Content Marketing - Email Address for PDF

Discussions
#1

I’m trying a new (for me) content marketing strategy and I’d love to get feedback.

The landing page is https://dnsimple.com/how-to-transfer-without-downtime

The PDF is a checklist and flow chart. You can use the check list to make sure you’ve taken all of the steps necessary to transfer a domain from one registrar to another. It’s not registrar specific - it’ll be valid for most any registrar that sells generic top-level domains.

If you are not signed in, then you see an email input field. You enter your email address and receive an email with a link to the PDF. In that email there is also a link to join the mailing list, but the visitor does not have to join.

If you are logged in your get a direct link to download the PDF.

I just launched this today via a blog post and tweets. Time will tell how well it works, and I’ll report back with results, but if you have feedback today on how I might be able to improve it, fire away!

#2

Update 1: so far there hasn’t been much uptake (in the 10’s of downloads). I am going to begin promoting the content through the home page within the next few days, and see if that helps drum up interest.

#3

@aeden while the idea seems good, there is no “do it now!” factor to it.

I liked the pdf file you are giving, but thought to myself “I’m not moving my domain now, I’ll come back when (if) I ever need to move my domain”.

You need to offer something that is useful Now. Still offer the current pdf, as it’s useful, but add something that makes the offer more compelling.

#4

Thanks, that’s a really good point. I bet I could do something for the topic of email deliverability and it would be a bit more interesting because of the “oh crap what if my emails aren’t getting delivered” reaction. I’m going to roll around the idea a bit more and see what I can come up with.

#5

One thought that occurs to me, is that if your paper addresses particular questions, error messages, warnings, or issues that arise during the domain transfer process, you might break these out into separate, SEO-friendly posts.

I’m regularly surprised and amused by the “long tail” nature of some of my StackOverflow answers (for Rails 3 or Node, for example), which still receive regular upvotes even three or four years after posting. (And Googling their content shows why.)

Now SO carries more SEO weight than the average site, of course, but if I had written those answers up on a blog, wouldn’t that traffic be mine instead?