This guest post is by Amy of Harrisonamy.com.

We’ve seen recently how you can help pay the rent using your email list, so making sure that as many people as possible sign up is critical to increase your earning potential.

Most bloggers know that one way to encourage people to sign up to their blog is to offer an incentive. Some kind of free report, or ebook or other gift that is a tempting reward for a visitor to transform into a newsletter subscriber.

But having a gift isn’t enough. And what’s more, all free gifts are not created equal.

If you’re struggling to create your incentive, or your incentive doesn’t seem to be converting well, read this article. We’re going to look at how to quickly create an incentive that works as hard as possible to get you the right audience—and get them wanting your freebie.

Don’t give them what they need

It goes without saying that your freebie needs to be valuable to the customer, but giving too much can overwhelm them to the point that they can’t be bothered to sign up for it. Even if it’s something you know they desperately need.

For example, let’s say you run a blog that teaches people how to create a business from making homemade gifts. You know that people who come to your blog really need to know about how to sell their gifts, the best places to source materials, and a great-looking website to showcase their designs.

So you decide your incentive is going to be an auto-responder course over ten lessons, covering a different business foundation subject in each lesson.

Sounds great. Sounds useful. And it would be.

But it also sounds like a heck of a lot of work, which means you’re more likely to procrastinate over it. And it doesn’t take into account what most visitors want when they come to your site.

They want something quick that can potentially solve a problem there and then.

So don’t base your sign up incentive on what they need, base it on what they want.

Make it quick (to create and consume)

Valuable content that can be applied straight away is a very attractive offer for someone with limited time, but with a problem that you can solve.

Think about the kind of quick freebies you’ve signed up for in the past. Which ones have really stood out to you as being valuable?

It’s probably one that solved a specific problem there and then. So you might want to reconsider developing an in-depth product, report, or course for this kind of freebie.

What problem do you pick to solve?

With your visitors all having slightly different interests, and with you knowing so much about your chosen subject, how on Earth do you decide what problem to solve, and what kind of freebie to give away to encourage people to give you their details?

Well you might be surprised what “off the top of your head” knowledge you have that is valuable for your audience’s most common kind of problem.

To identify the perfect subject for your sign-up incentive , the first step is to write down the top five problems you see your audience having.

Ask yourself why your audience is coming to your site and what information are they looking to learn.

For example, if you teach social media marketing for small online businesses, your customers might be coming to you because they want to:

• get more clients
• build brand awareness
• improve customer loyalty
• increase viral marketing for the company
• learn more about social media for businesses.

Once you have your top five, pick the one problem that you feel 70-80% of your target market is having. Let’s say in this instance it is: “getting more clients.”

Now you ask: what are the most common questions or problems surrounding this problem in relation to your business?

For “getting more clients through social media,” the most common questions might be:

• How can you use social media to get clients?
• What are the most popular social media sites for businesses?
• How do I find my target market using social media?
• What is Twitter and can I convert customers with it?
• Is FaceBook advertising worth the investment?

Now you have five starting points for possible products, which are probably quite “basic” questions for you, but really useful to your customers.

For each of the above, you could create one of the following products for your sign-up incentive:

• 10 ways to attract clients through social media
• The top five social media sites for business (and how to use them for your business)
• 12 steps to simple market research using social media
• Understand how Twitter can add to your profits (in under 20 minutes)
• 7 ways to profit from Facebook advertising

The incentive doesn’t have to be a lengthy report. In fact, checklists, bullet points, simple steps, and quick how-to guides are very attractive for people who are interested in your subject area, but want a solution there and then.

If you create your incentive this way, you’re coming from the core problems your target market is probably always going to have, and you’re giving them a short, sweet fix that makes them more likely to sign up for your content.

That means they can become more familiar with your expertise, and are likely to remember and recommend your site because of the instant value they received in your newsletter incentive!

What about you? Have you experimented with sign up incentives? What have you found working for you? What has been your favorite sign-up incentive that you’ve registered for?

Amy is a copywriter for entrepreneurs and in addition to writing for clients, she coaches others to smash through their copy obstacles and get their message out to their audience. She provides free copywriting and content marketing advice on her website Harrisonamy.com

 

Book Review
Title: “In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats: Your Guide for Turning One House into Two Homes”
Author: Michael Litchfield
Publisher: The Taunton Press, 2011; 224 pages; $24.95

Before I begin discussing the lovely, useful guide to creating secondary living spaces in your home that is habitual rehabber Michael Litchfield’s “In-laws, Outlaws, and Granny Flats: Your Guide for Turning One House into Two Homes” (The Taunton Press, 2011), I’d like to make a small advisory note to my parents: This is not an invite.

With that said, because the realm of real estate consumers who are seriously in the market to add a mother-in-law apartment is likely smaller than that of people who have some interest in the real estate recession, “In-laws” will likely receive short shrift on the bookstore shelves. But if you ask me, this book might be one of the timeliest real estate how-to’s that has hit the market in recent times.

“In-laws” is about putting extra space in a home you already own to optimal use, whether by converting an attic, basement or “granny flat,” or by building an entirely new living unit on your existing home’s lot.

Though the title skews toward moving Mom and Dad in, which is a strong post-recessionary trend in its own right, these spaces can be rented out, used as home offices by those trying to save on gas or work the freelance gigs they’ve been working in the wake of a job loss, or even lived in — as the author does — by the owner, who can then rent out the main house.

“In-laws” is for today’s homeowners who have decided to stay put instead of trying to lock in their real estate losses, but need to get some extra mileage out of their homes; it’s for today’s parents of young adults, who’d like them to move out — but just a little bit; and it’s for today’s baby boomers trying to retire on shrunken home equity and financial portfolios.

Not only is “In-laws” timely and useful, it is beautiful and complete. Conceptually, yes — but also textually and visually. Litchfield briefly lays out some bullet point uses for in-law units, as he uses the term to apply to all secondary living spaces (which contain a kitchen and bathroom), but then really proves the point with the selection of diverse case studies he uses to populate the rest of the book, from a basement in-law unit in a Beverly Hills Mediterranean, to a garage conversion on a suburban, brown-shingle Craftsman.

These homes didn’t just add secondary spaces, they added amazing secondary spaces, with complete independence from the “main house” and features like kitchen-area daybed niches and spa-quality, if small, bathrooms.

Throughout “In-laws,” Litchfield goes beyond providing stunning before-and-after photos, to address the physical, psychological and lifestyle implications of adding an occupied secondary living unit, from the challenges of incorporating ramps and other aging-in-place amenities, to the sound and privacy issues arising from sharing space, to parents’ concerns about feeling like a burden, to adult children’s relief at having their parents nearby — and offers questionnaires to assess whether this sort of arrangement might work for you, as well as design solutions to these emotional concerns.

Additionally, when it comes to building and redesigning home spaces, Litchfield has clearly been there and done that, and you can see it in the highly useful floor plans, land use and building permit discussions, and his coverage of attractive-yet-space-saving appliances and even furniture, in “In-laws.” Litchfield’s case studies and advice also skew a bit green, with loads of recycled concrete, tankless water heaters and drip systems featured throughout.

If only every design/real estate book did such a complete — and completely lovely — treatment of its niche as “In-laws” does.

I’ve tired of making real estate predictions. But I will predict that this book will save some homeowners thousands of dollars, help some family relationships (and small businesses, for that matter) thrive, and save some people from ending up in the dreaded “home” (as in rest home).

Tara-Nicholle Nelson is author of “The Savvy Woman’s Homebuying Handbook” and “Trillion Dollar Women: Use Your Power to Make Buying and Remodeling Decisions.” Tara is also the Consumer Ambassador and Educator for real estate listings search site Trulia.com. Ask her a real estate question online or visit her website, www.rethinkrealestate.com.

      

Yes.

Here’s why:

Yesterday, I received an email from Ben Downing* with the subject line, “How to Turn a Good Idea into a Great Presentation.” The subject line immediately caught my attention. As a guy with a ton of (good?) ideas who also does a lot of presentations, I was interested. Then, I glanced at the from name: Ben Downing. My first thought, “Who the heck is Ben Downing?” I tapped into my memory bank – for 7 seconds – and came up with nothing. I was pretty sure I had never heard of this Ben Downing.

So, what did I do next? I deleted the email. Total time spent thinking about this email was approximately 15 seconds. That’s about 14 seconds more than I normally spend per email.

Being an email marketing guy, I decided to go to my trash folder a few minutes later and look at that email again (Note: I’m pretty sure this is not what “normal” consumers do). I opened the email. Low and behold, the email was actually from eMarketer. See below for a screengrab of the top of the eMarketer email:

Now let me be clear: eMarketer is a company that I trust. I love their reports. I find value in (nearly) every email they send. I use their content in presentation. I share their emails, their reports, their charts, etc. The only problem? Based on the sender (From Name) Ben Downing, I never would have opened this email. I don’t know Ben.

So, does the from name (sender) of an email matter? You bet.

My challenge to eMarketer: The next time you send an email, do an A|B split. Try a person’s name (maybe Ben, maybe someone else) and pit it against eMarketer. I’d be willing to bet you get a higher open rate on eMarketer vs. a person’s name. Deal?

One more note: When I first saw this email from Ben, I tweeted about it. As I was penning this blog post, two folks from eMarketer replied – BTD1976 and Stephanie Reese. As you’ll see from their responses, both appreciated the feedback and promised to test next time around. Sweet.

Along with eMarketer, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the importance of From Name. Have you tested the From Name in the past? What results did you uncover?

*This is nothing personal again Ben Downing. I’m sure he’s a nice fellow.

DJ Waldow
Director of Community, Blue Sky Factory

At Blue Sky Factory, we strongly believe that, if used properly, email marketing and social media go together like Batman & Robin. If effectively implemented, email marketing can power social media and social media can power email marketing.

Good news! We have an eBook that provides 16 tips to use email and social together.

What are you waiting for? Download the eBook now!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 25th, 2011 at 5:00 am and is filed under From Name. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.