Opt-In Freebie Not Working? Why Lack Of Perseverance Is Holding You Back.
How many times did you try riding a bike before you managed to stay upright?
Did you get on your first bike and just take off round the block?
Or was it more like grazed knees, tears and many tentative attempts before you were confident you could make it to the end of the road with no wobbles?
What on earth has this to do with your online business?
I’ve been listening to online solopreneurs (in Facebook groups) and I hear people say this all the time about online marketing:
I’ve tried that once and it didn’t work
Oh, I’ve tried growing my subscriber list, but I never get any sales from my emails….. Or,
Yeah, I’ve tried Facebook advertising and it cost me money but nothing happened
But here’s the thing.
Riding a bike definitely took you more than one or even two attempts before you could do it well right?
And online marketing is just the same.
It takes perseverance.
Last night I looked back at my first opt-in landing page, which I created for my own business. It was for a free ecourse. My first opt-in ‘freebie’.
I created the landing page with leadpages.net. I saw that 43% of everyone who came to the page via my Facebook ads had signed up for the ecourse.
43% converted into subscribers. Not bad?
Then I looked again at my latest freebie – a one page ‘Conversion Cheatsheet’.
This landing page has an 83% opt-in rate. Almost DOUBLE the first one!
Are you wondering how I went from 43% to 83% opt-in rate?
The great news is that it’s so simple you can do it right away.
There are just 3 quick questions you need to ask yourself:
1) Is it the right freebie/opt-in incentive?
2) Are you targeting the right audience and using their language?
3) Can you improve the landing page?
I ended up scrutinising each step of my ‘funnel’. And drastically improved all three of these elements.
I used a free online tool to map out every step of the funnel, from FB ad to landing page, to thank-you page, download page, etc.
This way I could clearly look at, by scrolling right, what each visitor sees when they click.
You can also map out the full sequence of emails along with open and click rates. This way you can see which emails are performing or not, in the context of the whole sequence.
(Another tip: Use this tool to screenshot awesome landing pages when you see them – create a swipe file of brilliant and inspiring landing pages and email sequences.) So back to improving that opt-in rate.
Here are the steps I took and which you can too:
1) Is it the right freebie/opt-in incentive?
Find out exactly what your audience want by listening to them.
I found out that my audience wanted instant actionable ‘fixes’ to their problems and a cheatsheet fits that perfectly. I created a super simple one page pdf cheatsheet as my opt-in (and have had a ton of positive responses to it).
2) Are you targeting the right audience and using their language?
Test, test, test.
The targeting options in Facebook ads are so powerful and diverse and to get the very best out you must keep testing. I revamped my Facebook ads by testing out ten separate target audiences to find the ideal interest group. Once I’d found them and worked on improving the messaging in my advert, conversions went up and the cost of each conversion dropped dramatically.
3) Can you improve the landing page?
Build up a swipe file (with gingkoapp) of great landing page examples that make YOU want to sign up. Notice why they are great and what you can apply to your own landing page.
I scraped my original landing page and went for a much cleaner, simple template with a strong but minimal messaging.
Et voila. Double the conversion rate. Overnight.
