You need to build a list. That’s all there is to it. It’s not enough that you’ve built a list, it needs to continue building bigger and bigger. So, aside from somebody buying something, how do you get somebody who doesn’t really know you to get on your list? Well, you’ve got to ask them. Right? You have to have that form that has a place that they can enter their name and email address. So, if you just ask, “Oh hey, can you get on my list just because?” That’s not really going to convert that well. What you need instead is a bribe. You need some kind of a gift that they will take after they sign up for your list. So, to get a bunch of people on a list quickly, have some kind of a bribe.
Now, what kind of a bribe should you have? I’m not much of a fan of reports just because they take a long time to write. So, a report is when we take a word document, you write maybe 5 to 10 pages, you save it as a pdf file, and it solves some kind of a problem. It gives them some kind of information. So, they enter their name and email address and get this report. That’s great except for they take a while to write. So, I prefer to create an audio bribe because you can make them quickly and then circulate them between different forums and communities.
So, have your bribe. Have a page where they come and it tells them what the bribe is, very simply has a headline, and maybe three bullet points, tells them to opt-in, has a form, that’s it. Nothing fancy. It’s a page where there’s nothing for them to do other than enter their name and email address. They enter those things In and then they can get to your gift, but that’s the only possible way they can get to your gift.
For years, when I had this so-called forced opt-in pages, I would chicken out and I would have a link directly to the gift, saying, “Oh well, if you don’t want to opt in, you can get it right here.” But you can’t do that. That is called chickening out. Have a forced opt-in page, a page where the only thing a person can do is enter their name and email address and get their bribe. Then a bribe should be an audio or an interview, but it’s the same thing. An audio recording is just you talking. An interview is where you talk with someone else.
So, how do you create an audio file? I prefer to use Camtasia. Camtasia Studio is a screen-capture program that records video, but you can record a video and then save just the audio. So, it is an all-in-one recording tool. If you want to have an interview, how do you record that? You get on Skype then use a program called Pamela to record your conversation on Skype, and that way, you can record the things that you and someone else say. Just plan to talk for 20 minutes, have four questions thought out in advance, and it will be almost impossible to talk for less than 20 minutes about those questions if you’re having a real conversation and if at least one person in that discussion is an expert. If you’re both experts, that’s great. If only one of you is an expert, then the dummy is the person asking the questions, the expert is the person answering the questions. And then you make these simple audio files, zip up the audio, and then you just have a forced opt-in page, they have to enter their name and email address to get access to this audio interview, and then after they enter that information, then they just get it. It’s as simple as that.
Once you have some of these forced opt-in pages, make them only available to certain forums. Don’t blast them out to everywhere on the internet. Take this one audio recording, which should do around a total of 20 minutes to make and offer it only to a particular forum. Now, does that mean that you will put it in your forum signature or in the forum special offer area? It depends on what everyone else in that forum is doing. But you should be able to do one of those two things, either promote it directly in the forum or put it in your signature file or maybe even buy ad space, but the idea is get the people off that forum to your exclusive bonus. And that is my favorite way of getting opt-in leads and then selling to them on a membership site – is have an audio bribe that is either an audio or an interview and then offer them to individual communities.
Now that you have that prospect list built up, how will you get these people into a membership site? Join www.membershipcube.com to get the answer.