Wanna know what the biggest money-maker is in your business?
Your free offer.
Yep.
That scrumptious little nugget of high-value content you give away for free. On your website. On social media. Or during the launch of your next big program or product.
Your free offer is your biggest money-maker and your most powerful marketing tool because it has the power to turn complete strangers into paying clients and loyal fans. (Oooo, tweet that, baby!) It can open the door to all kinds of profit-making opportunities. And even make you ever so slightly famous in your field.
Nice.
Ah, but there’s a catch!
Your free offer can only make you a ton of money if it’s set up to do so from the start. Whether it’s an eBook, a special report, a video series or a free webinar, it has to have the “right stuff” to attract and entrance paying clients, establish your authority and inspire people to buy. And that “right stuff” has to:
- be completely irresistible to your perfect prospective client.
- offer a solution, answer or something special that makes a positive impact on your prospect’s life.
- quickly establish your credibility as an expert in your field.
- get your prospect genuinely interested and excited about working with you.
That’s a lot of heavy lifting for one little free offer.
How can you be sure your free offer is up to the task?
By making sure it has all 5 of these must-have ingredients.
The 5 Must-Have Qualities of a Money-Making Free Offer
#1 An Immediate Solution to an Urgent Problem
Your prospect needs something right now. An answer. A solution. Some relief. Some assistance. If you want your free offer to get swept up by your prospect, you need to make sure the content of your freebie provides an immediate solution to whatever is bugging them.
For instance, if you’re a chiropractor, there’s a good chance your perfect prospects are dealing with some kind of pain, discomfort or restriction of movement. What they want right now is to get out of pain. They don’t want general tips on how to have better posture or how to exercise without hurting their knees. No, they want immediate relief now.
So, you want to offer something like, “Three Easy 5-minute Stretches To Reduce Your Pain Immediately.” If your offer is too general, like “How to Stay Happy and Healthy with Chiropractic” your prospects aren’t going to opt-in for it.
Target a specific problem, question or desire most of your prospects have right now and give them the solution!
#2 Show ‘Em Your Best Stuff
Your free offer is, more often than not, the first (and possible the most significant) impression you’ll make on your new prospect. So, be sure to offer your best stuff.
Really.
Give away your best. Not all of your best. But enough to give your prospect a powerful experience of your know-how and ability to make a difference in their lives or business. Give them tips, guidance, information or resources they can implement immediately to get measurable results. Because when they do, they’ll be sold on you and what you provide. They’ll be able to trust the fact that what you offer works and that it’s worth investing in.
Lead with your best. You don’t have to hand over everything you know for free. Just some of your best stuff. The stuff you know will have an immediate positive impact.
#3 Make Them Hungry
If you’ve ever smelled homemade brownies baking in the oven, you know how that intoxicating scent can drive you wild with an uncontrollable desire to devour an entire plate of brownies in one sitting.
Your free offer needs to be the “scent” that drives your prospects wild with the desire for more. More of you. More of what you offer.
It’s tricky. Because you want your offer to both immediately satisfy what your prospect is craving right now, but you also want to be sure it makes them hungry for more. Think of your freebie as the exciting prelude to the main event. The overture to the entire opera. The perfect appetizer before the most delicious 5-course meal. It needs to offer something substantial and satisfying on its own yet inspire eager anticipation for what’s to come.
For example, if you’re a real estate broker, you could create a free offer called, “5 Things Every New Home Buyer Should Know Before Buying a House.” Your offer would give your potential client the information she needs to know what she’s doing, relieve her fears and get her excited about shopping for a house. But she still doesn’t know how to actually go house-hunting, make a wise choice and then buy a house. She needs you for that!
So, make sure your offer give your prospect the relief, satisfaction and solution they need right now while getting her excited about what’s to come.
#4 Pronto, Tonto!
In this instantaneous world of the Internet, when you can have a question one second and can get the answer in the next second (via your smart phone), you need to deliver your free offer immediately. Your prospect doesn’t want to wait. Nor does she feel she needs to. Because if you won’t give her what she wants right now, she’ll find someone who will.
So, if possible, deliver your free offer digitally and immediately. That’s easy to do if your offer is an eBook, audio, webinar replay or any other kind of digital product.
But what if you’re offering a free webinar that’s happening on a future date? Or you have something that has to be delivered by snail mail?
That’s okay. You just need to send your prospect an automatic email, delivered within seconds of when they opted in for your freebie, that confirms their request and reassures them their order is on the way. Plus, you want to set up a series of emails so you stay in touch with your prospect between that critical time when they opted-in and when they finally receive the goods.
A great way to stay in touch is to send them a little extra something via email to get them pumped up and excited about the arrival of your free offer. For example, if you’re giving away a free webinar, send your prospects a cheat sheet, or tip sheet or audio that relates to the topic of the webinar. Or if you’re sending something in the mail, email your prospect a photo of what’s being sent. Or better yet, send them a story of how that item came to be.
#5 Step Right This Way
You don’t want to give your prospect your incredible bite of wonderfulness without telling him or her how to order a whole meal. In other words, be sure that somewhere in your free offer, you clearly invite your prospect to take the next step with you so they can get more of what they need.
For instance, in my free eBook “12 Tweaks to Quickly Transform Your Message From Dull to Dazzling” I invite my reader to get even more help writing their copy by signing up for a free 15-minute SuperPower Strategy Session. That’s the next step they need. And it’s the next step I need in order to determine how to help them further.
You need to determine what the next logical step is for your prospect and then invite them to take it with you. If your offer is a free webinar, have a strong call to action near the end of the webinar. If your offer is an eBook, report, audio, or webinar replay, make sure you have one clear invitation at the end or throughout your offer.
One more thing to consider as you create or revamp your free offer:
Everyone is so inundated with free offers these days (aren’t you?) that it’s getting harder and harder to entice anyone to hand over their name and email just receive another “something” that’s free.
This is why you’ve got to make damned sure your free offer is so irresistible, so perfectly targeted to tickle the fancy of your ideal client that they don’t think twice before eagerly signing up for your freebie.
And I’m going to help you do just that.
Starting June 22, I’m offering a free 5-day course called Your Fabulous Freebie! How to Create a Free Offer That Builds a Big Fat Email List Full of Perfect Prospective Clients.
If you want to be sure your free offer has the right stuff to build your list and make you money, sign up for this free 5-day adventure now. It’s going to be a fun ride!