What do you want for free?
I'm toying around with different possibilities for content freebies to build a larger email list (the "drop your email in this form and I'll make you rich!!!" kind). I know the standard wisdom is to offer a PDF document that has pretty graphs and is related to the blog post it's attached to, but I wonder if anyone on here has tried something different or more off-the-wall. While I might be an outlier, whitepaper reports and "bonus content" have always felt stale when contained inside a PDF.
The content is for an audience that's pretty allergic to aggressive or salesy pitches, and the ultimate goal of the content is to support my main business (i.e. the content is a means, not an end). Some ideas I've heard of working well:
- personalized videos to new subscribers via Bonjoro or similar
- alternative content (a web page or browser-based game)
- discounts on a paid-for product
- personalized time for a chat or phone call with a team member
I'm totally willing to do things that don't scale, but need to get out of my own head on this one to come up with something workable. Curious to hear other people's ideas.
Hey Alex,
Well, it all depends on what area you are talking about - like what industry how many customers you have etc...
I'm not too sure where you are starting from so it's hard to give any kind of judgement or advice.
I find iwillteachyoutoberich.com to be super sales and cheese but it sure does work same goes for appsumo.com -
I think you will find people aren't quite allergic to being sales if you have something of value offer.
This comment was deleted 7 years ago
Fair enough, I guess I was a bit vague there. I have one product currently, which is a platform for bloggers & aspiring writers to get their work edited by professionals. So the hope is that a section of my newsletter audience would hear about it over multiple newsletters and eventually catch them at a time when they're ready to take that leap and get professional editing help.
That said, I'm also hoping to also use the existing product as a jump-off point for more adjacent offerings (different types & lengths of writing, classrooms, etc). The content I already have is pretty broad and can reach into some of those adjacent areas, so my immediate goal is to build up the newsletter audience size to a point where I could use it to gauge interest for future offerings and have some decent traction out of the gate whenever they are launched. Hence, looking for some creative ways to engage and build trust with new signups.