Comes a question from a long-time reader, Shakoor Chowdhury, about list building:
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OPINION: Free Offers are dead with how saturated and “information bloated” someone is, it’s like offering someone who is full of french fries and big macs another “free big mac”; sure he’ll take it but that’s the last you’ll see of him
+ I’ve noticed even on a GOOD DAY, with lead costs at less than 30 US cents, and 7% Link CTR, my email open rates are NEVER higher than 30%
VS: someone who buys a low ticket offer
I kind of haphazardly published my first book on amazon,
I’m not sure HOW, but this guy found it, bought it, messaged me on Telegram, followed me on instagram, and reads every single one of my emails…
any thoughts on this?
My sample size is too small to make any DEFINITIVE prediction, but it seems to me that I’ll be switching PERMANENTLY away from “free lead magnets” to low ticket PAID offers for listbuilding
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Shakoor’s food analogy is actually a good way to think about this.
If you’re stuffed with french fries and big macs, would you accept and eat another free big mac?
You might, or you might not.
But by the same token, would you accept and eat an extra big mac if you had to pay $1.99 for it?
You might, or you might not.
On the other hand, what if you were offered free ice cream… or a free beer… or better yet, a tour of 4 local microbreweries, which normally costs $200, where you get to be educated and entertained by the brewers, and you get to sample their beers, all for free?
Again, depending on your tastes, and the kind of guy or gal you are, you might accept or you might not.
In case you’re wondering what I’m getting at:
Free and low-ticket are both as old as the art of fishing. Neither method will be going away while humans continue to fish, or for that matter, to do business.
The way I see it, it’s not about price. It’s about perceived value.
Low-priced lead magnets force the prospect to put some value on what you’re offering, because it’s baked into the offer.
But zero-cost lead magnets don’t have to have zero perceived value. Free lead magnets can have great perceived value, if you take the time and trouble to make it so.
Which brings me to another of the unsung benefits of daily emails.
Daily emails increase the perceived value of your offers.
Because anybody can print out a price tag, stick it on the side of a cardboard box, and yell once or twice about how there’s $1,000 worth of value inside.
And yes — this will have some effect. It will make the cardboard box, and whatever is inside it, more valuable than a box without a price tag. It will make it easier to give it away for free, or even to charge a few dollars for it.
BUT.
Take the time over and over to reiterate the value of the stuff in the box… to highlight the attractive things inside… to explain how they can benefit the prospect… to quantify those benefits in as many ways as you can… to bring up previous buyers and their success stories and endorsements… to repeat and justify the price… and do this day after day, repeating your message until both the desire and the credibility pile up via simple persistence…
… and the perceived value of your cardboard box, and what’s in it, doesn’t just rise to a few dollars. Or even to a thousand dollars.
The perceived value can go to many thousands of dollars, so people happily give you $1k for your cardboard box, and feel like they are getting a steal in the process.
And if you ever decide to give that box away for free… suddenly there’s a stampede.
That is what happens when you send an interesting and yet self-promotional email every day.
And on that note:
I have a service that helps you you send daily emails consistently, called Daily Email Habit. Shakoor, who wrote the question above, actually subscribes to Daily Email Habit. He had this to say about it:
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Daily Email Habit is the best thing I ever purchased PERIOD.
It really gets past the first hurdle of “what to write”…
And I love the accountability that comes with it.
While snapchat uses “streaks” for pointless time-wasting, you actually used gamification for something awesome and beneficial
I’m starting to enjoy the habit of daily writing. And, I write more for MYSELF these days than my subscribers.
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If you would like my help consistently writing daily emails, so you can increase the perceived value of your offers, free or paid: