How to Use Free Downloads in Your Business

The Internet makes it easy to deliver free reports, images, and ebooks instantly. All a person has to do is click a button and an e-book, report, infographic, or app is delivered instantly.

Who could possibly resist? These days, the sad fact is that everyone finds it easy to resist the allure of free things.

There are a wealth of free reports, e-books, infographics and apps available on the Internet. The free download suffers from the old marketing aphorism, “Overuse equals abuse.” Naturally enough, people assume that anything given away for free has no value.

Despite this, offering a free download is still a useful way for a business website owner to…

• Qualify potential clients
• Warm up a prospect ahead of a sale
• Educate a target market about a complex product
• Establish the credibility of the business to provide a product or service
• Deliver genuine value and establish a social obligation that improves the likelihood that a sale takes place

The trick is to get visitors to your business website to click the link and accept your free download. Your job is to sell the free download as if you were charging money for it.

You have to establish the value delivered by your download and create a genuine desire for all that it offers among your target audience.

Free downloads may not cost a cent, but they still have to be sold.

Common Objections to Free Downloads

There are four main objections people have towards free downloads. They are...

1. A reluctance to read
2. A lack of time
3. Expectations of spam to come
4. Cynicism regarding the value within

Let’s deal with each of these objections in turn and find out how to maximise the use of free downloads as a marketing tool.

Reading Reluctance

Fewer people are now willing to read than at any point in the last one hundred years. The arrival of video on demand, accurate search engines, and reliable AI has left us unwilling to demand too much from our brains.

Reading demands more from our brains than merely sitting back and consuming information. This will be more or less true depending on a business's target audience.

If you feel your market prefers to watch rather than read, consider using a video rather than a text-based download. Or use an infographic if the information you want to impart suits the format.

If your market is willing to read, you’re still going to have to overcome human inertia and generate excitement about what a person has to gain if they invest their time in consuming your free download.

Lack of Time

Who has time to read a free download or watch a video? This is an objection you must deal with.

If your download can be consumed in less than ten minutes, make sure you say so. If it can’t, then switch to selling the benefits that come with consuming it.

In particular, consider what a useful prospect for your business loses out on if they ignore the advice or information you’re offering.

Expectation of Spam

Most free downloads aren’t completely free. A person is usually expected to provide their email address in return.

When an email address is supplied, the person giving it does so on the expectation they will then receive a series of marketing emails that will continue until the heat death of the universe. This usually means one of the following occurs...

• They don’t download your freebie
• They supply a temporary email address

If your objective is to use the free download to educate, warm up a prospect, and/or impart genuine value for its own sake, do you need to collect email addresses?

If your objective is to collect email addresses so you build a newsletter mailing list, then focus on selling the benefit of receiving the newsletter.

My point is that if your download is a marketing or sales tool in its own right, you’ll get more people downloading it if they can do so without surrendering their contact data.

Cynicism About Value

When you’re giving away something for nothing, most people assume that thing either has strings attached or zero real value. If you're not asking for an email address in return, then most people will assume the download offers no more value than a brochure.

This objection must be dealt with thoroughly. You will have to sell the value of consuming your download. Be sure to tell people...

• What problems it solves
• How they can use what it contains to add value
• What kind of people derive this value
• How much value it delivers in concrete terms

Your e-book, infographic, app, or video might be free to obtain, but the time of those who consume it isn’t. They have to view your offering as an investment that is worthy of their time.

The Art of the Free Download

Despite widespread overuse across the business Internet, there is still a place for free downloads on most business websites. They’re an excellent way to qualify prospects, educate people about a product or service, warm up sales, and improve conversion rates.

Your job is to establish the value of your download, deal with fears about spam, and sell your website’s visitors on the value they’ll get by investing their time consuming your download.

One of the services we offer is the creation of a powerful free e-book, infographic, or video, and the sales material needed to sell it. Book an online meeting now and let’s chat about it.