Email Opt-In Do's And Don'ts (Plus 50 Fantastic Subscriber Freebie Ideas!)

Email opt-in gifts are essential if you want to utilize email marketing to help make sales. However, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed about what to offer and how to design a good email opt-in. Today, I want to simplify everything for you.

Below, you’ll find the FIVE essential things you need to know to create a great email opt-in gift. You’ll also find a list of 50 fantastic, ready-to-go email opt-in ideas to save you the time and trouble of brainstorming. 

Once you’ve decided on an opt-in gift idea, here are the five things you need to know:

1 // Less is more. 

People don’t have time to read, digest, or mull over a big complicated opt-in. If your opt-in is large and overwhelming they’ll save it for “later.” An opt-in that has been “saved for later” isn’t going to get read. 

2 // Make an impact. 

Your opt-in gift needs to accomplish a few things:

• shift the reader’s perspective with a wonderful A-HA that might have taken a long time to discover
• save your new subscriber time, energy, and money
• feel like a lavish and useful gift (think audio meditations, fitness toolkits, printable art, etc.)

When your subscriber opens your opt-in gift, you want her/him to smile and think “Wow! This is so thoughtful!” You also want your new friend to be able to use it right away and get immense pleasure and/or value from it.

3 // Strategize. 

Your opt-in is part of an email marketing sales funnel. Potential clients/customers enter your sales funnel with zero risk by signing up for your opt-in. Then you’ll engage with your subscriber and create a trust-filled relationship over time by sending helpful and friendly emails on a consistent basis. It can take people between 7 and 50 emails to warm up to hiring you. Think of email marketing like dating. You need to be interested, thoughtful, and persistent.

4 // Give a free sample.

Your opt-in gift needs to give your new subscriber a taste of what it’s like to work with you. Think of it like this: Working with you is the whole pizza. Your new subscriber doesn’t know if she/he likes your kind of pizza. So you simply need to offer up a slice. The final page of your opt-in should contain an author bio and a call-to-action that will “funnel” that person to taking another step toward hiring you. Typically, my clients like to include a clickable button to help the subscriber set up a consultation meeting or connect on a favored social media platform where they can engage in conversation and deepen the relationship. 

5 // Write a powerful title. 

Give your opt-in title some persuasive words to help it easily convert a website visitor into a new email subscriber. According to the data collected by the experts at Sumo, there are eight specific words that excite people to take action: NEW, FREE, BECAUSE, YOU, LIMITED, NOW, IMAGINE, and INSTANTLY. 

Next week, I’ll show you how to set-up a non-annoying pop-up on your Squarespace website so you can begin using your new email opt-in freebie as a subscriber invite.

Think you can get your freebie ready to go by then? I know you can! 

See you next week!