This is a guest post by Welly Mulia from GetProfitsFast.com
I’m pretty sure you are familiar with how online list building works. Visitors reach your squeeze page or blog, and they are offered a freebie in exchange for their email address.
In today’s article I want to share with you a powerful tip, that when applied, can help boost your opt-in rate and hence your overall profits.
The tip is:
When you offer your freebie to visitors, make sure that your freebie is in the form of a “COMPLETED” report/ebook, audio, or video that is delivered immediately at ONE GO rather than a series of e-courses spread over several days or weeks.
Why?
Instant Results
First of all, we humans want instant results and therefore expect instant access to information. We don’t want to wait 7 days to discover how to lose that fat belly. We want to know how to do that NOW. Not tomorrow or 7 days later, but NOW.
People are getting busier by the day. It seems that 24 hours a day is not enough anymore. We don’t have time to sit around for days before knowing how to lose our belly.
INSTANT is the new word today.
Interests Change
Secondly, if you deliver your freebie over the course of several days, people might not be interested in your freebie anymore. Not because your freebie suddenly loses its value, but because their interests change.
Today they are very interested in how to play golf. Tomorrow might be a different story and their interests might have shifted to tennis.
When visitors arrive on your website (squeeze page or blog), they are interested in your subject NOW. Make sure you capitalize on this and make your freebie offer a “COMPLETED” freebie that they can instantly download and consume at ONE GO.
Perceived Value
Thirdly, a completed freebie has a higher perceived value than a 7-day e-course since it’s already completed. A 7-day e-course is not yet complete until seven days later.
Not Read
Fourthly, your 7-day e-course might not be completely read by its recipients.
Okay, so you send an email per day for the next 7 days, with each email containing your e-course. Some of them might go to the spam/bulk folder, or the recipients might be too busy engaging in other more important tasks that they hadn’t had the chance to open your one or more of your emails (which contain the e-course).
So far we’ve talked about freebie offers (that relate to squeeze pages). To make this article more complete, here are a few online list building tips you can use to boost your opt-in rate when creating your squeeze page or opt-in form that resides on your blog:
1. Use The Word “INSTANT” and “FREE”
“INSTANT” is pretty self-explanatory like what I’ve just explained above. “FREE” because everyone likes free stuff (who wouldn’t?).
You are a stranger to your new visitors. In this day and age nobody trusts strangers, especially online strangers who hide behind computers.
You need to take their risk away from them and a good way to do that is to give away your VALUABLE report/audio/video at no charge.
2. Use A BIG Opt-In Form & A BIG Subscribe Button
Size does matter. You want to make your opt-in form and subscribe button BIG so that they are noticeable and stand out from the rest of your page.
3. Above The Fold
As cliché as it sound, you want to position your opt-in form above the fold so that visitors landing on your site can immediately see it without having to scroll down their mouse.
4. Consider Asking For Email Only
You should get a slight boost in opt-in rate when you do NOT require visitors to enter their name in the opt-in form. The one and only thing they need to do is enter their email and they can immediately get the freebie.
The fewer steps you ask your visitors to take, the higher your opt-in conversion rate.
What do you say about online list building by offering an immediate download rather than a 7-day e-course? I’d like to hear your thoughts…
Hi welly mulia, how the things goes on? It’s has been a long time since your last post in your local blog. Well, i’m “full time marketer” and “adsense black ID” buyer :D.
Yes you’re right, i feel it when i’m subscribe to 7-days or 1-month e-course, it’s so boring to wait.
Maybe i read the 1st or 2nd e-course, but i get lazy when i receive the 3rd, 4th,……
And also, sometime i forgotten about what i read on previous e-course. It’s so bad because the series of e-course is related each other. That’s mean, to get focus again, i need to open previous e-course again to read.
Hey Akira,
Yeah hadn’t had the time to post to my local Indonesian blog. Been focusing in the international market.
Hope you find the article above useful.
Welly
.-= Welly Mulia´s last blog ..Squeeze Page Design – Your Problems Solved In 2 Minutes! =-.
I can’t give too much here, as it’s something I plan to do soon, but I think it depends on what the list is about. Daily “action tips” for something might work really well, depending on the niche.
Follow these 1 2 3 steps, do this, and you will have this happen.
OK I know it’s vague, but you get the gist, yes?
Actually, before deciding between instant or ongoing, what the list is for has to be decided – blog type, or product type, it could make a big difference.
.-= Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..UPDATED: Aweber Affiliate Link Contest! – This Is It!! =-.
Great post Welly, and some solid advice.
The huge button thing is something that lots of people don’t like for stylistic reasons, but that strikes me as slightly stupid. I mean, why not shout about your great offers? If you’re making a big deal about it, your clients will see it as a big deal.
Thanks Andy.
In my opinion, if people don’t like the huge button, they’ll not subscribe to my list anyway and hence are not going to be my target audience. I focus on those interested in what I have to offer and jump out to them with the huge button and opt-in form.
Nice tips.The obvious large opt-in form or call to action is critical to increase conversion rates for sales. I learned this the hard way.
.-= Colleen@Kennewick Real Estate´s last blog ..Tri Cities Washington Cold Winter Nights Makes For Abundant Springtime Babies =-.
I think 7 day courses can be used within certain niches but since we’re such an instant society, we want instant access.
Since many free ebooks/videos/audio are fairly short and bite-sized, it can be devoured in less than an hour or so when you get down to it. Stretching it out over a week makes me disinterested as it comes so slow.
However, a 7 day course can be really great to create a step by step guide where people get to work on one topic at a time. When you get a full book, you’re overwhelmed with information and actually don’t act just. By breaking it up into 7 days, you can give your readers enough time to implement the steps.
.-= Murlu´s last blog ..How To Use Twitter To Find New Blog Post Ideas =-.
Very interesting point, in on-line business everything depend on something may it with value or not. 7 day course seem too long and instant sounds too quick to be true. Still, it all goes down to the marketeer.
.-= rex dGrey´s last blog ..The inner conflict and the way to go around it =-.
These are all really important points while doing opt-in email campaign. But then it is also important that whatever ebook or report you provide, isn’t overstuffed. People generally can’t focus on everything at once. Logically breaking up the content into multiple parts may be a better idea. Generally, I myself loose focus after reading first 4-5 pages.
Apart from that, these are all great points and quite useful for every blogger. Keep it up!
.-= Harsh Athalye´s last blog ..10 Free Stock Photography Sites To Spice Up Your Blog =-.
That’s true. I tend to lose focus too after the first few pages of the report or ebook. A good idea, like you just said, is not to fill the freebie with fluff and instead get to the meat. Or you could also do the step 1 do this step 2 do that within your freebie.
I think this advice is spot on – people are impatient. Anyone who is buying information is doing so for a reason – they a) can’t be bothered to research it to get the information for free elsewhere and b) they are eager to get started. No one wants to then be offered something that will take days or weeks to complete.
Most of us just do not have the patience to learn e-course but these short courses can prove very beneficial for the long run. I remember subscribing to a 1 week course but after 2 days I lost interest and instead got interested in the dozens of ebooks and videos which I was able to access very easily. However, I think one plus point of 7 days course is that, it is more detailed on the subject matter.
I cannot say the one is better than the other. I think there are good reasons for implementing for both the instant download and offering a series of e-courses. There is no 1 technique that can be effective. It depends on what you are offering, actually.