Downloadable Offers - Today's Most Brilliant Marketing Tool

An offer is a free, downloadable “something” from your website that provides your web visitor (a.k.a. potential customer) with a discount, free valuable information, or a tool that enhances their life in some way.

Creating offers (something of value your web visitor can download for free) is a brilliant marketing technique. They are inexpensive, easy to promote, and have a l-o-n-g shelf life. Offers are the catalyst for supersizing your lead generation efforts or nurturing your existing customers.

Typically, here’s how they work...

1. A potential customer sees an ad (Google, Facebook, etc.) or finds the offer organically.
2. Their curiosity is piqued.
3. They click through to a landing page (a web page stripped of navigation that briefly describes the offer and has a simple form to fill out to get the free download).
4. They fill out the form and—shazam! They get the free offer, they think you’re a trusted source that provides valuable info, and you have a lead in your database to contact further.

Make sure your offer’s not lame. This part of the process is where some marketers fall short.

How do you create a great offer that provides real value and delights your prospects and customers?

Think like your customer, not like yourself.
What would your customer want?

Great offers are customer focused. Real thought is put into what would be valuable for them. If it’s no more than a sales tool, they’ll see through it immediately. Potential customers want you to provide knowledge, tools to make their lives easier, insider information, or even discounts.

At CWS, we’ve designed several offers we think would be useful to our clients, and after a few months, we realized we had enough to launch a library on our website. Our offers are typically created by the staff member with the most knowledge in that area, tweaked by a staff writer, and then prettied up by our graphic designer.

Below are examples of offers we’ve created in just the past few months:

Tool kits
Building a Targeted Persona Toolkit
Ebooks (short)
30 Secrets to Effective Lead Generation
Ebooks (full-length books)
Jobless: How to Quit Your Day Job and Start Your Climb to the Top by Alan De Keyrel
Webinars and free tutorials
Inbound Marketing by Alan De Keyrel
Templates
2015 Social Media Calendar Template
Tip sheets
Writing Cheat Sheet for Average Writers Everywhere
Checklists
10 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Traditional Media Buyer
10 Questions to Ask When Hiring a Digital Media Buyer

You can also promote special offers and discounts if they truly provide value to your customers and aren’t just a gimmick. An example of a great offer done well is Main Street Dental Clinics: Free Dental Exams and X-Rays

Take it a step further, and invest more time and effort. You can really beef up your offers with videos, infographics, slide decks, or animations. In the end, it must always be worth it to your customer.