Bait piece - the term describes an article or editorial that attracts the interest of consumers

Bait piece - A concept that has existed offline for decades, the term describes an article or editorial that attracts the interest of consumers - hence bait -
but also acts as a promotion for a product or service offered by the producer of the bait piece. Online, free information is offered as bait to generate sales leads (see lead generation). The free offer might be an article that tells readers how to solve a particular problem. To work best, the free article should be associated to the product or service for which that article is bait. For example, a search engine marketing (SEM) company might offer an article entitled 'the beginner's guide to optimizing web page for search engines'. By downloading the free article the user has identified themselves as a prospect for the SEM company, oinline, the free article is often referred to as a white paper, and so the concept has become known by that term.