So last week we looked at some of the cool tools you can use to sell your awesome eProducts for cash-money-dollars. And today I wanted to share some of the plugins, sites and services I either use (or have a bit of a geek-crush on) to help you give away your digital products.
And why would you want to give away something for free I hear you ask?
Well there are a bunch of reasons. Firstly, it’s just a nice thing to do. Kind of like giving your readers a present (and who doesn’t like presents!).
Secondly it means that your readers will have some sort of physical reminder of you and your blog around their home or work (which is also a great reminder to them to come back and check out what you’ve been doing lately!).
And thirdly, it can be used as a great way to grow your email list (and as you all know I am a big fan of that as your email list, unlike social media, is the only “list” of your fans and followers that you actually own and have complete control over!)
BEST FOR: IN POST GIVEAWAYS
So you’ve created a cool little printable, planner or guide. You’ve written up a fab post about it, and now you want to insert a button into that post so people can easily click and download your goods? Ok, these are the tools for you!
What you say? Yep, that’s right I said Canva, the online graphic design tool. Not because it enables you to actually facilitate your downloads, but it does let you easily create pretty button graphics you can embed in your post.
And then if you want to make the whole process dead easy just Zip up the files you want to giveaway, and upload them to either your WordPress Media Manager (Just click the Media tab > Add new) or to a free file sharing site (Google them, there are 100s).
Then you need the “File URL”, and then you simply highlight the button image within your post, click the ” Add link” button in your post editor screen, then paste in the file URL and tick “Open in new window” and you’re done.
Just like creating a normal link to another webpage or post, this time you are creating a link to your file.
Now when someone clicks your button, that file will download, simple, yes?
Double Opt In For Download (WP Plugin)
Now if you want to use these fab freebies to help build you list, which the above option doesn’t do, then you need something one of the following. And Double Opt In For Download is actually a FREE WordPress.org plugin that you can use to do just that.
I haven’t personally used it, but I know people who do and love it.
It allows you to easily create as many “optin to download” buttons as you like (so if you want to giveaway different products at different times), and all the reader needs to do is option to your email list and the goodies will be sent to them.
GLEAM.IO (www.gleam.io)
This is a cool online service that you might have seen a lot of big bloggers starting to use to run their promotions, comps and giveaways. But it works for simple free downloads too.
And it’s just the same, you can have as many of them as you like, and people just have to opt in to your email list to receive the download. The extra bonus of this one is that A) it’s not actually a plugin (so you don’t have to worry about any conflicts or crashes), and B) it also lets you ask people to do other things to earn their freebie, like follow you on Facebook, or Instagram if that is more of your focus.
The only downside is it’s not free, or cheap (not if you want these particular features anyway), in fact it’s $39 which could be a bit too pricey if you’re just going to use it occasionally.
This girl loves a good blog freebie!
Now this is what I use, and it’s a pretty serious addition to your tool kit (it’s also about $40 per month), but it lets me do lots and lots of super cool things which have helped me grow my SBB email list from 0 to over 10K in under a year. So yeah, I really like it.
These include pop-up boxes (that only ‘pop’ when a button or link is clicked), opt-in pages (which you’ve probably seen for all my special trainings and other offers), and some other cool things. It also has A/B Split testing, and great analytics.
In reality it’s probably more than most bloggers need (or want), but I wanted to include it as that’s what I use.
TIP: You can also use any of the selling platforms from last week too, and just set up your product as FREE, but this can be trickier to add people onto your list if that’s your aim!
BEST FOR: BLOG-WIDE GIVEAWAYS
POPUP ALLY ( ambitionally.com/popupally-pro )
And what if you want to offer a really fab opt in bribe all year round, and on every page of your blog? Well then you need either a pop-up or an opt-in feature box (and you need to have the File URL link we mentioned earlier included in the Welcome email for your email list), and Popup Ally actually lets you do both.
And the best part is that you can set the pop-up to be less aggressive and only show when someone is either about to leave your blog, or perhaps has hung around for a while already and therefore it seems like they clearly like what they are seeing.
There are both FREE and PREMIUM ($97) options depending on how much customisation options you want (but even the free version is really fab!)
PLUGMATTER OPTIN FEATURE BOX (wordpress.org)
Just want one of those cool “if you love this post then you should get on my email list” boxes to sit below all your blog posts? Then this FREE plugin is for you. It integrates with most major email service providers, and is super easy to set up and install on your blog.
Oh, and did I mention it was free?
Image via dollarphotoclub.com
What other tools or tips do you have for people wanting to offer freebies and free downloads on their blogs?
