Free Course Magnet

The meme I’ve seen folks using most, Scott, is the “Challenge” concept. Take one part of your big training and use it as an intro.

Which results are you measuring? How many optins for the freebie you get or how many actually buy the course? Very often these can be very different metrics.

When I did FB ads, I did a split-test of both which ads drove most CLICKS and then of those clicks, which one got the must subscribers for the freebie. They were sometimes the same and sometimes different.

What effectiveness are you measuring?

I know the free lead magnet is used by most IMers but I know some others who think a free product attracts freebie seekers. I suppose one could do a test to see if it true. The greater population is probably used to a free lead magnet. I am still working on a product from the 4 week class in August in health and fitness and have no problem giving out free parts of the product. The idea by Robert to give some parts of the training is a great one.

I had great response when I offered a “mini-course” last spring, which was just a mind map blueprint. I’ve also had good luck with templates/cheat sheets.

What are your competitors doing? If your prospects are used to seeing a particular type of offer, you might want to try something similar but with a different twist.

How about offering a free service? I was just listening to Sean’s platform class, so I definitely want to create an awesome freebie pdf, but I’m thinking that I’d also like to include a coupon for a free tarot / oracle reading inside that pdf.

The whole point is to totally blow away the prospect so that he or she can’t wait to work with you.

Scott, many might not show for or complete the training … who are genuinely interested in your topic. If you don’t have them opt-in up front, you’ll lose the contact. I get your desire to pre-qualify, but I’m not sure that’s the best way.

I offer

1. free ebook – 40 pages covering all my principles
2. the portal/platform
and my favourite
3. the 20 min free coaching.

No one has taken me up on the free coaching online but I also do a meetup and offered it there and have takers. I think this is because they have met and worked with me while online they don’t trust me enough yet. The uptake has been favourable enough for me to continue and I will use recordings to create a product as well as to find out what my people want.

I have found questionnaires and training from people in my field that I can offer as a magnet also.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sean Mize

One of the few people I trust online apart from Sean talks about trust-based offers. He suggests having short reports 1-3 that are easy to put together (and excellent quality) that someone can download without an opt in. In these reports you would put a link to either a paid offer or a gated lead magnet that they have to give you their email address for.

The idea is that if they read those and are intrigued enough to subscribe to your list, then the email address they give you will likely be one that they actually check, versus one that is designed for opt-ins to get the free goods and is never checked after those freebies are delivered. I haven’t tested this idea yet, but I plan to.

Let’s face it – the days of everyone giving an email address that they check frequently are over, and have been over for a while. So the best bet for getting a real email address is likely to be a mini course or challenge or something else that they will have to check email for over the course of days.

Scott, in terms of your idea, I think that maybe you should offer a smaller item – a cheat sheet like someone else mentioned or some other small thing – that you give away for free. Inside that, you could then offer them the free mini course for signing up, and then of course, you would be able to talk more about the full course after they’ve completed the mini course.

It depends on your audience.

Like anything else, you won’t know unless you test it.

I recommend that you stick with the same lead magnet for at least 500 unique visitors.

That should give you a decent sized sample.

What did you really need when you were in the shoes of your client?
Chances are, they need it now, as well.

I’ve found some great ideas looking back into by email inbox from 3 years back.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget what we needed when we were getting started and to see your offer from your clients perspective.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Scott Hogue

How many different types of freebie have you tried, Scott?

Are you waiting to see what seems to be the most effective before you create one?

If you’re getting a lot of traffic, then you could create two or three different squeeze pages and then have your autoresponder alternate among them.

Julia,

That is very insightful, and very true! I think sometimes we forget that we were once where our prospects and clients were. When we’ve become competent at certain things, it can be hard to remember what it was like (and what we needed) when we were just starting to learn.

I used a free course many moons ago and I got boat loads of freebie seekers. When I mailed to them my open rates were dismal and my click thru rates would make a grown man cry.

Now I use product launches to build a buyers list. They are much more responsive.

Now in all fairness I haven’t applied the technique’s I learned from Sean’s master class. I have created a master document and I am building my squeeze page and give away out of it. I will try the give away again.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Sean Mize

My personal experience is that a “course” as a giveaway gets a lower optin rate, but a higher buyer rate.

A download gets higher optin rate, but slightly lower buyer rate.

Not enough difference either way to make the decision . . .

I do like a time-delivered course though for keeping folks opening a series of emails (possibly labeled Lesson 1, Lesson 2, and so on )

The KEY is that each lesson much be good enough for people to WANT tomorrow’s lesson so that they will open tomorrow’s email.

Remember – today’s email open rate is influenced by the greatness of yesterday’s email itself 🙂

Sean

1 user thanked author for this post.

Donna Merrill

Scott,

In the near future, I’ll be using a $1 course as an entry point. It will be a real course with multiple audio files. They will need to sign up with a real email address. I don’t know how it will work yet.

Mark

1 user thanked author for this post.

Scott Hogue

Malik,

I’m glad to see you are targeting buyers for subscribers . . . perhaps 80% of my own list are buyers, and I believe that’s one component that makes my business sing 🙂

And of course, all of you!

Loreen, I love your funnel concept!

And want to see you starting to book some consults.

Why not add a live link to your free consult offer, to the signature in your posts here?

I can see a few of my clients taking you up on your offer!

Sean

Why not do a combo – a free course with an immediate, high value download?

Sean

1 user thanked author for this post.

Scott Hogue