An opt-in is a valuable solution or benefit that you give to a prospective client in exchange for their contact information.
What is an opt in offer? You may also hear the words ‘freebie’, ‘opt-in gift’, ‘buzz piece’, ‘lead gen offer’, ‘squeeze page’, ‘ethical bribe’, or similar terms to describe an opt-in. Whatever you call it, an effective opt-in is designed to evoke trust and encourage your audience to exchange their information, usually their name and email address, for the offer.
A properly designed opt-in can convert relevant prospects into subscribers, leads, and then eventually into clients. The goal of your opt-in is to bring people into your sales funnel so that you can begin to get cases from them.
To accomplish this, your opt-in needs to be much more than a freebie. It must be a truly valuable offer that acts as a magnet to pull in your ideal target client.
The Ideal Opt-in Offers will:
- Demonstrate Your Value – An exceptional opt-in will show how valuable your services are, which will help build trust.
- Position You as An Authority – When someone uses your opt-in successfully, they will start seeing you as someone who knows what they’re doing.
- Build a High-Quality Email List – If your opt-in is laser-focused on only your target audience you’ll build a list full of people who need what you offer instead of people who just want free things.
Key Parts of the Opt-in Offers Funnel
While I am going to be focusing primarily on the actual opt-in in this blog post, it’s important to understand how it fits into a basic sales funnel.
There are several components to this funnel:
Ø Traffic Source – Where will your traffic come from for the opt-in? Social media, blog posts, articles, emails, and pay-per-click ads are a few potential sources.
Ø Opt-In Page – This is the page where you ask for an email address, and possibly other information, in exchange for your opt-in. It explains the benefits of the opt-in and offers a form to fill out to be able to obtain their gift. You’ll also hear this page referred to as a ‘squeeze page’ or landing page.
Ø Autoresponder Series – The opt-in page form submission triggers an automatic email series to the subscriber. Most people will have their autoresponder service first send a confirmation email in which the subscriber must click a link to confirm they want the opt-in. The autoresponder will then send the emails you have pre-written, in the order and schedule you’ve set. It should start with a welcome email that sends people their gift.
This system also confirms that the person gave you a valid email address.
Examples of Types of Opt-in Offers
- EBooks
- Free Templates
- Free Consultations
- Free Webinar
Now that you know what an opt-in is, give some thought to your services and how you can create an effective opt-in that would attract attorneys. This could involve using something you already have or creating something new to offer in exchange for an email.
Action Steps
- Identify opt-ins that exist.
- Decide which kind of opt-ins you like most. Why?
- Think of your audience and which types of opt-ins they like most. For example, what currently gets the most attention now on your blog or social media networks?
Think about some opt-ins you’ve signed up for recently from people in your niche:
- Which ones did you like the most and why?
- Which ones did you use? Why?
- Which ones did you not like? Why?
Look through your Facebook newsfeed and look for sponsored ads for freebies. Which ones stand out and look enticing to you? Why?
Start with the End in Mind: Define Your Goal
To create an effective opt-in, it’s important to know what your goal is for those email addresses that you’ll collect. Some potential goals for creating an opt-in are general list building, service promotion, relationship building, and reputation building.
Defining a specific goal is critical so that you don’t just generate leads, but so that you generate targeted leads who are hungry for your products and services.
Let’s take a look now at 3 different types of goals for opt-ins and what a relevant opt-in might be.
General List Building
If your business is relatively new, you may not have a specific goal right now other than to start building a relevant list of leads for your business. To capture email addresses for these leads, you can market through social media channels, message boards, blog posts (guest and on your own blog), and more. However, you still need to have a very good idea of who your ideal market is. Then you’ll need to create content that will attract them.
When seeking to capture prospects who you can nurture into future clients, you’ll need to target your audience in multiple channels using an opt-in that is both specific to what you’ll eventually be promoting, as well as useful to your ideal audience.
Ø Example: If you’re just trying to build your list in general, you could use social media to distribute a survey asking the audience two or three questions. For thanks, you could offer a guide that provides a list of your favorite resources for doing ‘X’ (with ‘X’ being something your target market is eager to achieve.).
Sales Generation for Services
When seeking to build a list to promote services you also need to be clear about promoting a specific service. Consider providing a template, a consultation, or an assessment to gain prospects or leads. In this case, the goal is likely to build appointment requests so that you can move the lead toward being a client.
Turning Leads into Clients
Once you know what your goal is, it will be much easier to determine the ideal opt-in. However, the ultimate goal will always be to turn a lead into a client.
A well-made opt-in serves two functions.
Gives Leads a Sample — When people see your opt-in, they should feel thankful for receiving it. More importantly, they need to get a good idea of what they can expect from you in the future from any products or services you offer. You will deliver value so high that they’ll be wowed and more than satisfied with the prospect of how you can help them with their cases.
Builds Relationships – Your opt-in will trigger the start of your follow-up email series. This email series must be directly relevant to the opt-in itself and should start building your relationships with leads. The perfect opt-in is designed at the same time as your follow-up email series so that the two work together to provide value. Ideally, your email series will ensure that subscribers are getting the value and results that you promised to them.
Action Steps
Determine whether you have a product or service to promote right now.
Determine whether you want to build your list in general or promote a specific service.
Think about your business. In planning an opt-in offer, what is your goal or purpose?
Interested in learning more about opt-ins and how to use them? Grab my book, Creating Irresistible LNC Opt-in Offers is part of my Creating a Successful LNC Practice Series books.
Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs in obtaining more clients, making more money, and achieving their business goals and dreams.
Pat’s related websites include the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts broadcast at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.
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