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My Team Connects

Engaging Customers and Building Community with Copywriting and Content Marketing

13 Components of an Opt In Offer that Builds Your List Fast

July 9, 2013 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

13 components of an irresistible free opt in offer from Jen McGahan

Email marketing begins with a list of people who want to know more.  

More about how they can fix, improve, learn, delight in…something. The services and products you offer don’t mean a thing until you’ve shown you are source that “gets” where they are coming from. Your free opt in offer is the tool that automatically achieves that every time someone new comes to your website.

Start with these 13 elements and create your inviting free opt in offer.

Filed Under: Content Marketing Tagged With: build your list, downladable free opt in offer, email list, email marketing, Find Your ideal Clients, Find your ideal customers, Free opt in offer, freebie, ideal customers, Jen McGahan, MyTeamConnects, online marketing, opt in offer, web content

Free Opt In Local Event Hits A Home Run

September 25, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

You know they’re out there. You just can’t put a finger on them. I’m talking about your customers. One of the best ways for businesses to get in front of the very people who will become their customers is with a free opt in offer.

An opt in offer can be a free report, an infographic, or a slideshow. You could also host a live event for people who are all ears for your service or product. 

A great free opt in offer for a local business is an event that gets people in your door and quickly shows how you can serve them.

With a free event you get to actually prove that you can do what you claim. Without relying on expensive advertising, without waiting for your clients to send new business your way, and without even sending multiple emails to your prospects; you show how you walk your talk.

If you’re really good, you can host an event to strut your stuff.

Last Saturday my son and I attended a free hitting clinic for young baseball players and I was blown away by the skills and information we walked away with…

I heard about it through the grapevine at the last game. Then I received an email that slots were filling fast for Saturday’s clinic. Since we didin’t have a game scheduled until the afternoon I figured, “Why not?” May as well get some hitting in since he’d missed a couple of practices recently due to rain. I was expecting a loosely organized hitting session, where all the boys got to hit and some young men gave them tips on their swing. I was wrong.

The whole thing was tightly organized and ran like clockwork. Parents were included in the training too. The manager showed before and after videos, gave a breakdown of a pro’s swing and an overview of the way most coaches teach hitting. Then the whole team gave a sampling of the hitting training at Trent Reynolds Baseball Development.

They didn’t even need to made the claim that they were different; they simply showed it. Each kid got a chance to swing on video and then watch his swing while one of the team played it back and discussed it with the player and his parent. Each kid spent some time with a differnt player working on footwork, arm positions, and even their mental game. Best of all, the kids had fun.

At the end, there was no hard sell, but each parent had seen their kid swing and connect like crazy with the ball. Pretty impressive hits at the end of the 1.5-hour training!

Many stayed around to ask questions about the program and how to get signed up. Get this: there’s a waiting list. After a great event, they introduced the age-old sales tactic: scarcity!

So here’s what you can do…

  • Let people know what you’re planning. Especially if you’re a local business, start getting the word out among your current customers. Ask them to tell their friends.
  • Find a local champion (someone in your network) who has a list of people you’d like to meet. (In this case, although I first heard about the clinic from another mom on the team, I received the email from the local ball club.)
  • Send an email with a link to a landing page about your event, post it on your Facebook page, tweet it to your followers. Make it clear what your are offering and what people will take away from the event. Get a decent copywriter for the job.
  • Make signing up very easy. Use a contact management system that you’ve tested.
  • Retain the emails of all your sign-ups for later follow-up.
  • Keep groups small if your presentation involves hands-on work or practice. Too many participants can be tricky to manage and could backfire.
  • Stay on schedule. If you promise one hour, finish on time or 5-minutes early.
  • Focus your attention on the event. Don’t take outside phone calls, or attend to other business while you are trying to make a connection with the people who attend your event.
  • Invite further engagement. Explain what the next step is to your interested attendees. (I left with a simple flyer describing the full hitting program for young players, along with a business card of the manager.)
  • Schedule back-to-back sessions. It’s psychologically powerful to see another group walking in, especially after being told there is a waiting list for new members.
  • Follow up with another email to the people who expressed interest and a thank you email to all people who came to your event.

Looking for tips on a strategic free opt in offer for your business? Need enticing copy that gets ideal clients coming your way? How about some ideas for the next steps after the opt-in — those first crucial emails? You’ve got it. Get the free Four-Part Series Outstanding Connections. Simply let me know below where to deliver it. (Your email address is secure with MyTeamConnects!) 

Filed Under: Email Tagged With: copywriting, event marketing, free event, free opt in, hosting an event, opt in offer, planning a free opt in, Trent Reynolds Baseball Development

WD-40 and the Free Opt In Offer

April 30, 2012 by jennifer mcgahan Leave a Comment

Love to study brand engagement like I do? You have to go visit the WD-40 website! 

WD-40.com doesn't have an opt in offer.

But what it does have is a social site that sucks you in.

Did you know that WD-40 has a fan club? Did you know that it was sold out of car trunks before it was ever sold from store shelves? You can find out about this and more — including over 2000 uses for the stuff — on the WD-40 website. And did you know that WD-40 stands for "Water Displacement – 40th attempt" (The inventors failed at the first 39; Late bloomers love statistics like that, eh?)

opt-in offer serves multi-use prospects
a shelf in my garage; no arranging needed!

By the way, I just told my husband about the WD-40 website and he chimed in with the unsubstantiated myth that only two people actually know the secret recipe for WD-40. (I thought that was Coke and my grandma's Christmas Pork Tenderloin Marinade!) He waxed poetic about how any "real garage" or "self-respecting man" (I think I heard him say that) owns/contains at least two cans of WD-40. He's not even a  true "fan" and he has an inalienable connection to the famous solvent.

What does this have to do with free opt in offers?

WD-40 touts itself as a "multi-use product." If WD-40 has 2000 uses for one product, your website needs one or more sign up forms with different offers assigned to each one. Heck, why not?

If you serve different specific niches, create as many free opt in offers as you need to speak authentically to each one? (Actually, no. Come to think of it, if you have 2000 different opt-in offers you probably need to focus a bit!)

I've taken several stabs at a new recipe myself. To be precise: nine different versions of  a new opt in offer for my website.

See, over the last few weeks I've been writing a new opt in freebie for new subscribers. I just finished last night. At first it was a hot mess — 6 pages of TMI — until I saw the light and sliced it into quarters. 

This chop job served two purposes:

  1. Made the information easy to digest 
  2. Gave me instant content for an autorsponder series of 4 emails to new subscribers… in easy-to-munch, fun-sized chunks.

In a recent blog post I showed how you risk alienating a prospective customer by telling them stuff they couldn't care less about. It's tempting to use your opt in offer as a one-stop shop to tell your prospect everything you know about (fill in the blank.)

Take heart; it's not your fault! Sometimes small biz folks are so passionate about what they know and how they can fix things, they forget the simple problems. (Just think, in the case of WD-40, there are over 2000 problems to fix!)

A similar disconnect occurs when you offer too many solutions to one problem. A free opt in offer should entice the reader with ONE solution to ONE problem. You reveal your value by showing that you know what you're talking about; NOT by teaching everything you know about it!

That's where my WD-40 "a-ha" moment occurred. 2000 uses for WD-40 (and counting)! Thousands of people who identify so powerfully with the product that they join a fan club, post comments and offer advice about squeakless hinges, grass-free lawnmower blades and rusty screws.

You may not have a secret formula as amazing as WD-40 but certainly YOU can come up with one or two interesting tidbits to offer your prospective customers! 

Here are some guidlines straight from MyTeamConnects' free report "Outstanding Connections:"

Creating an Awesome Opt In Offer

•        Must be good, well written, enthusiastic, even intense.

•        Something you feel passionate about – “Why is no one else talking about this?!”

•        Something important to your business or niche.

•        Something of true value.

•        Something new and fresh.

•        Something that your reader feels relates to them and their need/desire.

•        Something not everyone knows or has considered before.

•        Something your reader can use immediately – the same day or the same hour.

•        Something that reveals what you can offer your reader.

•        Something that intrigues and hints at what’s to come.

And finally — make sure it's not TOO LONG! If you have a lot to say like I do, simply break it up into bite-sized pieces and drip them out through an autoresponder series. 

 

Extra!

Not a writer? Need help crafting a free opt in offer with amazing copywriting? MyTeamConnects will do it for you.

Contact me and we'll discuss your business' marketing needs. We live for  that stuff.

Filed Under: Email Tagged With: email opt in, marketing, opt in offer, WD-40, website

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