Successful Customer Follow Up

One of the easiest – and most effective – ways to generate more
leads and orders from your marketing is to offer, as a bonus, a
free special report.

But be careful of this hidden danger: your prospects already
have too much to read and don’t really want a “report” per se.

What they seek is valuable content that can help them solve a
problem, do their job better, or make more money.

If they think your free report can deliver some of that, they’ll
respond to your e-mail or sales letter just to get their hands
on it.

So how can you transform a ho-hum offer of yet another “free
report” into a compelling free content offer that sends your
response rates soaring?

The most important factor determining the desirability of your
free special report is the topic: does it cover something your
prospects need or want to know?

Great topics for free special reports include tips, predictions,
news, interpretation, analysis, case studies, and discussion of
a controversial issue.

Example: a newsletter publisher found that its most popular
feature was the monthly “You Be the Judge” column summarizing a
court case and challenging the reader to guess the outcome.

Subscription rates skyrocketed when the publisher began offering
a “Best of ‘You Be the Judge’” compilation as a bonus to new
subscribers.

I’ve found that anything having to do with making money works
well as a free information bonus.

For instance, a newsletter published, as part of its subscription,
an annual salary survey of the industry it covered.

When we offered reprints of last year’s salary survey to new
subscribers, orders for new subscriptions increased 25%.

Giving your free report an attractive or compelling title also
helps boost response rates when offering it as a premium.

During the Clinton years, the American Spectator offered a
special report “Inside the Clinton White House” (that may not be
the exact title; it was years ago and memory fades) free to new
subscribers.

Since so many marketers offer free reports, you may stand out by
offering free content in other media; e.g., audio CDs, videos,
software, online tools.

Here’s a way to quickly and easily create an effective
information premium: promote a paid teleconference to your list
and record it.

Then duplicate it on audio CD and offer that as a bonus. If you
charged $79 for the teleconference, you can legitimately say the
CD has a value of $79.

That’s important, because the higher the perceived value of the
free bonus, the greater the demand.

If you use free special reports as information premiums, put a
price in the upper right corner of the front cover of each
report.

Set up a reports library on your website where visitors can
purchase the reports for that price.

That way, when you give them away as free bonuses and specify
the value, you can legitimately say: “This report sells for $29
on our website, but reply today and it’s yours free.”

Here’s a gimmick that works well: instead of using an 8½ by
11-inch page size, make your report digest size (5½ by 8½-inch
page size).

Let’s say the report is tips about leadership. Print the title
on the front cover in large reverse type – white letters on a
black background – and call it “The Little Black Book of
Leadership Secrets.”

Both “secrets” and “little black book” create an aura of
importance and exclusivity that makes people want the booklet.

If you want the free booklet to build your image as a thought
leader in your industry, consider publishing it as a small
paperback book.

Then, when you offer it free in your marketing, you can position
your company as “The Folks Who ‘Wrote the Book’” on Topic X.

If you sell to the federal market, government employees are not
allowed to accept free gifts worth more than $25, so the price
on your free book or report should be $24.97.

Sincerely,

Bob Bly

P.S. For step-by-step instructions on marketing with free
content offers, see my book “How to Create Irresistible Offers”
(AWAI). For more information or to order, click below now:

www.bly.com/IrresistibleOffers

Bob Bly
Copywriter / Consultant
590 Delcina Drive
River Vale, NJ 07675
Phone 201-505-9451
Fax 201-573-4094
www.bly.com