Have you ever gone to a website and plunked down hundreds or thousands of dollars on a service when you knew absolutely nothing about the person offering that service? I’m guessing that you haven’t. If you’re like most people you want to get to know someone before investing in them.
One of the biggest mistakes many coaches and other solo professionals make is that they spend all this time, energy and money creating a website and they don’t capture their visitors information. In other words, they don’t have a good way to get their visitors to join their mailing list.
We’re all inundated with too many emails so if you want to get someone to give up their email address, you need to offer them something valuable for free.
I did a survey recently and nearly 70% of respondents either didn’t have any giveaway or their only giveaway was a newsletter. People want instant help to solve their top burning challenges. Just having a newsletter isn’t going to cut it.
So we know that we need a valuable giveaway as an incentive for our target market to opt in to our list. But what do you offer?
To be really valuable your giveaway has to address a top burning desire for your target market. If you aren’t clear on what that is, you need to take a step back and clarify your niche. In doing so, make sure you understand WHO you target, WHAT solution you provide, and WHY people should work with you.
Some coaches offer a free coaching call or strategy session as their giveaway. Now I know that this might cause a little ruffling of feathers, but in my opinion there are four big problems with using a free call as your giveaway.
1. It doesn’t leverage your time. In fact, it’s very time consuming.
2. It devalues your offer of a free session. After all, if you give your time away to just anyone, how valuable is your time?
3. It makes people suspicious that you’re just trying to sell them something, so they may shy away.
4. It doesn’t have any way to filter out the “tire kickers”.
You only want to offer a free session for those who are already aligned with you and recognize the value that you provide. So the best approach is to only offer a free strategy session to people who are already on your list. Which brings us back to the question of how to get someone on your list.
You need to create a valuable giveaway to inspire people to join your list. It can be a free video, e-course, report, interview, etc.. The format is important, but even more important is the topic. The topic of your giveaway has to be relevant to your niche. In fact, it should be a top burning desire or challenge for your target market. What will inspire your target market to opt-in to your list?
If you have questions or feedback, please leave your comments below. Thanks!
What an excellent article! I am surprised at the high % of people that do not have a giveaway. And the new look of your site is excellent.
Thank you Ellen! It’s great to see you here. I was very surprised as well but I have done two surveys on this and the results are the same. We do all this work to build our sites, drive traffic to our sites and then all is lost if we don’t capture their email address so we can continue to build a relationship. Think about it this way. You’re doing people a disservice by not having a giveaway because without getting on your list they can’t continue to learn from you. And you’re certainly doing yourself a disservice by not building valuable relationships and a community.
OK! Great useful info.
I’ve got my free offer, it’s a recipe booklet. I’ve got the opt in box to capture an email, I’ve even set up a series of 5 follow up emails via aweber, the autoresponder.
Nobody is opting in. Is my giveaway useless? Is there simply no traffic?
Maybe I am not solving the burning problem I thought I was.
What is your opinion?
Hi Tom,
You ask great questions. You will have to do the research to determine where the problem lies. How much traffic are you getting to your site? Is it targeted traffic? What is your opt in rate? Are you meeting a real desire for your target market? Do you really know who your target market is and do you know what their biggest challenges and desires are?
You will have to answer these questions.
I took a peek at your site and it’s beautiful. A couple of quick things to fix are:
1. Put the title of your ebook right in the opt-in box. It’s not really clear what people are getting
2. Play with the headline in your opt in box and see what works best
3. Make sure you have an opt in form on every (or virtually ever) page of your site.
I hope this helps!
Hi Cindy & company!
Your point is spot on. You must offer something that has
relatively high perceived value. When someone doesn’t know
you, you haven’t had the chance for them to know how valuable
your help could be. That is why free sessions as a giveaway, seldom
bring subscribers.
Wonderful info, Cindy!
Mike
Thank you Mike! Trust me. I learned the hard way. The first year and a half I was online, I had a free session offered to anyone and no one took me up on it. Of course, I didn’t have a clear niche at the time so wasn’t getting targeted traffic. It’s amazing how all these pieces affect each other. When you understand the big picture AND the step-by-step system to attracting your ideal clients, it’s SO much easier!
Hi Cindy,
Great article.
I’m guilty of giving away my time as you mentioned.
Working on a new give away and will see if that helps.
Fantastic Yolanda. Offering free strategy sessions is essential, but you have to know how and when to offer them. I’ve perfected my system for this that I share with my clients. Am thinking about creating a home study program around it. Any thoughts about whether or not this would be useful for people? thanks!
Enjoyed the information. Thank you. For my site I use a free mini reading. When I put it out there, I get a response. If I add anything else, no response…….
That’s great that you’ve tested what works and what doesn’t Vikki. The question now is what do you do during or after that reading to convert to a paid client?