How To Craft Opt-In Offers That’ll Swell Your Email List So Fast You’ll Have To Cull Subscribers

When it comes to opt-in offers, my rule of thumb is to create a piece of amazing content that I could easily sell for $100… then give it away for FREE! - C. Ducker

My friend Justin has this great saying: “Be like bacon.” Why bacon? Well, you don’t want to be oatmeal, right? It’s ubiquitous and boring. Now bacon is different. Bacon has a (somewhat ridiculous) cult following. Bacon is interesting. Oatmeal is not.

You want your opt-in offer to be bacon. To make your offer interesting, it needs to have three traits:1. It solves a problem. 2. Brevity. 3. Great copy. - D. Arab

Reciprocity is straightforward. I give you something, and you instinctively want to give something back. It’s in our nature.

Once you know who this client is and what they want, your message will be laser-focused, you’ll be clear about who you’re selling to, and you’ll be able to create an opt-in offer to match your dream client’s needs. - A. Wilhite

Your headline is the title of your opt-in offer. It should be short, sweet and to the point. And the more concrete your language, the better.

To make it extra juicy, consider the emotion you want to tap into or the psychological impact you want to make. How do you want your clients to feel?

I recommend create an opt-in offer that answers questions one or two steps ahead of what they’d need before they hired you or bought something from you. - N. Lussier

Building an engaged email list is high on most savvy business owner’s priorities, because email is the one platform that is unlikely to shift.

Video is great if you have something visual to show and explain, or if you know that your paid offerings will also contain video.

You can also place social media sharing calls to action within your email series, to get even more people to sign up!

If your site contains a lot of useful, original, content-rich articles, one of the best ways to collect e-mail addresses is to require that visitors to your site opt in to your list if they want to download those articles in full. - D. Gehl

Just pick the best 1-2 chapters from the book and share. Great publicity, chance for readers to sample your writing and a readymade opt-in offer. - P. Malik

Create a few awesome-looking cheat sheets or templates to make your customer’s lives easier and your opt-in is ready. Like templates and cheat sheets, customers also, love downloadable and printable checklists to help them remember the steps or learn the process to something.

How about having a section of your content reserved exclusively for subscribers? You can email them a password they can use to access the content or have them register with a login ID to get to the members’ area.

A great way to get to know your prospects and help them get to know you while building your email list, free consultations, also called, discovery sessions or pick-my-brain sessions are great opt-in offers.

The best offers speak directly and strongly to the fears and frustrations and wants and aspirations of your target audience. Not what YOU think they are, but what they think they are. - M. Macdonald

Everybody loves free reports and you see them all over the web. That’s because they can be a great ethical bribe to get people to join your list.

A good strategy for making your newsletter resonate with your biggest fans is offering “behind the scenes” content that you don’t share on your blog.

The bread & butter way E-commerce stores grow email lists is to offer either a set dollar or percentage amount off a purchase, or free shipping (and sometimes a combination of the two). - S. Gaven

Entice users to take the quiz by being clear on what the benefit is. Sweeten the deal by offering an extra incentive such as a coupon or entry into a giveaway.

Another great method to build an email list is by hosting contests and competitions. On average an E-commerce giveaway can convert700% more email subscribers, which makes it one of the most efficient ways to build and grow your email list.

A recorded interview with someone your ideal subscribers will be excited to learn from. - M. Appleby

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Storytelling around your art is a very effective way to do this. We humans respond to stories in a much more visceral way than we do facts and dry information, so an opt-in offer that taps into this dynamic could work well.

Don’t bury your opt-in offer at the bottom of the website. Don’t just ask people to “subscribe” because…why would they? - M. Cassera

Just getting updates from “me” wasn’t compelling enough to for people to sign up. Unless your business or personal brand is the equivalent of Brangelina, create a more compelling offer.

Instead of just having a little box in your side bar that says Sign Up for Updates”, express specifically the BENEFITS you offer. - T. Gur

One line is often enough – However, your offer does have to be specific and benefit oriented to attract higher conversion rates.

One line is often enough – However, your offer does have to be specific and benefit oriented to attract higher conversion rates. - H. Porter

We’ve seen a lot of coaches and trainers give away this kind of thing – giving their subscribers access to their own “who’s who” for getting things done, or a “My Top 10 Tools for Getting Things Done”. For example, you might have certain people you go to for graphics, web design or video editing – if you’re producing great stuff people would like to know how they can get it too!

Before telling potential readers what to expect, it’s a good idea to ask yourself what you expect out of them...

Seeing what your peers offer helps you determine your unique place in the market. What can you provide via email that others aren’t already giving away? - M. Hannay

The organic keywords under the “Acquisition” tab of Google Analytics tells you what terms are leading new visitors to the site. This is a great way to develop opt-in copy that reflects the reason visitors arrive on the page to begin with.

Create a survey or follow-up with existing customers to find out what they’re specifically looking for when they visit your site. Know exactly what problem you’re solving for them. - M. Duncan

Start to think about the questions you are frequently asked by your customers. Which social media posts have generated the most discussion with your fans and followers?

Once you have an insight into the topic areas that your customers would be most interested in, shift your focus. Think about the product or service you’re selling.

Think about how you can show off your product or your expertise in a way that offers value straight away… and leaves them wanting more.

Put a big tempting image of what it looks like right next to the opt-in form and get people excited to win. - J. Butt

Take 6 or 7 of your most popular blog posts, rework the titles, put some thought into which ones people should know first and which instead build on past information and package it as a “Six week online learning course!”

So if your customers are fish, the Internet is the ocean. And what do you use to catch fish in the ocean? BAIT. Not just any bait. It has to be good. Real good. The opt-in offer is one of the most important aspects of your website.

Tell people what “it” is – a technique, a secret, a tip, a trick, or a guide – and then tell them exactly what it will do for them! - F. Spahr

It’s great that they have 31,013 people on their list, but are people really pulled by getting their content first? People don’t value content. They value what the content itself can do for them.

And, remember this: People actually want to say yes to you because it’s so much easier than saying no. Give them a reason to stay. (Tweet that!)