Using Downloads to Build Your Mailing List
A mailing list is essential to the success of your internet business. The old saying “the money is in the list” cannot be overstated: if you have a targeted list of prospects to contact each time you launch a new product, you will be able to save a lot of time and effort by marketing it to your current list of targeted prospects.
By providing a relevant download on your website, you may truly establish a targeted list of prospects that are interested in your items. Let’s take a look at a great example: apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their website, they will ask you to fill out an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can buy from — guess where — iTunes!
In truth, you don’t have to provide such a “heavyweight” download as a full-featured software like iTunes. You can also attract prospects with high-quality freebies such as a basic report, a free wallpaper, and so on. The crucial thing is that your download is valuable enough for the prospect to be willing to give away his or her email address in order to obtain it.
However, simply creating a simple download and placing a link on your website would not be sufficient to attract qualified prospects. You will need to undertake some research in order for your lead-generation process to work properly.
First and foremost, you must prominently display your download form on your website. Ideally, create a page for it and link to it from every other page on your website. That way, your visitors will have no trouble finding the download page, and when they do, you’ll have some of them turned into prospects!
You must also put in some effort in promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the download’s benefits and why your visitors should download it. You might wonder why anyone would want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors are too lazy to go through the trouble of downloading it because most of their downloads merely sit on their hard drive accumulating virtual dust. As a result, it is critical to demonstrate to your visitors why they should download your freebie.