How To Create An Irresistible Free Giveaway

The most common question I am asked is about how to create a free giveaway. This is the information I share with my highest level mentees:

Are you creating irresistible free giveaways to build your list and grow your online business? We must always be prospecting for new people to add to our list. These people will join your list by finding you in one of a variety of ways and then deciding that they absolutely must have your free giveaway in exchange for their name and email address. Think about the last time you joined someone’s list. More than likely they were offering a free gift that you felt you just could not live without. This is the feeling you’ll want your prospects to have every time.

As online entrepreneurs, we are problem solvers. Start by making a list of the biggest problems and concerns of your target audience. What types of things might keep them awake at night and make them want to search for solutions first thing in the morning? For my niche, the biggest problems I am solving are around helping people to replace income lost after a job loss, health issue, or early retirement. You must know what it is for your niche, and if you are not sure, ask people on the social media sites to help you out.

Once you know what your audience is concerned about, set about creating a short report or audio that helps them to begin to solve their problem. Your free giveaway will not completely solve their problem, because that specific information is more of what you would include in a product. Instead, think of your free giveaway as your opportunity to get people headed in the right direction so they will see that you are the right person to help them achieve their goals.

Now, back to the short report you will write. Typically I will write several articles and blog posts on my topic to get started. Then I will choose the very best and most relevant information from what I have written to include in a short report. I like to write about five pages, which comes out to about two thousand words or so. You will notice that I start repurposing my content right away, as I have now written blog posts, articles, and a short report from the same material. I write every word myself so that I know my new prospects will be learning directly from me.

People judge us on what we create, so now it’s time to make your report more attractive. I do this by adding a cover page, putting a colored  border around each page, including a footer with a link back to my blog or other site, and adding a couple of royalty-free images. Also, use a sans serif font that is easy to read, such as Tahoma, Verdana, or Arial. I usually make my sub-headlines about size 14 or 16 and the body of my report is size 12 for best results.

Once you have written your report, convert it to PDF. This is available as part of the newest Word programs, or at no cost from Open Office. This PDF is then uploaded to your server through your WordPress site or by using an FTP – file transfer protocol – program. This is simple enough to do, but you may choose to have a web person do it for you.

Audio recordings are also very desirable as free giveaways, so think about reading your report and including that as a download, along with your written report. This allows you to have an extended reach to people who primarily consume their information by listening instead of reading.

Set up your site so that a new prospect will opt in, be taken to a thank you page, and will then need to check their email for the download link. This will build your list quickly and get you off to an excellent start. Remember that the idea here is to offer your new prospects an irresistible free giveaway to bring them into your marketing funnel.