Offering free downloads on your website is an excellent way to gather warm leads. If you want someone to sign up for your email newsletter or hand over their contact details, you need to be able to offer something valuable in return. Offering a free download in return for this information is the perfect way to upgrade your online offering.

You might have seen these free downloads on business websites before. Usually, you have to enter your name and email address to be able to access them. These downloads can take many different forms, including:

• PDF printables

• Google or Excel Spreadsheet templates

• Videos

• eBooks

• Presentations

• Kindle files

If you’re thinking about creating free downloads for your business, follow these tips and tricks to help make sure your download is successful.

Choose something valuable

The download needs to have genuine value to the reader, or they will never hand over their information. Their email address is valuable, so you need to create something of equal or greater value.

A valuable download will mean something different for every company. Think about your audience and what would make their lives easier. For example, small business owners might appreciate sales email templates they can adapt. Busy mums might appreciate a meal planning spreadsheet template that will speed up and simplify the food shop.

Think about what you can offer (and what you’re willing to give away for free) and then determine how you can turn this into a free download.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

You might already have resources that you use in your business that could be easily packaged up as a free download. Some great examples of this include:

• Sales email templates

• Spreadsheets you have created

• Blog posts that can be adapted and extended into PDFs or eBooks

• Canva templates that you have created

• Presentation templates that you have created

Think about the things that you use in your business that you find genuinely useful, and you should be able to adapt these into something that other business owners can get value from.

Create a professional design

The content needs to be valuable, but it also needs to look the part. Branding the free download with your company colours and logo is a great idea, as it will help to remind people where they got their free download.

You don’t have to spend a fortune on design software to create something stunning. Canva will let you create professional-looking printables, presentations and eBooks without any design knowledge. Explore their templates for more inspiration.

Save it in the right format

Your download should be saved in a universal format that anyone can access, whether they are using a Mac or a PC. 

• PDFs are a popular choice because they are universally accessible and will retain all formatting. 

• You could also create Google Docs, Sheets and Presentations and share them with view-only privileges. Users will then need to save a copy to their Google drive. 

• For videos, consider uploading to YouTube and making them unlisted and only accessible with the link.

Create your thank you page

Your lead generation form should always redirect to a thank-you page that includes information on how to access the download. The most popular method is to send the download via email after the user has confirmed their email address. This will prevent people from signing up with fake email addresses to access your freebies.

You can create email download journeys using mailing software like MailChimp. You might want to go one step further and send users an email journey that outlines your services and how you can help. 

Be careful you don’t annoy your new subscribers, as they might be quick to unsubscribe. You should be safe to send one email after sign-up to check how they are finding the template and to introduce your services. It’s also a great way to request feedback on your free download.

Direct visitors to your download

Once you have your free download ready to go and you’ve tested the signup process, it’s time to start directing users to the page. You can link to this on social media, add a button to your email signature, and include a banner or popup on your website homepage. Once it’s up and running, you simply need to wait for the email sign-ups to start flowing!

Don’t have time to create free downloads for your business? I hear ya! This sounds like the kind of job a virtual assistant could help with… get in touch to learn more about how I can help!