One of the axioms of Internet marketing is that “the money is in the list“. Gathering a list of potential customers and contacting them on a regular basis is a tried-and-true method for generating sales. That’s why building a mailing list is so important.
The standard way to build a list is via a squeeze page. At its simplest, a squeeze page is just a web page with some text and a subscription form. The text entices visitors to enter their name and email address in order to gain access to a newsletter, course, or some other free offering.
Building a squeeze page is not hard for the typical geek, of course: it’s just HTML, after all, and there’s no fancy coding required — and the geek literally just paste sin the subscription form provided by the mailing list provider (geeks may be tempted to manage mailing lists on their own, but it’s not a wise use of their time). No, creating the page isn’t the hard part, it’s what’s on the page that’s hard.
Imagine someone approaching you on the street and asking for your name and phone number. Would you give it to them? Unlikely unless they do something to build some trust and you feel you’re going to benefit from revealing your personal information to a third party. And yet, that’s exactly what a squeeze page is doing — asking someone for personal information (be sure to have an explicit privacy policy, by the way) in exchange for…
For what, exactly? No one’s going to sign up for your list unless they’re getting back in return. The geek knows this, of course, and so they’ll list all the benefits of joining the list right there on the squeeze page. “This course will teach you…“, “Learn about…“, “Become a better…” are typical ways of expressing how a visitor will benefit from joining the list. (The key word here being benefits, of course, and not features — something not all geeks realize.)
Here’s the real squeeze page secret, though. Forget about listing the benefits of joining your list, it’s almost irrelevant. Instead, offer a freebie download — an “ethical bribe” so to speak — and promote its benefits. Make joining your list (which still needs to be mentioned somewhere) a side benefit, but not the focus of the squeeze page. The squeeze page is all about the freebie.
Why a freebie? Because it’s immediate gratification. Because it feels like they get more from giving up precious personal information. Because it gives you opportunities for further selling (embedded links in documents, banners in software, etc.). Because it works.
As a geek you can easily create your own freebies, too. If you like to write, create a special report. Or a video. Or, and this is something that really only the geeks can do, write some software to give away.
That’s the squeeze page secret: give them a freebie. It’s amazing what people will do to get something for free — giving a name and email address doesn’t seem that hard when they’re getting an ebook or software in return. Professional Internet marketers know this — and now so do you.
Technorati Tags: Internet marketing, squeeze page, freebies, gifts, mailing list
