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Informative Articles

7 simple steps to help you resolve complaints and delight your customers
I've recently been working with a small business close to where I live. It's an accountancy practice. It's a great little business. Super people, working very hard and really trying hard for their customers. However, every once in a while they...

Be an Entrepreneur
The Department of Labor predicts that the #1 employer in 2010 will be “self.” A recent Internet poll of 25-44 year olds revealed that 90% of them hoped to own their own business. A survey conducted by Ernst & Young found that 75% of...

Business areas that put a high price on Customer retention
Customer retention is nowadays on of the most important areas of customer strategy because of the continuous rising of the customer acquisition costs. Companies that have placed great efforts and money on customer retention are the mobile...

Check Yourself for Outstanding Customer Service
How many times have you heard something similar to this in a customer service situation? Customer: “Why don’t you just do it this way, and it will take care of the situation.” Customer Service Person: “I understand what you are saying, but we can...

Do You Know Who Your Customers Really Are?
Successful marketing of a product or service rests on the effective market research. Marketing research is an answer to various questions that crop up in your mind regarding the product. Some of the questions are: - Will the product sell? -...

Evaluating Your Customer
It is one thing to make a sales presentation, but it is another thing to make a sales presentation without first evaluating your customer. For all you know, you could be selling your customer something that they already have, or something they dont...

Getting And Keeping Customers
This is why you have a site in the first place, right? The idea is to make money, to get customers and keep them. There are some things you are going to have to do to accomplish this. Take a good, hard look at your website. Are there pictures of...

“Getting Back to Basics: A Customer Service Tale”
“Getting Back to Basics: A Customer Service Tale” By: Joy Fisher-Sykes One hot summer day my daughter and I ventured to our local craft store with one mission in mind – purchase velvet covered coloring panels called fuzzy boards. Little did we...

It's Still About Customer Service
My shopping experience lately has been amazing, and not in the good sense. Most of the time when I walk in a store one of four things happens: (1)I can tell who the salespeople are because they’re walking around with headsets on talking to one...

This Job Would Be Great - Except For Those Damn Customers!
We all know customers are not always right – in fact – often they’re completely wrong. But if we allow our customers’ “shortcomings” to be the focus of our employees’ attentions we’re destined to fail. The inclination to complain about a customer...

 
 
 
Converting More Free Downloads to Paid Customers

Do you give web site visitors the opportunity to download a free trial of your product or service with the intention that they will come back and purchase? How are you following up with these visitors? Asking them to fill out a form and immediately giving them the download on the next page is not the best way to generate a quality opt-in list. Collecting accurate opt-in information from these visitors is essential to follow up education and making the sale.

Download giveaway opt-in conversion is extremely simple when done with the correct process. Unfortunately many businesses are leaving significant profits and subscribers on the table by using the wrong methods.

The Wrong Way

A visitor comes to your site and they fill out a form to request your free download. Upon submission of the form they are taken to your thank you page where you provide the link to download.

This person has been given your download but you have not given them a reason to subscribe to your list. They might have given you a fake email address and in all likelihood did give you a fake email knowing that they just need to get to the next page to receive your information. Since you can't follow up with them you might have lost a sale.

The Correct Way

Insert the AWeber opt-in form on your site. Within eye site of this form provide information about the importance of subscribing to your list. Add value to your list by giving them compelling reasons to

 


subscribe. Make it clear that the download link will be provided in the email they receive after confirming their subscription.

On your thank you page (or redirect page) they are taken to after they fill out the form you need to provide information on verifying. Verified opt-in allows you to ensure that the person subscribing did so with his or her own email address and didn't provide a fake or malicious email. Let the visitor know that they should check their email inbox. Tell them what the subject line of the email says so they know what to look for. Convey that they must click on the link inside to verify and receive the download link to your product.

In the autoresponder they receive after verifying, give them the download link. Since they are subscribed to your list and have confirmed that the address they provided is valid you can effectively follow up providing more information about using the free or trial software, training tips, and further benefits or features earned by becoming a customer.

Using these techniques you are sure to increase your sales when converting free downloads to paid customers.

Copyright © 2005 Sean Cohen

About Sean: Sean Cohen is Director of Client Relations & Development of Newtown, PA based AWeber Communications, Inc. an opt-in email service provider with 7 years managing opt-in follow up and newsletters for small businesses. Learn more: http://www.AWeber.com