Capturing Emails

[ppennington32]

I'm going to submit my apps through shareware/freeware sites. What is the best way to capture the prospect's emails?

Do these sites allow you to redirect the person to email capture page before downloading the software? I've downloaded software before from sites like download.com and I dont remember ever having to give an email to download the software. However, I would love to be able to capture emails before a person donwloads the app.

If I can't capture the email before downloading what is the best way to capture their email? I've read Thomas talking about creating trial versions then capturing the email to continue with the software. I'm sure this a great way to capture email I wonder if there is a better way. Perhaps in addition to the trial method you ask the prospect to register the product. I could do thin wiithin the software.

Any ideas?

[jonathon]

Some allow you to capture emails and some don't... In either case, here is what I do occasionally.

1. Create a squeeze page (capture page) on your site.
2. Create a shortcut on your desktop to that capture page
3. Name the shortcut "Download {Software App Name}
4. Zip that file in a .zip file
5. Upload that file to the directory site

Then, you could either supply them with a full version of your product or a trial, but either way, you get the lead before they download the software...

[Alton]

All you have to do is offer a free product or a trial product. Explain on the offer page that one has to sign up for your list in order to receive the free product or trial product. Set up an autoresponder for this. Put the link to the download in the first email sent out through the autoresponder after the confirmation email.

If this is a trial that you are offering, just put a Paypal button in your opeining window on your software product with a short offer to get the software. If you set the Paypal button up with DLGuard, they will get the download instantly. You can have DLGuard setup to give the new customer the activation code in the download instructions. I also send them a link to the product download because some customers may buy the product straight off my website without using the trial.

There are other ways to do all this besides using DLGuard.

You can offer some other products from the DLGuard download page. Occasional sales are made from that. I always try to include information about unzipping files and opening files for those who are not familiar with these things. This helps the customers and avoids many problems.

Bonuses are great. But, including unmentioned bonuses goes a long way toward creating a good feeling in your customer when he gets his downloads.

[ppennington32]

Thanks Guys, exactly the information I was looking for. Thread should be sticky.