Imagine this:
You’re walking down the street on a lovely summer day when you see a cute, old-fashioned ice cream parlor. It’s adorable, with its red-and-white striped awning, doo-dads in the windows and a sign on the pink-painted door that says, “Come in and try a free sample!”
Ice cream, you think. That sounds delicious!
So, you pull open the door, step inside and see a cute, little man, no bigger than 5 feet, in a white apron and a white paper hat, standing behind a big, metal ice cream freezer case. His bright red cheeks plumb up as he smiles at you and says, “Welcome to Pinky’s Ice Cream Paradise! Let me give you a free taste of my ice cream. You’ll love it!”
You smile back and walk up to the freezer case to peruse the different ice creams available. But the case is fully covered with a metal door. You look up, expecting to see a sign listing the different ice cream flavors. But there is none.
“I’d love to try a taste of your ice cream,” you say. “What flavors do you have?”
“Oh, I can’t tell you,” says the ice cream man.
“What do you mean you can’t tell me?” you say.
“I just can’t. I don’t have the words,” says the sweet, smiling little man, “But I can tell you it’s delicious. And you’ll love it.”
“But how can I know if I want to try it if you can’t tell me what I’m trying?” you ask.
“Oh, just try it and see,” he answers.
“Well, can you at least tell me what ingredients you use?” you ask.
“Oh, no. I can’t,” he answers. “But it’s free! Give it a try!”
You can’t help but think this is some kind of rude joke. Or that you’re being videotaped for some kind of bizarre “Punk’d” episode.
“I don’t understand,” you say, your voice a bit on edge. “Can’t you tell me something about your ice cream so I can decide whether I want to give it a try?”
“Ummm, no. Not really,” says the ice cream man. “But you’ll love it if you try it!”
You turn around and walk out of the ice cream parlor, thinking, “Forget it. I’m going to go to the store and buy my favorite, Death by Chocolate ice cream.”
The moral of this odd little story is this: Free isn’t enough. It’s inviting. Even tempting. But it’s not enough to get people to open their mouths, taste and swallow your free offer. [Tweet that, why don’t ya?]
No, if you want to make people crazy mad and ravenously hungry for your free offer, you’ve got to tell them what it is, what it does, why it rocks, and how it’s going to deliver what they want or need.
You may have a “delicious” free offer right now, one that’s brimming with top-dollar value and life-altering brilliance. But if you haven’t communicated that value and brilliance in a way that makes your offer sound super yummy and irresistible, no one’s going to want to “taste” it.
So, how can you get people excited and eager to opt-in for your free offer?
With a captivating, convincing, high-converting opt-in page, that’s how.
An opt-in page (sometimes referred to as a landing page or squeeze page) is a stand-alone web page with one mission: to get people so hungry for your free offer that they opt-in immediately. So you can:
- Radically increase your opt-in rate and the size of your email list.
- Filter out the riff-raff and attract only those who are genuinely interested in what you’ve got to offer.
- Easily leverage social media, article marketing, blogging and other Internet sensations to build your email list.
If you have any kind of a free offer, whether it’s the one you offer on your website or a series of free offers you use to promote your upcoming launch, you need a captivating, killer-good opt-in page.
Next week, I’ll share the 5 Essential Ingredients of a captivating, convincing and high-converting opt-in page.
But right now, I want to invite you to take part in a 3-part webinar series, called “My, What a Big List You Have! How to Write a Killer Opt-in Page That Doubles (or even Triples) Your Email List.”
It starts July 15, 2015. And in just 3 sessions, you’re going to learn how to create a client-attracting, high-converting opt-in page that fills your email list full of perfect prospects.
I mean… you don’t want to be like that sweet little ice cream man, do you? No, you want to be sure you have the perfect page to convince your prospects to immediately opt-in for all the yummy goodness you’ve got to give.