Does your small business have a newsletter or a database, customer club, etc?

And are you trying to motivate your website visitors to sign-up or join by offering them a free report of some kind?  Maybe it's an e-book, or a short how-to manual, or beginners guide. 

If you said yes to both questions (and if you haven't you need to rethink how you're marketing to early and mid-stage buyers), the following techniques will boost your sign-up/download sucess rate:

1) Make sure you have a privacy statement/reassurance directly next to your sign-up form.  Just a simple 1-line of text saying you'll never sell or trade the visitor's information.  Bonus points for linking that statement(or a "we respect your privacy statement") to an actual privacy policy.

2) Show a pciture of the cover of the actual report/PDF/guide/whatever you are offering.  If you don't have cover art for your free download, create it.  Make sure it has a graphic and looks enticing.  Whatevery you do, don't just use the stupid PDF icon.  If you treat the report or e-book as if it was important enough to deserve a cover, your visitors will treat it as if it's worth trading their personal info to get.

3) Give visitors a few bullet points of teasers to make them want to download the free report.  Your report doesn't have a physical back cover, but the back cover material and endorsements are exactly the kind of things most perspective downloaders would want to look at before giving away their personal info in trade for the e-book.  If you don't have space within your sign-up form to give this kind of info, then create a link within the sign-up box that says someting like "See more about this report," and point that linkto a full blown landing page for your report, where you'll have the space you need to properly merchandise it.

4) Establish - and substantiate - the value of your "free" download.  If you're offering them an electronic version of a real book, point to the Amazon page where people can see how much the actual book is worth.  If the information in the special report or begginners guide could save someone hundreds of dollars, then say that. Figure out a way to both establish a market value for the information and to credibly substantiate it. 

5) Ask for as little information on the sign-up form as you can possibly get away with.  The de-facto standard for most is a first name and e-mail address.  B2B websites sometimes demand a business e-mail address and will reject gmail, aol, and yahoo accounts.  For more valuable sign-ups in more serious industries, Full names, business titles and phone numbers are asked for - which is fine as long as what you are asking for is commensurate with what you are willing to give the visitor in return and you are consciously using the download to attract midde to middle-late stage buyers.  Problems occer when you there's a mismatch between buying stage, value offered, and amount of personal info asked for.  In short, if you can get away with just name and e-mail address, I suggest you do that.

6) Develop a lead-nuturing system on the back-end that will be capable of taking full advantage of your new list.  Figure out the next logical step for someone who reads your download, predict the prospect's needs and questions, then create an e-mail or virtual conversation around those needs and questions.  Permission to e-mail someone is not permission to pester.  Make sure your follow-up contact is as relevant, customer-focused, and persuasive as possible.

- Jeff

Read About Jeff Sexton