The second thing you are going to need is to generate is some kind of extra motivation for individuals to join your optin list.
Naturally, the newsletter you’re offering should be a big incentive (and thus you should concentrate on the benefits of getting the newsletter). Ideally you should provide some kind of reward – a freebie – to make deciding to subscribe a real “no brainer.”
What kind of freebie might you offer?
Only your target audience knows the answer to this:
So What do THEY want?
What kind of problem do they have that you can solve?
What kind of information are they wanting to get their hands on?
You see, just because you are providing a freebie does not mean the value of what you’re offering should be low.
Quite the reverse.
Instead, you should be providing top quality content – something you could provide for at least $50. That way people will say, “look at what he’s providing totally free – just think about what his paid products must be like!”
Here a few recommendations for free stuff you can produce instantly when someone subscribes to your optin list:
A free e-book or review.
A free multi-day ecourse.
Valuable software.
An audio interview.
A useful video.
Tools like hand calculators or excel spreadsheets.
Useful items like blog themes or screensavers.
A free teleseminar or webinar.
Free access to a “private member site.”
A free 10 or 15 instant assessment (be cautious with providing services, unless you have a good compensated upsell in place).
There are two quick ways to put together a quality freebie:
Brandable reports
PLR content
You might also consider asking for your subscribers postal address together with their email address. In order to easily get a physical address, your freebie may be something like a CD or DVD shipped in the mail.
Insider Tip: One of the best ways to create a more responsive list is by knowing as much as you can about your list members. If you know, specifically, what each of your subscribers prefer, then you can easily segment your list and send out highly targeted offers.
One way to segment your optin list is to make a short checklist as part of the newsletter sign up. Simply ask your subscribers to check their interests from a drop down list or check list.
Example: Let’s suppose you run a travel site. Your instructions might say, “What type of vacations interest you most? Please select all that apply from the following list:”
Seaside vacations
Mountain vacations
Ski vacations
Luxury vacations
European vacations
US vacations
Asian vacations
Volunteer vacations
Green vacations
Cruise vacations
…and so on.
Now you have the ability to write highly targeted emails. For example, if you’re offering a discount vacation package on a choice of ski vacations or cruise vacations, you can use your segmented list to speak directly to your ski fans and your cruise fans.
You send one email to ski fans offering them a discounted ski vacation and you send another email to the cruise fans offering them a discounted cruise. Then you send a general offer to the rest of your optin list.
End result?
Higher optin list conversion rates!
Test it for yourself and see how segmenting your optin list can increase your income.
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