ContentDirect

ContentDirect:

Path, from the left navigation menu: ['Promotional Tools' section] > Content Direct

What is ContentDirect?

ContentDirect is another very powerful tool, within the Partner Administration System that can be utilized to help build your sales and maximize the value for your Partner System.

The way ContentDirect works is relatively straightforward. It is a system for generating large sets of titles, grouped under one or more categories, in a format that can then be used onward in the creation of new (or population of existing) websites. There are a number of uses to which ContentDirect data sets can be put, some obvious and some not so. We'll take a look at a few examples below.

ContentDirect ensures that the data you get is different from anyone else also outputting data (and building sites) from ContentDirect. The way this is a achieved is through ContentDirect limiting the data output in the following ways:

1) ContentDirect will only allow up to a maximum 100 titles to be output in one session.

2) You cannot output more than 50% of a single category's titles (so, if there are only 60 titles in a category, no more than 30 titles will come from that category).

3) Titles selected from the portions of categories selected are randomly selected by Content Direct.

4) As well as outputting product pages, ContentDirect also embeds 'other titles of interest' at the bottom of each page (relevant to the tile in question). This selection is also randomized by ContentDirect.

In the ways above, ContentDirect ensures that the data-set you get is absolutely unique. The chances of any two people, even selecting the exact same category, getting the same data set are incredibly slim indeed. The reason for this is to ensure that the sites you generate using the ContentDirect technology do not get penalized by filters such as Google's 'Duplicate Content' filter (which penalizes sites with exact same content as other sites). Your sites will be quality, targeted, relevant and unique (especially after you've edited your site's other pages, meta-data and so on).

Basic uses of ContentDirect data:

1) Building Specialist Sites from scratch.

You can use the output from ContentDirect to produce large content sites from scratch in next-to-no-time. Outputting hundreds upon hundreds of pages takes only a few minutes using the ContentDirect technology within the Partner Administration site, and it's a straightforward process to then import these pages into your web authoring application of choice. You'll of course need to add a few additional pages (say, home-page, articles pages and so on) but essentially, the ContentDirect pages will form the vast bulk of the site.

The reason for building a specialist site such as this? Simple. Generating large numbers of quality specialist sites (optimized to rank well in the search engines for the niche in question that they serve) funnels significant quantities of traffic to your site, and so lifts your sales volume. With many substantial sites also linking back to your main site (ideally all across different domains) you'll also lift the ranking of your main site along the way.

2) Adding quality content to existing sites

Of course, if you, or your affiliates, have sites which are already well-trafficked sites then adding a substantial catalog of audio-book products, filtered and relevant to the site in question is a great way to instantly monetize that site. Using ContentDirect these extra pages - filtered and wholly relevant to your target site - can be generated in minutes in a variety of different output file formats, to suit the application.

Once again, the sites in question would serve as funnels - driving sales to your main site. Don't forget that in the case of an affiliate adding your product pages to their site(s), they would automatically get paid their commission for every sale they referred to you, since you can generate ContentDirect output with an individual affiliate's ID embedded in all the links should you so wish.

Specialist uses of ContentDirect data:

1) Marketing sites

Of course, if you've got highly targeted, niche-specific sites with a great quality/quantity of content pages (and a genuine product offering, as opposed to a see-through sales message) you're likely to get some quality customers finding your site. Once they're on your site you may decide to use the opportunity for more 'marketing' reasons than trying to make an audio-book sale there and then. For example, you may use the platform of your niche sub-site to offer a free gift (an audio-book title download for free) in exchange for their email address.

The fact that your site is a specialist one and is presenting the customer with extremely relevant information within its pages (and a free title of interest) would lead one to think that the mailing list signup conversion rate would likely be quite high. Don't forget also, that every sale you make through your Partner System (even free products) can be automatically registered in your third-party email list management application (as described in section 5.4.12).

So, in short, your whole ContentDirect sub-site (generated quickly and easily using ContentDirect) might feasibly exist solely for the purpose of gathering email addresses (which are automatically put across to your email list application, nice and neatly for you). And these email addresses are coming from a well-targeted, tightly profiled set of customers - something of great value for your subsequent marketing efforts, be they the promotion of your main Partner System audio-book site or another, related product/service.

2) Non-audio-book revenues

As well as generating audio-book sales (as your ContentDirect sites will certainly do) you can of course add in additional features to monetize the pages of your ContentDirect sites should you so wish. Adsense is an obvious addition, as is Amazon affiliate links as a cross-sell to printed books, but there are plenty of other opportunities besides. Why not link up with your fellow franchisers and cross sell their specialism on your site, and take an affiliate commission of 10% of their resultant sales... that's still double what you'd expect to get for selling a book from Amazon!

The few examples above are just 'food for thought' - there are plenty more applications for ContentDirect data which can generate sales for you as a Partner System owner. You should of course remember, however, to ensure that your use of the ContentDirect system and the resultant data complies with the terms of your Partner Agreement at all times.