First off, let me ask you a question, “Do you want to double or even, triple or quadruple your sales in 2014?”
If yes, then read on.
Because I have the TOP 15 opt in offer ideas that you can create to invite your audience to share their email addresses with you so that you can stay in touch with them and keep them informed about sales, specials and essentially, what’s up with your business.
Yes, opt-in offers, like ‘em or not, are hot and customers are more likely to sign up when there’s a WIN in it for them too.
Why is an Opt-In Awesome
An opt-in is a no-obligations {other than an email address}, no-risk way for a prospect to experience what you have to offer.
It gives customers a chance to connect with your business and stay in touch without having to think about it.
It’s easy, effortless and essentially FREE. Nothing to lose, a lot to gain. We all, like that.
Now that you know that an opt-in is awesome, let’s dive into the 15 best opt-in ideas for your small business so that you can kick start work on it now and have something amazing to share with your audience before year-end or at the start of the new year.
1. Free eBook
Probably THE most popular form of an opt-in, nearly every business can create one and the best part is you can give it free to subscribers and sell it to non-subscribers on Amazon.
Sample it at: Smart Passive Income
2. Free Digital Workbook
Do you offer a service? How about helping prospects complete the first step of working with you by giving them a digital workbook? Compile the top 10 questions they must ask themselves or that you would otherwise ask them in your discovery session and put it together into your workbook.
3. Free eCourse or Workshop
An uber-fantastic way of showcasing your expertise. You can either take a few nuggets out of a paid eCourse and share it as a preview or put together one using some of your already published posts, interviews and articles. You can of course, also write one from scratch and make it truly exclusive!
Sample it at: Lucky Bitch
4. Chapters from Paid eBooks or Books
Do you already have a published book or eBook to your name? Your opt-in is ready! 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.
5. Downloadable Cheat Sheets
We all love templates and cheat sheets to help us do things faster, better, easier, quicker. Right? Create a few awesome-looking cheat sheets or templates to make your customer’s lives easier and your opt-in is ready. Need inspiration? Think about customer FAQs and answer those via a template or cheat sheet.
Sample it at: Smart Blogger
6. Downloadable Checklists
Like templates and cheat sheets, customers also, love downloadable and printable checklists to help them remember the steps or learn the process to something.
Sample it at: Our very own Copywriting Checklists right here!
7. Audio Recordings
Do you do a lot of interviews? How about you compile a collection of your most popular interviews and give it away as a freebie? Easy!
8. Video Recordings
Folks love video interviews or tutorials. If you don’t have video hang ups, like yours truly, you can easily put together tutorials or recordings for your prospects. If you have a product, you can do a cool demo video showcasing fun and unusual ways to use your product.
9. Physical Products
This one may not be possible for everyone and does not have the instant gratification factor that a digital download has but it can be used smartly along with a digital product.
You can send an actual CD in the mail and give them an instant download of the video recording too. Or give them an audio excerpt of your book and a physical voucher to buy it at a store.
10. Your Personal Rolodex
This one is a great for coaches and consultants. People LOVE to know what resources you use and recommend and sharing your personal rolodex with them will be a fantastic way to help them find trusted vendors and service providers.
Sample it at: The Suitcase Entrepreneur
11. Fun Downloads and Printables
Doing business doesn’t have to be boring. Make it fun by sharing free and fun desktop wallpapers, inspirational quotes that can be printed out, gorgeous arty printables that they’d love to frame.
Sample it at: Lime Tree Fruits
12. Gift Card Contests
This is the opt-in offer you DON’T have to create. It’s ready made! You could have a contest each month where one lucky subscriber would get a gift card from say, Amazon or any other hugely popular and easily accessible store.
13. Members-Only Content
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.
Sample it at: Copyblogger
14. Subscriber Specials
Like members-only content, members-only or subscriber specials can be a great opt-in offer. You offer monthly deals only for those on your list. You get more sales, customers get a super sweet special. Win-win!
Sample it at: MadeOn Skin Care Products
15. Free Consultations
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.
Do YOU have an awesome opt-in offer for your VIP list? If not, which one of the 15 here will be YOUR first choice, share with me in the comments.
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Pop in those details so you can get your writing-weary digits on easy-to-follow and effective-to-use copywriting checklists for sales pages, launches, blog posts and more!
I offer a code for a free download with purchase from my Etsy shop as well as a percent-off code (customers can use the one that they prefer). These are some really great suggestions!
That’s a great opt-in Lonni! Note to self: Use it:) Thanks for sharing:)
I offer a free sample when people opt in to my newsletter 🙂
This is a fun list – I see some other ideas I could offer as well. Thanks!
Amanda
Thanks Amanda! A free sample is a great idea, for product-based businesses.. Thank you so much for sharing!!
Prerna, these are fantastic – thank you so much for compiling them!
At the moemnt, I have a #1 – a free ebook + checklist of 12 easy-to-implement top tips for writing web pages that people actually READ (people can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/crystalclearwebpage if they’re interested)
I used to have a free ecourse – a guide to creating a personalised, multisensory writing ritual – but I ended up making that a paid product once I’d created the ebook.
Also, after reading your list, I’m seriously thinking about creating a worksheet with the questions that I get people to answer when they have a Discovery Session with me on it. Thanks so much for that idea!
Blessings
TANJA
Really useful ideas here. The only problem now is which one to choose!!! Thanks for sharing such fab suggestions 🙂
🙂 Thanks, Debs!! Glad you found it useful and yes, it can be tough picking an option but once you’ll identify what your target customer would really resonate with.. it should all fall into place!! Can’t wait to hear what you go with:)
Prerna, this was a great post! I just re-did my opt-in offer to include a 20% discount off the BODYReDESIGN jumpstart program and have been working on restructuring my optins for my other site so the timing on this article was awesome. Thanks!
Hi Lisa!! Thanks SO much and awesome to hear about your opt-in offer revamp!! Can’t wait to hear about it’s success so keep us posted:)
Do you have any ideas that aren’t for businesses? I just started a small Christian blog not that long ago, and I simply cannot think of anything to giveaway since I’m not trying to sell anything.
Brittany, how about something like 17-days of Verse, with 17 of your favourite Bible verses made into pretty photo quotes or into a small eBook. Just something for your readers to get inspired by and love what you do.. You can also do the same with say, a blog post that really speaks to the reader’s heart and turn it into an infographic using something like Piktochart. 🙂
That’s a good idea! and I love the idea of making it 17 of something. Thank you!
This list is great – gives me some more options to play with 😉
Similar to the ecourse/workshop… I created a 5 day Creativity Challenge.
With the aim of helping people get over their creativity blocks.
I love, LOVE your post! I want to offer a 32 Daily challenge for my Tribe to come up with daily content for their Tribe. It’s for people who have a hard time coming up with valuable content to share. It’s just that I’m unable to come up with the “wording” that will get them excited to join for free. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks so much in advance and for your AMAZING content! 🙂
Thanks so much Natasha!! How about something like “Never Be Stuck for Content Ideas Again” or “32 Days, 32 Ways: A FREE Crash Course in Coming Up with Content All. the. Time”?
All the best with the challenge! Keep us posted 🙂