How to Use Written Reports to Grow Your Business

Giving something away for f-r-e-e is one of the best ways to attract attention. People just can’t resist it. And for this reason, giveaway reports are an essential marketing tool for businesses that want to generate prequalified leads online. In other words, if you’re trying to build a list of people you can market to by e-mail, you need to write a lead generation special report.

For example, last year I started publishing my newsletter and wanted to get lots of subscribers signed up fast. So I wrote a special report that I knew would appeal to my ideal audience. (The report was titled, “The Top 10 Mistakes Aspiring Authors Make—and How to Avoid Them!”—maybe you’ve read it!) Because I gave the report to everyone who signed up, I knew that a person I could help (a qualified lead) would be interested in that information and willing to exchange their e-mail address for it. As a result, my list of subscribers quadrupled in a matter of months. The results were so incredible that I’m already working on my second report!

You can easily do the same thing to grow your business. So what do you write about? And more importantly, what will make this special report irresistible to your ideal clients? (Aside from calling it “special.”) Consider the following five strategies.

1. Know Your Ideal Client and Speak Directly to Their Need
If you want to attract the right people, you need to know exactly who that is. And you have to know exactly what problem they have that you can solve. With these two pieces of information in mind, you can write your report in a way that appeals to precisely the kind of people you want.

2. Build Rapport
In most cases, the special report will be the reader’s first introduction to you. You can use this as an opportunity to give them a little background about you and what you do. Avoid going overboard on the sales pitch here, but do try to position yourself as a solution to their problems.

3. Use Real-life Examples
When people are thinking about buying, they like to feel confident the thing they’re paying for actually works. And they’d rather hear it from a real-life person who’s tried it than directly from you. So include a few testimonials from your past clients that help sell you and what you do.

4. Give Them Strategies They Can Use to Get Results Right Now
If you want new leads to get a taste of what it’s like to work with you and the results you can help them achieve, you need to give them a few strategies they can implement immediately. Ideally, you’ll give them something that yields fast results. Instead of satisfying them, this only whets their appetites for more.

5. Show Them Where They Can Get More
Although you can’t go into all the details of what you do in the special report, you can tell your readers where to get more. At the very end of the report, add your brief sales pitch and a link to your web site or another place where they can find out more information, if they want it. In other words, show them where they can buy.

Writing Your Special Report
Although it may seem crazy to give something away when you really want people to buy, it’s actually a great way to motivate people to sign up for your newsletter and it helps introduce them to the idea of buying from you later—you are, after all, getting their e-mail address and permission to market to them in return for the report. You’ll be amazed at how fast your list of leads can grow!