When you have an idea for a valuable freebie, how do you create it? And, how do you get people to sign up for it with their email address? Here are 10 tips to help you create a successful freebie so you can build a thriving email list for your horse business.
Welcome to the show notes! Remember, this is a brief summary from the How to Market Your Horse Business podcast. You'll want to listen to the entire episode for all the good stuff!
Before we jump into the tips that’ll help build your email list, let’s look closer at "smashing success" as it relates to your freebie.
What does it look like to use a freebie as a key part of marketing your business and ultimately to build your email list?
Here's a quick overview of our word picture from episode 33.
First, Jennifer, your potential customer lands on your website.
She’s not sure if she’s ready to bring her horse to you for training yet. She just wants some information.
While there, she sees that you have a resource called “5 Ways to _______.” (Insert the title of your valuable freebie.) And the only way she can get this free download? By giving you her email address!
You make it clear that you’ll also be sending her a weekly email with a new tip for building a partnership with her horse and she’s good with that because this freebie looks really valuable.
Now Jennifer is on your email list. Even though she didn’t bring her horse in for training that day, you have a way to keep in touch with her.
After a few weeks of hearing from you and learning more about your training philosophies, she’s convinced you’re the place she’d like to send her horse for training and she gives you a call.
Plus, she’s forwarded a couple of your emails to some people she knows, and they subscribed to your emails and end up hiring you to train their horses too. Plus, they want you to show them. So it’s a long-term relationship with the potential to grow and evolve.
In the world of marketing, we call Jennifer a lead. She wasn’t a customer yet—she was a potential customer who took a step and gave you her contact info. From that, she became your customer and even brought in customers with her.
So, what’s success then?
Success is when people actually sign up for your emails and then you get to see the fruit of that labor over time.
Now that we're on the same page about what success means, I'm going to assume for now that you’ve come up with a great idea for a freebie.
Way to go!
What do you do with your idea? It's time to create and deliver it! Don't worry, I've got some super practical tips to help you out.
I've listed the tips here and explained them more in the podcast, but that's not all—I’ve also put together a printable Freebie Creation Guide for you right here.
10 Tips to Make Your Valuable Email Freebie a Smashing Success:
Include high-quality images.
Take advantage of Canva templates for design help.
Make it easy to print.
Automate the process. (I love MailerLite for this).
Use a simple URL so that it's easy to point people to.
Test your sign-up form before you promote it.
Be up-front that they'll be hearing from you on the regular when they sign up.
Make the freebie sign-up visible in multiple places on your website.
Promote it multiple times and in multiple places. (Social, email signature, etc.)
Stay in touch after you deliver the freebie with regularly valuable emails.
Of course, you'll want to listen to the full episode to dig into how you can apply each of these tips to your own business!
Links mentioned in this episode:
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