Jason Nazar, the CEO of Docstoc says your business might be ready for a garage sale. If you’ve been thinking about doing some spring cleaning, Nazar has some suggestions on ways to make money off of all those files sitting around your office.
While not all of your documents are suitable for outside consumption, files such as templates or forms can be used to make a little extra money for your business, according to Nazar. “Our marketplace is geared toward content for small business owners, independent contractors and freelancers to start and grow their businesses as well as a wide range of templates, forms, contracts, guides, and research for professionals.”
Files like project proposal templates, status report examples and other business documents sell particularly well on Docstoc, as well as other sites that allow you to sell documents. The money is nothing to sneeze at. “Documents typically sell for $20 to $30 on average, but there are certain popular pieces of content that sell for over $200,” says Nazar. He suggests that if a template or project was particularly useful to you, another small business owner might find it very helpful.
Not all files do so well. It never makes sense to sell the recipe to your secret sauce, or any other proprietary information that helps you move past the competition. Similarly, be careful not to include any personal or client information in any document you’re considering selling. It can also take a little work to put together something that a buyer will really want. Nazar suggests, “Little things make a big difference. Adding good titles, categories and lots of tags help it get indexed more quickly in search engines. And then they can also embed their documents for sales on their website or blog, post to Twitter/Facebook/Myspace, and easily email it out to their contacts. A good cover page design on the document always helps with sales as well as having a professional picture of yourself or your company on your document page.”
The idea of making documents available through sites like Docstoc isn’t just a question of making some money, though. Such a strategy can be used to earn some income indirectly, as well: rather than posting documents for sale, you can just as easily offer them up for free. The document can act as a buzz piece, bringing traffic to your website and bringing you prospective customers interested in your services. While Docstoc offers the ability to make files available for free, so do a variety of other sites. Presentations, spreadsheets and other types of documents are all very popular.
You’ll find that similar documents do well, whether you’re offering them for a price or for marketing purposes. Those documents that readers actually find useful are the ones that, in the end, will bring you money.
Screenshot from Docstoc
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Tags: docstoc, Marketing, template
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