Internet Income

Step 3: Give Something Away


Step 3: Give Something Away


Basic Concepts


Your next step is to create what is often called an IFO, or Irresistable Free Offer.



The IFO is a critcal step in your online success. It’s where you first grab the attention of your visitors and turn them into fans of your work – from cold leads into warm leads.


The IFO makes a promised to the visitor. It says, “If you grab my free gift (and get onto my mailing list), I’ll give you a special taste of my work that you’re going to love… and you can decide if you want to take another step.”


  • It’s where you make your first impression.
  • It’s the beginning of your long-term, profitable relationship.
  • It’s where you begin to establish trust.



So many entrepreneurs under-estimate the imporatnce of this step and make one of these common mistakes when setting up their IFOs:

  1. They offer a sample chaper or some other existing material excerpted from another product – something that makes it easy for the author — instead of carefully crafting give the visitor exactly the right impression.
  2. They make the free gift into a sales brochure, without giving the visitor anyting of value. The visitor jus goes away feeling they got the “bait and switch” and scammed into joining your list.
  3. They give too much value in the IFO and don’t leave the visitor wanting to know more.



Your free gift should be so good, you want everyone you talk to to get one before they do anything else.

Step 3: Give Something Away


Best Practices

The four most common types of free gifts are…

  1. A PDF (ebook) download.
  2. A 15-20 minute audio experience (meditation, visualization, master-class, etc.).
  3. A 7-15 minute video.
  4. An email drip sequence (e.g., 5 tips over 5 days).

Make sure your free gift offer is not something people can find online on a public website, such as Youtube or your own website. Your free gift should be exclusive and not publicly available — otherwise, why should people give you their email address to get it, when they can get it free somewhere else? Doesn’t make sense, right?

Our best practices show that you should never give away a sample from a book or program that you are trying to get your audience to purchase. The sample you choose may not appeal to everyone, thus risking the possibility of losing some people just because they didn’t like that particular part of your work.

Also, giving a sample from a product removes all the mystery associated with the product…and ends up defeating the purpose.

Trust us…don’t use a sample from your product as your freebie.

Always make sure your freebie is well produced to give the maximum impression to your audience. If your free gift audio has feedback or noise, it will turn off your audience. If your ebook looks like a highschool project without professional formatting or design, then it just looks like you’re an amateur.

Go the extra mile and get professional production for your free gift.

You will definitely want to have a webinar somewhere in your sales funnel. Webinars are proven ways to educate your audience and turn them into buyers. But your recorded webinars also make great freebie optin offers. You can offer them in evergreen style (always available) or air them in specific intervals, such as every Thursday or Saturday.

You may be able to identify different target markets, or niche markets, for your product or service. For example, you might have a financial program that applies to those in debt, but also anyone feeling the stress of money in general.

In this case, you should consider creating TWO freebie offers — one for each target audience. You might have a “Get Out of Debt” ebook for one market and a “Relax and Enjoy Wealth” webinar for the other market.

Having multiple free gift offers is also beneficial for your JV program, as it gives your partners more things to promote — as well as the ability to choose the freebie that is best for their particular audience. Don’t force your Joint Venture partners into doing things your way only!

Your free gift must always include a promotional message at the end. Don’t make the mistake of creating a free gift that forgets to promote you. Don’t be shy. Tell people about your work at the end of the free content you just gave them. You earned the right to promote just a little.



More Best Practices tips and ideas will be added,
so be sure to return to get the latest!

Step 3: Give Something Away


Helpful Resources

Joint Venture CO-OP

List Building Network

Accelerate your list building efforts using the Joint Venture CO-OP. It’s a network of like-minded entrepreneurs who build their business by cross promotions and joint ventures. And it’s all accelerated by the CO-OP’s unique approach. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to start building your list and your business.

click for more info

Mini-eBook Publishing

The Perfect IFO

MIni-eBooks make the perfect Irresistible Free Offers. They give great content, while always maintaining your image and prestige. But they also leave the reader wanting to know more. Check out the mini-ebook production and publishing opportunities from the Condensified publishing program.

click for more info

Get Ready for Online Success

Coaching Package

This startup coaching package is especially designed for those needing help with their product strategy, brand distinction and free gift optin strategy. It’s a reasonably priced coaching package that gets you started in online product marketing with live 1-on-1 mentoring.

click for more info

Mailchimp provides optin forms for capturing people’s email addresses for your optin gift. It also lets you send emails out to your mailing list in a simple, bulk mail effort.

LeadPages gives you several optin page templates for your free gift offer. Just be aware that they don’t help you drive any traffic to the page — that’s still up to you.

Step 3: Give Something Away


Live Examples

Emotional Alchemy

Free Mini-eBook

This optin offer is a perfect example of how to use a free mini-ebook to WOW your audience and engage them in your message. Optin to this offer to follow all the steps in the process and to see the mini-ebook  and how it delivers just enough information.

click to get it

Cafe of Dreams

Multi-Media Mini-eBook

If your work lends itself to video or audio, then take a look at this multi-media mini-ebook gift and decide if it would work for your free gift offer.

click to get it

How Old Is Your Soul?

Online Quiz

Online quizzes can be the most engaging freebies around, and this one is one of our highest converting optins of all time. However, you have to be careful that you design the quiz to give real value, or people will sense that you are just setting them up.

take the quiz

Frequency Activation

Audio and PDFs

Here’s a great example of an audio gift. It’s an example of Victor’s frequency activation and he offers many more beyond this one. By giving people a taste of his work, they become interested in knowing what else he offers.

get this audio gift example

5 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make

Email Drip Sequence

This free gift offers 5 informative emails over 5 days in an automatic drip sequence. This is a good example of how you can break up your free gift content into a daily drip. Check this out, not only for the example of an email drip, but also for the content!

get this email drip example

Step 3: Give Something Away


Exercises

Test Your IFO Against These…

Before you create your free gift — run it through these four points and see how it stacks up. Rank your idea on a scale from 1 to 5 for each of these four.

Your free gift offer MUST…

  1. Interest and engage people and make them WANT to get the gift.
  2. It must deliver some value, so people feel they got what they were promised.
  3. It must NOT deliver too much, so people are left wanting to know more.
  4. It must leave them wanting more of the right thing – moving them toward your next solution or offer.

If your gift does not hit 3 or better on ALL FOUR of those point, then it’s probably not the best one to use.

The How Test

Go through your free gift idea and look to see if it tells people HOW to do what you are suggesting. If so, then bag it and start over. Your free gift should tell people WHY they should do something and WHAT they should do, but not HOW to do it. That’s what your upsell program is going to teach them.

Step 3: Give Something Away


Comments