I’m providing the link to the sample report cover here so it’s easy to find.
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Becky DeGrossa
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Meagan Vitek
How to Change a Free Report on WordPress
Juan put together a great how to process on changing a free report on a website. One of our clients made some changes to her free report and wanted to update it. Here is how to do it: How to Edit Free Reports in Site
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Meagan Vitek
How long does the Free Report Process (WITHOUT writing it) take?
From designing the cover, formatting the report itself, to integrating with the site (and testing it) – this process usually takes about 3-3.5 hours.
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Jessie Lucier
How To Write A Free Report
Counseling Wise – How To Write A Free Report
Important Tips:
- The report should be no less than three pages. Five plus is best.
- The content of the report needs to be something that the client really wants. They need to be motivated to download it. For this reason, the title is MUST be enticing. People tend to download reports that lean toward the negative. For example, “??????” Meagan and Becky have title tools and can help you create a title after writing the report if needed.
- Use titles and subtitles to break up text.
Prep Work:
- Create a “Working Title” that identifies what the report will be about.
- If your client hasn’t already done so, ask that he or she complete the “Dig Deep Exercise” (posted). This exercise will help the therapist to tease out the problems/pain of their potential clients, which should inform the free report. Based on the insights/discoveries of the exercise, ask them to pinpoint tips, steps or an assessment to be included in a free report that could provide value to their potential clients. These should be specific. For example, people suffering from depression or anxiety often also suffer from insomnia. In these instances, an example of a valuable report could be something like, “Suffering From Insomnia? Five Effective and Easy Ways To Get A Better Night’s Sleep.” Another approach is to offer an assessment to help potential clients determine if a problem exists. For instance, I recently wrote a free report for a client called, “7 Signs That Your Marriage May Be Suffering.”
The Interview:
- The interview questionnaire is posted. These interviews typically take longer than those for marketing messages because you are collecting more in depth information. As a rule of thumb, I suggest allotting two hours for the interview and you may want to break it up into two calls.
- As the writer, make sure that YOU are able to answer the following questions before you begin writing:
- What is the problem/pain of the potential client in regards to their issues and the specific topic of the report?
- How and why is it possible for them to feel better?
- What is the hope in feeling better? Has the information that will presented in the report helped other people with similar problems?
- Do you have 2-4 possible objections or resistances to getting help? Are you able to address these objections?
- Do you have 3-7 specific steps/tips or questions (if you created an assessment) that speak directly to the potential client’s problem?
- Do you have enough information to write a paragraph about each tip/step/question?
- Do you have 1-3 specific examples about how applying these tips/steps or answering these questions and working through issues in therapy have helped others with similar problems?
- How can the therapist help? What is their expertise?
- What are the next steps that will bring the potential client a step closer to the therapist? A free phone consultation is a great idea here.
Writing the Report
- Begin the report with an introduction that identifies and addresses the pain and problem(s) of the potential client. This should be relatable and provide them with valuable information/insights about their problem. It’s important to remember while writing that a primary goal of the report is to help your client establish credibility as an expert. You can also list and address possible objections here. For example, “While you may believe that there is nothing that can improve your sleep, studies show that…”
- Explain what the tips/steps/assessment can do for the reader.
- List and address each tip/step/assessment question. If it’s a tip or a step, give them something specific to do and explain how it can help. If it’s an assessment question, talk about what answering yes or no might mean for them.
- Write a graph that explains the assessment or ties all the tips/steps together. If you’re writing an assessment, explain what answering most of the questions as yes or no means for the reader. If you’re using a steps/tips format, explain the results that they can expect to achieve by following the steps/tips, as well as how long the reader should try them, when, how… any details that address the steps/tips as a whole.
- Offer proof. How has following these steps/tips helped other clients? AND/OR how has working with the therapist helped other clients with similar issues feel and function better?
- Address what the therapist can offer the client in therapy.
- Provide another Call To Action. Offering a free phone consultation is a good way to end a report.
- Add a brief bio of the therapist or group practice at the end.
- Review your working title and create a final title that is engaging and specifically addresses something the potential client wants.
Formatting, Editing and Final Steps:
- It’s important that the reports look professional. See http://www.counselingwise.com/coaching-call_grow-your-practice-by-providing-valuable-tips-in-a-free-report/ for formatting and book cover icon information. I also suggest you look at the free reports that are posted for formatting ideas.
- Send your report to Jessie for editing. Make Jessie’s edits. Email draft to your client. Make client’s edits.
- Send final and formatted report and book cover icon to your project coordinator.
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Meagan Vitek
How long does a typical Free Report process take?
A high quality report can take anywhere between 6-7 hours. Our hourly rate on writing is $40 an hour, so its will cost anywhere between $240 and $280.
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Meagan Vitek
Training on Creating free Reports – Formatting and creating downloadable PDFs
When you get a free report cover made for a client, you’ll need two versions One is a 3-D version that will be displayed on the website to act as a lure for the optin. The other is a flat version that will be part of the download the user gets.
- You need to have the graphic designer provide you the flat cover in a pdf format.
- You will also need to format the body of the report. You can follow the instructions, here, for formatting. ****Be sure to include the body of the report AND a bio of the author (client).
- http://www.counselingwise.com/free-report/
- Once you have the flat cover and the report body, both in pdf format, you need to combine the two pdfs into one for download.
- Here is how to do that: http://screencast.com/t/w4OmZ7Ry8f
- To get the Combine PDFs app for a mac, go here: http://combine-pdfs.en.softonic.com/mac
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Becky
Free Reports: How to create, what to include, length, formatting
Free report recording here (skip to 3 minutes in): http://www.counselingwise.com/free-report
Advice:
- Make it no less than 3 pages long — 5+would be better — it is called a “report”, after all!
- It should be about something her clients really want and will be motivated to download… go back to the Dig Deep Exercise for that population — what do they secretly want? or how to alleviate their worst pain… give them steps or tips they can implement and feel a shift. Or use an assessment approach, such as — is this just a hard patch or do you really need couples counseling before it’s too late?
- The title needs to be really, really strong. If you need help with a title, I can help and Meagan can help, too. We both have a tool we can use to help us create strong titles.
- There should be a bio for the therapist at the end
Here is a sample free report: Jonathan Zalesne Report Final 11-15-2013
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Jessie Lucier
Per the bio, what should be used for group practices?
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Becky
Great question!
I’d ask the practice owner. For Orenstein, for example, if you’re doing a report on Couples and Susan is the couples person there, I’d have the bio be about Susan.
Jan at BPS may want his bios to be about BPS, though, since he’ll want to use the report even if the therapist who helped with it leaves.
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Meagan Vitek
A Free Report should also include the following:
Titles and Subtitles ( try to keep the content under each subtitle fairly short, and I leave space before each subtitle)
Space on the page, and “chunks’ of content make a report much easier to read.
Page border (click Layout, then Borders, then Page Border)
A Cover (The cover of your report should: Be 3 Dimensional, have a large font for the title so it’s readable on a computer display, have colors that stand out on your site, yet don’t clash with your site.) – clients can create their own cover at http://fiverr.com for $5 or we can design one for them. -
Becky DeGrossa
Titles: Said above that they need to be really strong. One addition — a negative slant typically works better than a Polyanna one.
Example:
Title: 3 Signs That Your Relationship is Heading in the Wrong Directionis much more likely to get opt-ins than…
Title: 7 Keys to a Healthy Relationship
Good titles point out a problem or incite fear (just look at newspaper headlines, covers of magazines, etc.)
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