your market’s information needs.

2.Locate. The next step is to locate appropriate public domain content. This involves research that can be done at your computer, at any hour of day or night.

3.Verify. You’ll want to protect yourself by making sure that materials you have selected are indeed copyright free.

4.Adapt. Unless you are going to reprint a book or government pamphlet, you will want to scan or transcribe it, and reformat it into format that works best and suites your marketing needs.

No longer do you have to write every word of your marketing. Information in public domain permits you to market more efficiently, so you have more time to provide your unique products and services.

Public domain material allows you to save time and money while creating an ongoing stream of credible customer communications.

‘June Newsletter: Cutting Employee Absenteeism’ does a better job of promoting newsletter content and encouraging readership.

The headline and first paragraphs of email or covering letter should continue to engage by describing, in increasing detail, benefits recipients will gain from reading your newsletter:

-What problems does current issue address and solve?

-What goals will current issue help your readers achieve?

2.Proof – Next, use covering letter to prove value of reading your newsletter:

-Case studies – Summarize case studies mentioned in your newsletter.

-Procedures – If your newsletter shows how to do a task, list number of steps or describe one step in detail.

Whenever possible, include testimonials from individuals or clients who have successfully benefited from ideas described in current issue.

3.Next step – Show how to access your newsletter by:

-Opening email attachment

-Downloading newsletter from your website. (Make sure recipients can easily locate specific page.)

-Clicking a link, but also include a URL in case link doesn’t work.

4.Promotion – Encourage recipients to pass along your newsletter to associates and friends who might benefit from its content. Planting ‘sharing seed’ each month can play a big role in increasing size of your opt-in mailing list.

Before distributing, review your newsletter after completing your covering letter. Ask yourself:

-Headline: Does headline develop promise made in letter?

-Content: Does my newsletter actually deliver promised benefits?

Edit and rewrite your newsletter until you can answer ‘yes’ to both questions. And then use your covering letter to persuade recipients to open and read your newsletter.