Gave away free tips or a free guide to get people to opt-in to your list. It’s that simple!

It is crucial for you to offer your potential customers an incentive for them to opt-in to your list. This is taken as read in the IM niche and IMers are almost immune to it. Nonetheless you pretty much have to do it.

But it is equally important in any niche. People love to receive freebies! So, in exchange for their email you need to offer something in return. Not only must you offer something but you must be able to deliver it and it must be of good quality. Something they can’t easily get elsewhere.

We’ll talk about the types of things you can offer in a moment. But let’s first stress the importance of delivery. This is not an issue if you are using a good autoresponder service like Aweber or Getresponse. If you are offering a short guide or just a list of tips these should be included in your first mail response after opt-in.

If you try and manage your list manually you are bound to fail at some point and if you fall at the first hurdle you are out of the race. Another reason to avoid the free autoresponders.

So, let’s have a look at some of the things you can offer and how you go about obtaining or preparing them.

During your initial niche research you should actively seek out things that people are looking for in addition (or complimentary) to your product or service offering. This could be just answering some basic questions, a top 10 list of tips, a short additional help guide, some ways you have found a product useful, etc.

In other words, look for something that can add value to your product or service offering.

These series of posts are an example. I’m going to wrap them up into a free bonus guide for our ANC list. I could just offer it as bonus for people who join ANC but I want everyone to have it because I think it’s that important.

Another obvious example if our Free Bonus Niche Report that people can get just by signing up via the form on this blog. This is in effect a sample of what’s on offer to people who join ANC.

Make sure that wherever you place your opt-in form you have compelling wording around the form that clearly states what people are getting when they opt-in. Again, look at the example on this blog.

So, what things can you offer?

Merchant bonuses. These can be the easiest of all. Perhaps you can offer discount coupons or the merchant themselves may offer affiliates bonus guides, etc. The drawback with these is that other affiliates will be able to offer the same thing.

Bonus Guides. These don’t have to be large… just 3 -5 pages. Get OpenOffice (it’s free) and you can easily turn your mini-guide into a PDF.

Bonus Courses. If you can produce a slightly large bonus guide, why not break it down into smaller chunks and offer it as a 7 day or 5 week course. ‘The Big Cat Strategy‘ (available free on the right) was originally delivered in modules over 5 weeks. This has the advantage of also writing your first messages for you and will keep people on your list as they await the next lesson.

Free Chapters. This is more applicable to people with their own products. Simply send out the first chapter of your ebook. But as affiliates it could be possible to approach the merchant and ask them to let you do so. They may already do this and be willing to let you do the same.

Tip Lists. Probably the simplest to do. Just come up with a list of tips and include those in your first mail.

Newsletters. People love to be kept up to date with the latest trends and happenings in their niche. So, if you are really involved and interested yourself, this can be a great way to go.

Free Software. People love tools and gizmos, so if you can find a free one applicable to your niche, offer it. Even if you just provide a list of places people can get stuff from, you are adding value.

Advice / Interaction. Be careful with this one but it can be really powerful. You could offer to give ongoing advice and support in your niche. Whilst this might sound daunting, you could potentially gain a real insight into exactly what your customers needs and desires are.

Your niche research should provide the answer to the best thing to offer and where possible, in forums, etc just ask people what they want. Once you have even a very small list you can ask them also.

Don’t be daunted by creating a bonus. You could outsource the creation of a mini-guide or buy some PLR articles but initially just have a go yourself.

Remember, once you have created a bonus you can use it in a multitude of different ways that will more than pay back the effort you put in to create it.

In the next post we’ll look at your ongoing mail series, its content and frequency…

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