Giving something away for free on your website, is a fantastic way of attracting potential new clients.  Even better is if you require them to give you their contact details in order to get the free thing.  Then you can keep in touch, build a relationship with them and convert them into a long-term, paying client!

You can give anything away, from a free consultation to a free appointment, but the one I suggest is a ‘free report/e-book’ that the potential can just download…

Firstly unlike lots of other things you could use as a carrot to attract them, a report or e-book doesn’t cost you anything at all.  Plus if they are able to enter their name & email onto your site, and then immediately download the report/book, you don’t have to do anything - its all automated.

What type of report or e-book you offer depends on what type of services and treatments you offer.  Something like the following would work really well:
-    If you deal with relieving stress ‘7 top tips for reducing stress’
-    If you do beauty treatments ‘Learn how to look 10 years younger’

You get the idea.

So how does it work?

• You write a free report (or just create one by collating information you’ve already got on the benefits of your services!)
• Advertise the fact you are giving this away for free
• Potential clients go to your site & sign up
• They get the report/book online immediately and automatically
• They get added to your database
• You then you keep in touch via your newsletter and build a relationship with them!

If you don’t have a website or don’t know how to create a box for people to enter their name and email into, there is another way of doing this.  You could just have your email address on your marketing and tell them to email you with ‘free report’ in the subject line.  Then you can email them back the report & add them to your database.

Doing it this way isn’t ideal because you’ll end up spending hours email people, but at least it gives you a way to get started, and build your client list!  Then when you’ve got a larger client list and more income, you could just pay someone to automate the process for you

Benefits of a free e-report or e-book;

• Free.  Doesn’t cost you anything except your time to write the report
• Can be completely automated.  You just send out the marketing advertising it and people will flock to your site to sign up.
• Cause its free, you’ll get lots more sign ups
• You’ll get people from all over the country (or even globe) sign up.  You never know when they might be in the area and want an appointment.  Or what friends they might end up forwarding the emails you send them to.  Or whether they might even mail/internet order your products from you cause you’ve taken the time to build that relationship with them and their local practitioner, therapist, stylist hasn’t.
• Plus since everyone who signs up is being added to your database, your email newsletters will slowly work on converting the prospect to a client so you’ll get a future drip feed of new clients from it.

You may have already thought of this but there is one drawback I must mention… Unlike some other promotion ideas, you aren’t physically seeing the person so you don’t have that critical face-to-face time to convert them to a client.

However this is tempered by the fact that it doesn’t cost you anything in time and your email newsletters will slowly work on converting the prospect to a client so you’ll get a future drip feed of new clients from it!

So what are you waiting for?  Give it a shot and see if it helps you build your client list.  And if you’ve got any ideas that work for you, make a comment below to share them with others!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Rebecca Kepple specializes in helping business owners massively increase their client base and profits.  To get instant access to her free insider secrets report ‘The Top 7 Secrets for Massively Increasing Your Client Base’ visit: http://www.wellbeingbusinesssecrets.com/freebiebook.

© Copyright Rebecca Kepple 2009

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