Photo credit: Jay Lopez
When visitors land on your website you’ve got mere seconds to grab their attention and get them to stick around to see what you’ve got to offer. Most people will not buy what you have to offer on their first visit to your site, but if they like what they see, you want to seize the opportunity to open up a dialogue with them so that they can get more comfortable with you and learn what you have to offer before they click that “Buy it Now” button.
So, your goal should be to get your visitors to sign up for your email list so that you can continue the conversation with them. In order to entice and encourage your visitors to give up their contact information, you’ve got to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question for them. What do you have of value to offer them that will give them that will whet their appetite for the products and services that you can provide?
This is basic content marketing at work. Content marketing seeks to woo prospects encouraging them to become customers who continue to come back for more because you have both demonstrated the value of what you have to offer them, and you have made the effort to develop a relationship with them.
The key to successful content marketing is to consistently deliver valuable and relevant content that meets your prospective customers needs. It is not thinly-veiled marketing materials–otherwise called spam. Rather through the content that you offer you are establishing your expertise and authority in your subject matter and industry. Through your relationship building efforts you are creating an environment of trust that could lead to higher customer loyalty.
It is easier than you think to create your own free product to give away to your website visitors, and in today’s post we are going to take a look at some creative ways you can quickly and easliy come up with a product to give away to generate leads and build a responsive email list.
Here are some ideas for giveaway products:
For each of these products you will begin with an outline. You can create a mindmap to brainstorm for ideas and then arrange them in outline order.
If you are going to create an ebook, chunk it down to a series of short articles strung together with an introduction, a table of contents, logical transitions and a conclusion that summarizes the materials and presents the next steps that you want your reader to take. A give away ebook does not need to be more than five to eight pages long. You will deliver on the promise made in the title of the book, but remind them that if they want the complete picture they should visit your website for more in-depth information.
If you don’t like to write, or if you think you’re not a good writer, you can record what you want to say in your ebook and then have it transcribed. Sign up for a free conference call service that records calls. Dial in and create your recording, and then find a transcriptionist through any of the online freelancing websites such as Odesk.com, or Elance.com. There is an online transcription service called, speechpad.com where you can call a phone number, speak your message into the phone and then the audio is transcribed and sent to you in an email.
For a video series you can use the outline that you created to write scripts or storyboards if you are making slide-show videos. Having a plan in advance makes gathering the information and shooting the videos take less time and effort.
With audios, your outline will help you to stay on topic when you are recording your messages. If you want to get fancy, add a bit of bumper music at the intro (fading in) and out-tro (fading out). Be sure to include a short blurb at the end of your audio inviting the listener to visit your website.
An e-course can be easily put together from a series of ‘how-to’ articles. Load the messages into your email auto-responder service and then stagger delivery of the messages every few days. At the end of each message, point your readers back to your website.
Once you’ve got your product created, you can either hire a graphic designer to create an e-cover for your product, or you can make one yourself quite easily and inexpensively here: http://bit.ly/ecovermaker.
The final step is to upload your product to your website and create a link to the download page. Grab the opt-in code from your auto-responder program and if you have a WordPress blog you can add a new text widget to your blog’s side bar, and paste the opt-in code along with your e-cover image into the widget and then click ‘save’ and then ‘close.’
You should add a bit of descriptive copy above the opt-in box that tells the visitor what they will get when they subscribe to your email list. Better yet, create a short intro video that describes what they will be receiving.
Remember, this is not a marketing piece. You are offering them something of value in exchange for their subscribing to your email list. At the end you can include a call to action that directs them to your website to find more information and resources about your products and services.
If you’d really like to have a custom made lead generation product that you can upload to your website or blog to showcase your content and build your contact list, but you just don’t have the time to create one yourself, contact me and I will create one for you.
Have you created an awesome free product to give away to visitors to generate leads? Please leave a comment with a link to your site so that we can take a look.
