“ Software is like sex. It’s better when it’s free. ”– Linus Torvalds
First off, I hope that quote didn’t offend you. I laughed when I first saw it and hopefully you did too!
Anyways, let’s talk about your free offer. This is what you’re going to promise someone in exchange for their email address.
This is something that you can give away for free but is packed with enough information that someone would happily pay for it.
Does that mean it has to be worth $100, $50 or even $20? No- it could be a very short PDF document. I’ve seen free gifts that were just 1-3 pages long, but contained more valuable information than $97 video courses.
It just depends on how targeted, clear and usable the gift is.
So for example, let’s say you’re in the Internet marketing niche. Your free gift may be a short video on how to use a free template to make a squeeze page. Another example is a list of highly-converting subject lines someone can use in their auto-responder.
Again, this should be something that can be digested quickly, is easy for you to create, and provides a helpful service or information to the new subscriber. Just remember that what you promise on your squeeze page matches what the gift actually does!
So if you have a 3 page report on productivity, don’t claim that it offers more information than the 10 greatest productivity books ever written. Or if it’s a piece of software, don’t claim that with one push of a button the person will make millions.
To create a report or ebook you can give away, use something like Microsoft Word, Google Docs or Open Office to type it out. Make sure that it looks nice, is straight to the point, and has your name and website on it.
When you’re done you should convert it into PDF format. This not only helps protect the formatting and your content, but it also makes it easier for your subscriber to open and read.
If you’re going to create videos instead of a report you can use software like CamStudio, which is free and allows you to take a video of what you’re doing on your screen. The great thing about this is you can also record yourself talking and explaining the tips on the slideshow or program you’re using. Then you can save what you recorded as a video, upload it to YouTube as a private video, and then send the link to your new subscribers.
NOTE: I don’t recommend sending an entire video via email. Videos take a lot of space, meaning it might take the email a long time to ever get to your new subscriber!
Whatever you decide to do- a report, “hot sheet” of just 1-5 pages, a video or software- just get it done and move on! You can always change and tweak things later, but the most important thing is to just get moving. After all, you can’t “tweak” something that doesn’t even exist, right?
Once you have your free gift, it’s time to set up your download page and the rest of your sales funnel.
