Now that you know the 8 components of a successful website opt-in box, you have all the information you need to create an awesome opt-in box. But, even though your opt-in box has all the right pieces and works the right way … it may not actually work to build your list?
What?!
If your free offer — the thing you’re giving away for free in exchange for their name and email address — isn’t what your visitors want or need, they won’t sign up and enter their name and email, even if your opt-in box is awesome!
Here’s the first thing you need to know about your opt-in free offer:
Your free offer needs to be irresistible. It needs to be extraordinary. It needs to be incredible. It needs to be valuable. It needs to be amazing. It needs to be so good that your first instinct is to charge money for it, and that it hurts a little bit at first to give it away for free.
Why? Because it really isn’t free. You may not be asking for money, but you are asking for their email address, and in today‘s climate of overcrowded, bulging inboxes that pretty much never reach zero, an email address can hold just as much value to your prospect as cash.
So how do you know if your free offer will be irresistible to your prospects and ideal clients?
You’re in luck, because figuring this out isn’t as hard as it sounds. There are only three other things you must know before creating your opt-in free offer to ensure that it is irresistible to your ideal clients.
1. You Must Know Who You Want On Your List
The first step to creating a successful free offer to use for your website opt-in box is to make sure you know exactly who you want to attract with your offer. Who is your ideal client? Who do you want to attract to your site? What type of person to you want to join your list so you can continue to market to them?
How do you know who your ideal client is? Your Ideal Client is some one who:
- Has problems and challenges you can easily fix and solve with your eyes closed
- Sees you as a valuable necessity they treasure, instead of a necessary evil
- Likes you, appreciates your hard work, and will tell their friends, peers, and contacts about you
- Pays you what you’re worth and is happy to do so because you’re worth it
By knowing who you want to attract with your free offer, you can tailor the development of your irresistible free offer (and the marketing for it) to speak right to them, making sure every bit of content is relevant, valuable, and useful.
2. You Must Know What Your Ideal Client Struggles With
The number one reason consumers go online, search the web, or perform a search with a search engine is to solve a problem or fulfill a need. That means that new visitors to your site have a problem or a need and they are looking for a solution. They need help. Will you be the one to provide a solution?
It is critical that you understand the top three biggest challenges, pains, struggles, and frustrations that your ideal clients have — They are at best, looking for a solution, and at worst, looking for help to make it better.
3. You Must Know What Your Ideal Client Wants and/or Needs
To make your opt-in free offer irresistible to your ideal clients and ideal website visitors, it must provide something your ideal clients and visitors want and/or need — something they are looking for. It needs to address or solve at least one of their top three problems. That way, when they reach your site and see your opt-in, they will:
- Identify with the problem you mention — “Oh my gosh! I have that problem.”
- Know they are in the right place — “It’s as if you are speaking right to me.”
- Feel relief at finally finding help/a solution — “Yay! I think this will help me, I should opt-in.”
If you know who you want to attract with your free offer, what they struggle with, and what they are looking for, you can craft the perfect irresistible free offer that will provide the solution they have been looking for (or at least a taste of it).
Just make sure you make it so good, you really want to charge for it.
