Building a list really is the first platform or foundational step in any business – offline or online. Offline businesses can find various ways to capture people’s details to add to their database – entry forms, competitions, attendance lists, and way more. For online marketing, or internet marketing, your choices are also numerous but fundamentally they boil down to giving the person a reason to give you their details.
So, yesterday we said that the first step is to have something to offer people. 
The idea is that you offer something for free. Now, that doesn’t mean you need to buy something but you may. The key thing is, it has to be something that your targeted readers view as being of sufficient value that they are willing to give you their details in exchange for it. What can you offer? How about …
- an ebook
- a report
- a white paper
- an audio recording of you explaining something
- an audio interview
- a video of you demonstrating something
- a video presentation of information
- a video interview
- a video of you talking through a process
- a mindmap showing key points in a system
It’s only limited by your imagination really, and it’s dictated by what your audience will want. no use popping up an ebook on how to train a dog when you have a website that’s all about mechanical engineering! It obviously has to be related to your site content so you attract the people who are your target market or audience.
Where Do I Get Free Gift or Offer From?
Glad you asked. There are two ways:
- acquire it. If you acquire it you can buy it, or you may already have it from offers and gifts you have received in the past. Your free offer for your audience may indeed be sitting on your hard drive! Ferret about for pdf’s, audios and videos. Make sure you have the right to offer it up. If you are unsure if you have the right, then assume you do not!
- create it. This is the preferred way to go if you feel comfortable producing something. Bear in mind it does not have to be a gold-star winner. Just good enough in terms of content that someone receiving it will think “well, that was worthwhile!”. It could be a pdf document that’s 7 pages or 12 pages or 20 ages or 110 pages – that’s up to you. It could be a video or audio that’s 3minutes or 20 or 60. Again, up to you. The key thing to remember is that audience has to be (a) convinced it promises to be of good value to give their details to you and (b) actually be of such value that they are happy to have done so!
You can gather there is no hard-and-fast rule here. You, I assume are clear on who your target market is. From that, you ought to be in a position to assess what they would want to get their hands on. If you don’t, focus on learning those two points first before deciding what to offer up.
If you are not technically up-to-speed with putting together an audio or video product then stick with a written document. Use any word processor to write your eBook or report. Convert it to a PDF file. If your word processor doesn’t do that then grab PDF Creator (it’s free) and install that – then you can print it as a PDF file. (Note – when you install, untick the box when it asks you to install a toolbar!)
If you are not confident of your written skills then do an audio product. All you need is a microphone and a recording tool. For Windows, Audacity is free and relatively easy. It allows you to save the file as a mp3 file which you can then send to people. Keep in mind the longer you talk the bigger the file and the longer it takes to send depending on some people’s bandwidth and speed. Keep it short and punchy!
Challenge
1. Who is your target market?
2. What do they want to know about?
3. What can you put together that would appeal to them as a gift?
Don’t agonise over this. Just get it together and you can always adjust later if you find it’s not quite hitting the mark. Perfection is elusive and leads to procrastination! Commit to having a product in some shape or form within the next 24 hours. Then come back for the next step, ok?