Education

How To Use Reports To Get More Clients For Your Business

Reports are a great way of getting people to contact you or add themselves to your email newsletter.
The report has to have enough information to be worthwhile without giving so much information away that the potential customer doesn’t need to use your services.
That said, most of the time people know that they need training to carry out most things in life. That part depends on the business you’re in – people are more likely to know that they need a specialist electrician, accountant or even hair dresser than (say) something to do with computers where they’ll often assume they can do the work themselves. Even though they end up getting in a mess or spending more time than is sensible trying to save money. If that’s the case in your industry, your free report should subtly show them why they need you!
But whatever your business, offering a free report is often a quick and easy way to prove to potential clients that you know what you’re talking about. It can be written fast and look professional – just make sure to spell and grammar check it before you create the final edition.
Write your report up in something like Word. Start with a title page and then talk about the subject for maybe 4 or 5 more pages. Then add in a footer with a link to your website and make a final page that is a call to action – reminding them to call you for more information.
A lot of people find that including some kind of special offer or voucher is a good way to increase response to their reports. This could take the form of a free initial consultation (maybe formalising what you already do in that respect) or possibly a discount if they spend more than a certain amount.
If the report is only a few pages long, you may decide to put the offer just at the back. But there’s actually a case for including it immediately after the title page. Not everyone finishes reading a PDF report and, unlike its printed equivalent, there’s precious little to remind you to go back to it once you’ve closed the window.
Experiment with that – it may seem brash to include an offer early on in the report but if that gets a better response, it’s worth doing.
Then use your preferred autoresponder to create a signup form so that people can exchange their name and email address for the report. That way you have a growing list of potential clients to contact over the following days, weeks and even longer.
Since you already know your subject, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to create your free report. Then it’s usually just a matter of exporting the resultant document in PDF format – this is normally a menu option on most modern word processors.
So challenge yourself to create a free short report and start giving it away in the next few days!

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