A valuable free offer is the first step in building a relationship with your audience – especially on your website.
If you don’t have an offer on your website there is no point in driving traffic to it in the first place. But your offer has to be good. The days of people trading their email address for a newsletter are long gone. To compete with all the marketing noise and stand out from the crowd, your offer needs to be really compelling. Build trust by offering up a valuable free offer that your audience wants. Here are 3 steps to creating a free offer that will have leads pouring in:
Figure out what the audience’s pain points are.
The easiest way to do this is by listening to your existing clients. Sometimes the reason they hired you in the first place is to treat a symptom, not the root cause of the problem. I found out that many of my clients wanted to improve their time management, even though they hired me to help with goal setting and business planning. Because time management is such a huge topic, I was able to create a free offer around time management for entrepreneurs that visitors could request and download from my website. I leveraged this idea for my speaking gigs and created a 30-minute CD that I give out in exchange for a business card or email. Almost everyone takes the CD and I walk away with new leads.
Focus on your area of expertise.
What do you have the answers for? It doesn’t have to be for the exact thing you’re selling, it can be for something complimentary. My free offer used to be time management tools for entrepreneurs. I wasn’t selling time management coaching exclusively but it was a very important piece of the success puzzle for my clients who are juggling multiple responsibilities. Time management is just one piece but it’s a critical piece that influences the other pieces. Do make sure your offer fits into your overall strategy and that you can create upsells from it. I sell a time management workbook and have a membership site that is focused on time management so it made sense.
Create a valuable give-away – don’t be afraid to provide content.
You are an expert and there is no way that you can possibly give everything away in one article or eBook or CD. You are creating a first impression. If you are generous with the free stuff then people will remember you as being someone with valuable info. They will keep coming back for more and you’ve proven that you will provide great value if they hire you. Vice versa if you’re stingy.
Remember, it takes at least 7 touches to convert a prospect to a client. But they have to want to see your stuff, to open your emails, to hear what you have to say in order for those 7 touches to be effective. So go ahead and give your best stuff away. If you do this well, you’ll be on your way to building a list of pre-qualified prospects, some of whom will turn into paying clients.
