Any business being done online will have a hard time fighting for existence if not for mailing lists. It is the lifeblood of any online business. There’s an old saying “the money is in the list” and which had been proven true time and again. For each time you have a new product or some new features to launch, imagine how easy it would be if you had a targeted list of prospects. It will save you a lot of time and effort if you have a list of prospects waiting to hear about it.

You can actually build up a targeted list of prospects that are interested in your products by offering a relevant download on your website. For example, let’s take a look at a very good example — Apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and Quicktime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can purchase via — guess where — iTunes!

In reality, it does not require a “heavyweight” download like a a full-feature software like iTunes. You can attract prospects equally well with some quality freebies such as a simple report, free wallpaper, letter templates, preformatted greeting cards, desktop themes and so on. The important thing is that your download offers enough value for the prospect to be willing to give away his/her own email address to get it.

On the other hand, putting together a simple download with a link on your website won’t be enough to attract qualified prospects. You will have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

Firstly, placing your download form prominently on your website will have a big impact. Dedicating a page to it even better! This way, you can put link to that page from every other page of your website. There is no way your visitors cannot find the download page, and every time they do, you’ll get some of them converted into your prospects!

Don’t just stop with putting up that download page, squeeze in some effort in promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the values of the download, and letting your visitors know why they should download it and why they should download it from you. Although freebies are not easy to pass up, quite a number of your visitors don’t actually put an effort to download it. Aside from reasons of sheer laziness, most of their previous downloads could be sitting on their hard drive collecting virtual dust. It is hence important to offer good quality download and to show your visitors why they should not pass up on the freebie that you’re offering.