Profitable list building requires you to have a great giveaway so that you can build a highly responsive list community.

And you want a highly responsive listing community, right?

The challenge is that there are so many mistakes, some simple and some huge, that can be made when creating your gift.

Let’s take a closer look at three of the biggest mistakes and what to do instead.

3 Big Gift Mistakes

Mistake number one: the newsletter – This is so 90’s! There was a time in the early days of online marketing when you could offer a free newsletter and people would overlook it.

Those days are behind us.

Now you would have to create a sales letter just for someone to sign up for your free newsletter.

What to do instead: The ONLY way to gift a newsletter now is to convert it into an additional bonus with the main release.

Mistake number two: the low value given away – Many beginning marketers believe that since it is a gift, it may have little or no value. This sends a really bad message to your potential customer.

What to do instead: Give only something that is valuable enough to sell as a product. When you give away something of value, this is the conversion in your prospect’s mind:

“Wow, if I get something that valuable for free, I can’t wait to see what I get when I spend money with this person.”

Mistake number three: failing to make the next steps crystal clear – The wrong assumption is that it is obvious to you what the potential customer must do to get your gift.

Enter your name and email address, right?

What to do instead: Take your potential customer by the hand and guide him through the steps he needs to take to get his gift and what will happen when he does.