Anyone running an online service business, whether a freelancer, an online business manager, or a virtual assistant, needs a free offer. If you do not have a free offer, this article will help you. You may have struggled to figure it out, so I will share five steps to develop your free offer.
Why Do You Need A Free Offer
As a business coach, I am asked this question often. I believe it is part of your marketing strategy at the top of your funnel to feed it, so you have leads. You need a free offer to gather email information from your prospective audience. This creates a warm audience of email addresses. It is a warm audience because they were interested in the solution you gave them (ie, your free offer).
Making the free offer something appealing to your audience type is crucial. Once you know your audience, this will help you discover the questions they are asking. This should open doors for you to speak to those in your audience. Potentially, these may be new clients in the future.
First Step: Website
The first step, in my opinion, is to make your website. You must have somewhere to house (or host) your free offer once you are ready for people to download it. If you do not have a website, you won’t be able to gather email addresses to add to lists on the email marketing platform. This is another essential in marketing your services.
One reason you need to develop your free offer is to help your audience. Your free offer helps you attract and develop leads or prospective clients. You are inviting them into one of your marketing funnels (free opt-in).
One of the main reasons is that you want to entice them (your audience) to sign up for your free offer in exchange for an email address.
This is the beginning of your email marketing funnel.
Second Step: Consider Your Audience’s Questions
You want to help your audience, and this is why step two is to consider your audience’s questions. You cannot help your audience if you do not know who they are. Your free offer or opt-in should address one or more questions your main audience asks, or provide a solution to one of their problems.
There are two key reasons for this: your audience needs to…
- Want to exchange their email address for your free offer.
- Feel as if you are providing a key answer to their questions, or providing a solution to something they are struggling with in their business.
Therefore, consider your audience’s nagging questions. What are they struggling with right now that you can help them with tomorrow? What tips or how-tos can you give them to help them in this moment? You will not provide them with complete solutions, but it should be a start, so they stay tuned and intrigued to stay on your list.
Example: Let’s say you are a digital marketing specialist; you want to offer a free 30-minute strategy call as your free offer. This is appealing to too broad an audience, so you niche it down to your specific audience.
You word it in a way that says something similar to this: “a free 30-minute social media analysis and strategy session for online service providers.” This should attract a specific audience (online service providers), and it also provides help to a specific need (social media).
“According to a Zendesk report, 68 percent of consumers expect all experiences to be personalized. But how can you achieve that if you don’t know who you’re catering to?”
harvard business school
Knowing who your audience is crucial before creating your free opt-in offer.
A great tool to help you determine and hone in on your audience, try my Fearless Storyboard.
In creating your storyboard, you will plan out your ‘avatars’ pain points, solutions, arguments, and much more. Download yours today.
Third Step: What Type of Free Offer To Develop
In step three, we will consider the different types of free offers you could develop. As we discussed, you must consider your audience, their questions, and what they need. Then, consider what you can provide for free that has value for them? It should relate to one of their pain points.
Types of Free Offers
There are so many types of free offers that I cannot list them all here. I will, however, review some of those for you.
“Your free offer should be based on your knowledge of the topic and is also aligned with the service(s) you provide.” –Fearless Business Boss
All of these, except blogs and newsletters, should be in a downloadable PDF format. I should also mention that if it is a workbook or form, make it fillable (this is an extra step).
Types of Free Offers: (All should be geared to your potential client’s needs or pain points.)
- Blog sign up
- Checklists
- Consultations
- Courses (via video recording)
- eBook
- Free Session/Strategy Meeting
- Guide
- MP3 Audio Course or Podcast Course
- Newsletter sign up
- Planner
- Self-Coaching eCourse
Sometimes, doing a good brain dump can help you sort through the different free offers that will work best for you. Many people use multiple free offers, creating multiple marketing funnels for lead generation opportunities.
When you decide on the type of free offer, try to not only address their questions, but also to offer valuable tips or content. If they like the information you provide, they will return to your website.
Fourth Step: Decide On Your Free Offer
Our fourth step, after considering a variety of types of free offers, is to finally decide on the offer you will provide. You may be able to produce any number of these; however, really consider your audience and needs, as well as the questions they have asked about.
A good way to find out is to do a poll asking your audience which free offer would help them most. This can help you see what the majority needs most. You should, however, be specific. In other words, don’t simply have one answer be ‘checklists’, but rather a ‘getting started with social media checklist’ (continuing the digital marketer theme). Design your poll with specific names of each free offer you think you can provide, and then see what the votes come out to, and make that your free offer.
There is no better way to create an offer that resonates with your potential clients.
Fifth Step: Create Your Free Offer
Step five is to create your free offer. Now that you’ve decided what type of offer you will develop, you can create the free offer.
Several ways to do this are not expensive and are easy.
What you may need before getting started:
- A Web Form – a form on your website that coordinates with your email marketing systems.
- An email marketing system – you should sign up for an email marketing system so it can be connected to your website form.
- A design element – make your PDF or guide, whatever, you want to create with some nice design elements. Most online service providers use the Canva software as they have thousands of designs and formats ready to go.
- A calendar scheduling app – this will help you if you offer meetings, so that they can see your availability and schedule the meeting according to it.
You can simply create a checklist in a Word or Google document and turn it into a PDF, and lastly, make it fillable so they can check off items on the list. I suggest creating some design elements with it and highly recommend using Canva and choosing one of their designs that fits with your brand (remember you can change most colors on the form).
If you decide to have a free meeting, this doesn’t mean that you don’t need these things. You will still need a sign-up form as well as a calendar scheduling app and an email marketing system. You should make sure you have all of your processes and systems in place.
Sixth Step: Create Your Form and Connect Your Email Marketing
You will next add your free offer to your website. Once you do this, you must create a form and connect your email marketing system to your website. Then connect the form on your website to your email marketing system.
For many service providers, this step often scares them and keeps them from developing their free offer. You need not fear this, however, because the systems involved have become much more user-friendly.
One of the first steps to doing this is to name the list in your email marketing system (usually by the free offer name & type). Then you can connect the list type to your website and either create the form in the email system or within your website (for WordPress, you will most likely need to use a plugin) to accomplish this. By connecting your email marketing system to your website form your audience now has access to your free offer, and you can now begin collecting warm leads to send emails to regularly.
Seventh Step: Market Your Free Offer
As the last and seventh step, let’s discuss marketing your free offer. You need to create a good graphic of the offer and share it on social media regularly (even use scheduling tools so that you do not forget). If you also do paid ads, you need to add your free offer to the ads you create.
In any marketing you perform, you will want to add the free offer as part of your content. This may include your blogs, social media, and on website. Put a section with the free offer within the blog if it makes sense with the content you are writing; otherwise, offer it at the end.
Remember to create a way to offer your free opt-in to your audiences on a regular, continuing basis.
Final Thoughts
Creating your free offer does not have to be overwhelming. Easy for me to say, I know, but don’t be afraid to ask a mentor or coach for help, as it will get you there quicker. There are also videos out on the topic. I offer a masterclass on the topic occasionally as well, so keep your eyes open for those offers as well.
If you want one-on-one help, take a look at my new Quick Wins Coaching Experiences that offer very affordable one-day, two-day, or three-day opportunities to get help from me.
Tammy is an award-winning business coach who loves empowering women online service providers to grow a business that fits their lifestyle, rather than squeeze a life around their business. Tammy does this through her Mastermind Group Coaching and 1-on-1 Coaching Opportunities.