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In an ideal marketing campaign, everything you do brings your prospects one step closer to buying. This can include using a free report to pre-sell your prospect. Here are a few suggestions on how to craft your report in a way that will pre-sell your prospects so that, by the time they reach the sales letter, they are already sold.

1. Use a nice, juicy title. People are attracted to titles; so try to come up with something different and interesting—something that doesn’t scream “free report.” Make it compelling; you want people to give you their contact details in exchange for this report, so give a title that compels them to do so.
2. Make sure it’s fit-for-purpose. Every single contact you have with a prospect—be it through your website, by telephone, in person, by email or letter—must have a definite purpose regarding progressing your sale. And so should your free report. So think about it in that context; how does it progress your sale?
3. It needs to have an objective. A free report is not a bunch of tips and tricks thrown into a document; it is a marketing piece that should create a state of receptivity in your prospect by helping them along in the sales process. At the end, your prospect should be more ready to buy than they were before.
4. Focus on marketing, not sales. Peter Drucker told us that the purpose for marketing is to make sales obsolete. So, our mindset should be towards building a strong marketing campaign, not creating another sales pitch. Your free report should reflect that.
5. Pay attention to positioning. How and where does your free report fit into your marketing campaign? At what point should it be offered? The positioning of your report is imperative to overall success. Placed correctly, it serves as a perfectly-timed prelude to your product or service.
6. Give it value. A free report should have value beyond selling. So, include information worth reading. Make it relevant to your prospects; give them something valuable they can take away from the report itself.
7. Keep it balanced. A well-crafted free report finds the balance between providing useful stand-alone content and the right amount of enticement to make your readers want to know more. It speaks directly and indirectly about past results, without sounding too obvious. It hints at the “more to come” without becoming an overly-aggressive sales pitch.
8. Provide answers. Every reader will ask two things; “Who are you and why should I listen to you?” and “Why are you offering this and what will I get from it?” So make sure you answer those questions up front.

The free report can be an essential part of a strong marketing campaign; taking your prospects one step further in the progression to sales. By crafting your free report with a mind to marketing, rather than sales, by the time you’re readers are finished, the selling has already been done.

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