One of the best ways to build your mailing list is by offering a product or service for free in exchange for your visitors email address.

You do not need to offer such a full blown download product such as Apple’s fully featured software like iTunes.

You can attract subscribers just as well with some quality free gifts such as a lite version of a software product, a five part eCourse delivered by autoresponder, and so on. The important thing is that your download offers plenty of value for the prospect to be willing to give away their own email address to receive it.

However, slapping together a simple download and putting a link on your website won’t entice too many qualified prospects. You will have to do a little bit of work in order for your lead-generating set up to work well for you.

First of all, you must place your download form prominently on your website. Preferably, a dedicated opt-in page and link to that page from every other page of your website. That way, there is no way your visitors will be unable to find the download page, and when they do, you’ll get some of them opting in to your list.

You will also need to put a little time and work into promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the values of the download, and why your visitors should download it. You might think why would anybody would want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors will be too lazy to make the effort to download it because the majority of their downloads just sit on their hard drive gathering virtual dust.

It is thus crucial that you show your visitors the reason why they should download your freebie.