Sick of ebook opt-in offers? Me too.
I mean, I’m still downloading them, but I never actually read them…
And if you’re like me, and you spend the time creating an ebook for your audience, you want them to read it! Because you put actual benefits into it, and they could really be healthier, reinvigorated, [insert your own adjective] if they took advantage of your opt-in.
So, if you’re tired of trying to get your potential clients to opt-in to your ebook offer, try one of these 5 new ideas instead, and I promise you’ll see your list increase.
Activity/Checklist
This is my current opt-in (check it out to the right!), and it’s one of the easiest to pull together if you’re short on time, and need to get an opt-in offer up.
It’s also one of the most interactive, because you’re offering a challenge, or a to-do, to your subscriber that makes them take action in their life or business.
These are super popular opt-ins for wellness coaches, as you see the 3 Day Cleanse, 7 Days to a Better You, etc. But they can also be more practical, such as checklists and cheat sheets.
While these can be built into an email series, like outlined below, they also include the additional element of self-implementation – because your subscriber has to do the work to achieve the results. Activity opt-ins are also allow for a great follow-up series where you can launch your courses, 1:1 coaching programs, or longer cleanses. Here’s some great examples of activity opt-ins:
- A Cheat Sheet (Get out of Debt Cheat Sheet)
- A Challenge (30-Day Green Smoothie Challenge)
- A Free Course (Business Brilliance)
- A Checklist (Online Income Checklist)
Webinar
Who doesn’t love a webinar? I sure do! I probably end up listening to at least two per day. And, so does everyone else.
Webinars are a great opt-in because they are LIVE and have the added element of scarcity (because it goes away) to encourage sign ups immediately.
It’s also a really great opt-in for leading to 1:1 clients, because they’ll get to experience your expertise, knowledge, your voice, and imagine how you’d be to work with, and find out if they are a good fit.
And, if you record the webinar, you can then use that for a video series (see below), or start running a fake *live* webinar, that can replay at your client’s convenience, or you can allow them to select a time to take it. Some great examples of *live* webinars include:
Video Series
A video series is hosted within your website, or a second domain, and involves a home page with an opt-in to the series, immediate access to the first video, and access over the next week or so to the remaining 3-4 videos.
Each video is hosted on your domain, and is locked for a period of time from each user, so that the series can’t be completed all in one day. Some great programs that can manage this for you include Lead Pages and OptimizePress. Lead Pages will even host it for you, if you don’t want to house the course on your domain (but I recommend that you do!)
This is a great lead in to upsell a course or longer program, because they’ll get to know you and your teaching style, to see if they are a good fit. It helps to reduce refunds on the larger sell, and also builds your list pretty rapidly. It also gives you an easy in because you can make the last video your “About this program” video, and your audience will be warmed up to buy.
A few of my favorite video series in action include:
Email Series
An email series is a challenge or a series of lessons that are issued via email only. They may involve a link to a PDF download, but for the most part, it is a longer email that is sent out automatically every day, or every few days, over a period of about two weeks.
These are set up through your mailing client, and are set to run as autoresponders, so you can set it and forget it!
A few of my favorite email series in action include:
- 14-Day Conquer Course from SheTakesontheWorld.com
- Just Ship It! Challenge from Fizzle
- 8 Sales & Marketing Tips for Selling Jewelry from Flourish & Thrive
Quizzes
If there is anything you teach or preach to your coaching clients, see if you can turn it into a quiz.
People love to find out about themselves! Whether it’s finding out which Disney Princess you are, or how long you could survive the zombie apocalypse, people will opt into a quiz that helps them find out more about themselves, create self awareness, or help them discover a new truth.
One of my favorite quizzes in action is by the Brand Alchemist, where you answer 12 questions to find out what kind of brand you should have, and then have to opt-in to her list to receive your results. But, you can build your own with great tools like Viral Quiz Builder and Free Online Surveys.
Some great quiz ideas for coaches include:
- What’s Your Wellness Age? 12 questions to determine your “real” age based on eating, exercise, mental state, etc.
- What’s Holding You Back? 5 questions to discover your road blocks, so that you can overcome them
- Discover Yourself – 10 questions to uncover what you truly want
And, if you’ve been on Facebook lately, I’m sure you’ve seen your friends posting their Buzzfeed quiz results. So, you already know that these will make great use through Facebook ads. And, don’t forget to include a “Share your results” post on the Thank You page, so they can encourage friends/colleagues to take the quiz as well.
But of course, make sure all of your opt-in Thank You pages contain a social sharing option! You’ll be surprised by how fast a great, interactive opt-in can go viral.
The best thing about all 5 of these opt-in offers? You will grow your list.
And, all of these opt-ins can be built on for leading your potential client down your sales funnel.
Great article – thank you for featuring me! <3
Anytime! I loved your quiz, and think it’s an amazing example of opt-in offer creativity on your part. Well done!
Love this Jessica! I’m thinking and re-thinking my opt-in offers to get the right recipe for my audience and this is the most perfect resource! 🙂 Thank you for making it easy! 🙂
Jessica, loved this post — great ideas. However, when I went to sign up for your free checklist (also great, BTW), I noticed that after joining the mailing list, I was redirected to a different website (Jots from Jess), which was unexpected and disorienting. For instance, I wasn’t done exploring the Jessicamcastle.com site yet; it would have helped to have a link back to that site from JotsfromJess.com (there may be one somewhere, but not on the Home page where I ended up.)
Looks like you may be using one sign up form for both websites, which probably makes sense from your end, but might create some unintended confusion on the subscriber’s end.
Glad you liked the post, and thank you so much for letting me know! Jots from Jess is my old site, and the website I used to originally create my mail campaigns. Looks like I never went back and changes it in MailChimp!
Now it’s up to date, and I’m so appreciative that you came back to 1) continue browsing my website, and 2) to leave this comment. Thanks for looking out!
Great list! And my favourite quiz is the one from The Brand Alchemist too!
Let me ask you, are webinars really such a great list building tool? I’ve been thinking of setting one up, but when it comes to listening to other people’s webinars, I’m so overwhelmed and I can’t afford to spend so much time on those, because as you say, there are at least two interesting ones happening each day…
So I almost always opt-in, but almost never actually show up 🙁
Yes, webinars really are a great list building tool – even if no one shows up! Because odds are, if they were interested in your webinar topic, they’ll be interested in the topics you write about on the blog, and the services you offer. So, 99% chance they stick around on your list. Plus, after the webinar you have the opportunity to send them that replay, reconnect and re-engage them with your offers, services, etc.
Jessica, you are awesome! thank you for having so many goodies on your site.
Chef Dulce
Personal Chef and Certified Health coach
So glad my posts are helpful to you, Dulce!