How to make a downloadable printable

I’m going to show you how to make a printable you can offer as a download for your blog, either as an opt-in for your email list or as a free download with a post. Both are great ways to build an email list and get traffic for your blog. Everyone loves a ‘freebie,’ especially if it helps them out in some way. Make them relatable to your target audience, then once you have them signed up to your list, you can send targeted emails that convert into customers.

Making your printable

You can make your printable in any software you feel comfortable with, either Word, Powerpoint, Photoshop, Canva, or Picmonkey. I make my printables in Canva, as it’s what I know. I select the A4 template or one that suits the purpose, and either start with one of their templates or make my own. First, decide what you’re going to offer to your audience. It can be a checklist, a poster, an invitation, a meal plan, a reward chart, a cheat sheet, or a planner for example. Design it with your brand colours in mind and put your website name in there somewhere. When you’re ready to save it, save it as a PDF for print. Print it out to make sure it looks how you want it to and works as a printable.

Now you’re ready to offer it as a download. So how can we add it to our post? It depends on what you want from it. If you just want to add it as a free download, then you need to have a shareable link to your document. Is it an editable download? If it is, you need to make sure that no one will edit the master copy. I have this with my blogging schedule. I made it in Google sheets, then you can have the option to get a shareable link and you can put that as your download. I put a message in the first tab to make sure people made a copy first and then they could edit it if they wanted to.

If you would like a button in your blog post, you can either make an image in button size with your chosen text like ‘Get your free meal plan here’ or similar, then make it link to your shareable link or your media file, or you can put some code into the text part of your post to have a button show. Just search make a button on WordPress (or your platform), it’s easy when you know how. There is also a button plugin. Another way is to save your PDF into dropbox, make it a shareable link, and then people can download it via dropbox.

If you want it as an opt-in, here’s where you need an email provider like Mailchimp, Mailerlite or Convertkit. I use Mailerlite for mine, it allows me to add the file to the welcome email so the reader gets their download when they sign up to my list. I can also add it to an email broadcast so that existing subscribers get the download too.

I hope that’s made it clearer for you, let me know if you have any questions.

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