Offer a Selection of Incentives

Master Recommend Pro V4 is an excellent tool for offering free downloads (using temporary download links) as a marketing incentive for recommending your web site. The control panel makes it easy to set things up.

With the following simple procedure, a selection of incentives can be offered. Your visitor can select one of several offers you make.

Simple Instructions

The Control Panel Steps

In the Control Panel:

1. Click on the "File Download Information" button. The form on that control panel page has fields for creating the temporary download locations on your server.

2. Click the "Form Generation" button and fill in those fields. When specifying a URL for the "thank you" page, just type http://example.com/thanks.html

   Click the "Generate" button. Paste the generated recommend form into a web page. But don't upload it just yet, we'll edit it first.

   (There is no need to copy the generated "thank you" page HTML code — we will make our own.)

The Manual Editing Steps

Now, to create several options for downloadable incentive gifts, we will make a few adjustments to the usual procedure.

1. Create a "thank you" page for each incentive gift you wish to offer.

   Put the [[DOWNLOAD filename]] placeholder on the "thank you" page. ("filename" should be the name of the file to be downloaded.)

   (Other place holders can also be used with Master Recommend Pro V4 to personalize the "thank you" page.)

   Your thank you page might look like this:

   <h3>Thank you, [[VISITORNAME]], for recommending [[SITENAME]]. We appreciate it.</h3> <p>We hope you enjoy your free gift:</p> <a href="[[DOWNLOAD widget1.zip]]">Click to download your free widget.</a> (Zip file)
   

2. On the recommend form you generated in the control panel, make these adjustments:

   1. Remove the line that looks similar to this:

      <input type="hidden" name="next"
      value="http://example.com/thanks.html">
      
      

   2. Add radio buttons for selecting an incentive gift, with the radio button field name being "next", like this:

   <input type="radio" name="next" checked value="http://example.com/widget1.html"> <b>Widget #1</b> <br> <input type="radio" name="next" value="http://example.com/widget2.html"> <b>Widget #2</b> <br> <input type="radio" name="next" value="http://example.com/widget3.html"> <b>Widget #3</b>
   

   The above code creates content that looks like this:

   Widget #1
   Widget #2
   Widget #3

The Final Step

Upload the web pages to your server and test the form.

Verify that when a gift selection is made, the visitor is directed to the correct "thank you" page where the incentive can be downloaded.

You are now good to go with your new marketing campaign!

William Bontrager, programmer
The Master Series CGI Software