How To Use Your Free Gift To Build
Your List

I’m excited to continue on this list building journey with you, because I know what a difference it can make in your business.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve shared a free gift that you can promote on YOUR website to build YOUR list.

If you haven’t yet had a chance to download the free gift, you can still grab a copy.

Once you have your free gift finalized, you are probably wondering what to
do next.

Today, I’m going to share how to use your free gift to build your list.

I’ve created a new video where I explain…

• What to do with your free gift once you have it completed.
• What a squeeze page is and why you need one.
• How you can easily create your own squeeze page without any technical skills.
• Why you don’t need a website in order to build your list.
• How you can easily promote your free gift on IIN websites.

[S3VIDEO file=’how-To-Use-Your-Free-Gift-To-Build-Your-List.m4v’]

What to do with your free gift once you have it completed.

If you have a website, you’ll first want to prominently promote your free gift on your homepage. You will want to have text that clearly states how your free gift will help your audience.

You will want to include an opt-in form, where people can enter their name and email.  In order to do this, you will want to sign up for an email marketing system, such as AWeber or Mailchimp. (These are our two favorite services.) These services will help you manage and email your subscribers.

What is a squeeze page is and why do you need one?

A squeeze page is a web page that has one purpose: to promote your free gift and build your list. It does not contain a navigation menu so there is nowhere else for your visitor to go. It simply provides the information about your free gift and contains the opt-in form.

A squeeze page is different than a homepage because a homepage has navigation and other pages to visit. Sometimes when people visit your website, they may be interested in your free gift but end up distracted by viewing other pages before they get a chance to enter their info into your opt-in form. Squeeze pages have no distraction and therefore increase the likelihood of your visitors entering their information.

While you will most certainly send people to your home page in certain situations, when you are engaging in list building activities, you always want to send people to a squeeze page.

Examples of list building activities:

• Guest blogging. Usually when you write a guest blog for someone, there is a small bio section about you at the bottom of your post. That’s a great place to promote your free gift and link to your squeeze page.
• Speaking engagements. If you’re giving a presentation, this is a great opportunity to promote your free gift and direct people to your squeeze page.
• Social media. As you might have guessed, social media is a great way to get the word out about your free gift and share the link to your squeeze page.

I suggest you create a squeeze page with a custom domain that is easy to remember – something that you can easily say aloud.

Here are two examples of our squeeze pages:
programlaunchblueprint.com
websitesforhealthcoaches.com

How you can easily create your own squeeze page without any technical skills

You don’t need to be a web designer or have technical skills to create beautiful designed squeeze pages. Using a service called LeadPages, you can quickly (meaning in less than an hour), create your own squeeze page.

LeadPages allows you to create a variety of different pages. For example: sales pages, webinar registration pages, and thank-you pages. LeadPages is a true drag and drop editor and it couldn’t be easier to customize your page to look how you want it to look.

I recommend LeadPages, because it will free you from having to hire a web designed to build your pages.  This will save you money and allow you to set-up and edit pages more quickly.

Why you don’t need a website in order to build your list

A lot of people think they need to have a website before they can start building their list, but it’s actually not true. If you don’t have a website yet, don’t worry! LeadPages hosts all of your pages, so you can create your squeeze page and start building your list before you launch a website. It’s never too early to start building your list, so this is a great option if you’re still be in the process of creating a website.

How you can easily promote your free gift on your IIN website

If you went to the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN), the school provides you with a free website. IIN websites are great, but they don’t allow for as much customization as WordPress sites.

If you’re using an IIN website, you might be wondering how you can add your opt-in form to your site. LeadPages has a feature called “Lead Boxes” and it’s a pop-up you can use to promote your free gift.

Most pop-up services only work with WordPress, but LeadPages works with all platforms.

When I mention “pop up” it may conjure up negative feelings about salesy websites, and you may think that you would never want to use a pop up.  I completely understand this, but there are some very friendly ways to use pop ups that are extremely effective for building your list.

One of the least intrusive ways to use pop-ups is to have a pop-up show up when someone is about to leave your website.

Another great way to use a pop-up is by using a delay. LeadPages allows you to set a delay for a specific amount of time before the pop-up displays on your site. I typically recommend you set this up to display 10 – 30 seconds after your visitors land on your website.

Click here to see a demo of the LeadPages pop-up on my demo IIN site.

Note: I have the pop-up set to display immediately after you land on the site. I don’t recommend you set your pop-up up this way, but I set it up this way so it would be easy for you to view the demo.

Now I’d love to hear from you!
What’s been your experience with list building and creating squeeze pages? Have you used any of these services before?  I’d love to hear about your successes, as well as any problems you might have faced.