I am going to prelude this post by saying that this is something that the majority of us will not be able to do. It is purely an example of something that I have just seen that makes a whole lot of sense – and I am sure is working very nicely for the internet marketer that is doing it!
I am not sure if you have heard of an internet marketer by the name of Joel Comm.
Who Is Joel Comm?
If you haven’t, then let me start by saying that he is definitely one of the fathers of internet marketing – more specifically ebook marketing.
He has written quite a few ebooks that have sold in the thousands of copies. And I am not just talking $10 ebooks – these are premium 200+ work ebooks that sell for $97!
Multiply $97 by a couple of thousand and work out the kind of business he is running – just from ebooks.
So What Is He Doing?
I literally only just found out (about 30 minutes ago), that he was giving away 4 of his best selling ebooks – absolutely free!
How is that for an ‘Unable To Refuse Bribe‘
We have all seen the internet marketers who have their free offer to bribe you to join their email list and it always has something like ‘Valued at $50′ or similar. But how many has that person actually sold at $50?
What Joel is doing, is giving away products that thousands of people have gladly shelled out almost $100 for and has a whole lot of positive reviews, and is giving it away for free. I don’t know about you, but I jumped at the opportunity (and my guess is that thousands of people have done exactly the same).
Adsense Secrets is the product that Joel got me to subscribe to his list for!
Why Is It So Successful?
This brings me back to the whole point of this post.
The one surefire way to build a massive email list is:
When you are able to give something away, that people are willing to pay for!
Marketing always comes back to value. If you can provide enough value and reach enough people – you will build a massive list.
How Is Joel Profiting From This?
Now Joel is much to savvy to just build a massive list for nothing, so I was extremely interested to see how he was going to market to this list – and he straight away didn’t disappoint.
right after submitting my details I was sent to the following page promoting ‘The Secret Classroom’: (Affiliate Link)
‘The Secret Classroom is about 22 hours of some of the biggest names in internet marketing sharing their tips- without any upsell! (And it sells for $47.
Now I thought, that is pretty creative. Before I even confirm my subscription to his list and receive his free product – he is offering me the opportunity to purchase one of his more recent products.
Even if he just stopped there, I would have been impressed and I am sure he would have made quite a nice sum of money. But he did more.
The Free Download Page:
There are a couple of key things that I love about this free download page.
- Focus Is On The Upsell!
Notice how the free download isn’t the main point on the page? People are expecting the download link, so instead of making it prominent, Joel decided to make a ‘limited time offer’ to try for an upsell. - Multiple Opportunities To Profit
The ‘Limited Time Offer’ isn’t the only thing that Joel has on offer. Underneath you will also find a list of ‘Recommended Resources’ that Joel also has on offer. And is another chance for him to profit from a free download subscriber. - Download Is Visible But Not Prominent
While you do not want the focus to be on the download link. You also do not want to make it hard for subscribers to find. Joel’s placement is perfect in the sidebar – just out of the way to not take away from the upsell, but easy enough to find within a few seconds.
How Can I Copy?
So I guess the main question everyone is going to have is,
How can I copy this success for my own list?
This is definitely a tough question to answer, because a lot of us do not have paid products that we can give away for free – and even if we did, we probably wouldn’t want to give them away.
So, how can we mimic Joels success for our own list?
Add Value
The only reason people will subscribe to your list is if you are providing something that they see as valuable.
If you don’t have a paid product to give away – make sure that it is a pretty fantastic free resource that you have created!
BONUS – Profit From You Free Offer
While this post was written specifically for the way Joel used incredible value to build his list fast, I think we can also learn from his subscriber followup process.
Before his subscribers even download his free product, they have already been offered 2 great product offers – that will be making him money.
Why not apply something similar to your email subscriber follow up process?
If you are just getting started in list building make sure you grab these Free Squeeze Pages!
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey Tom,
Everything in this post is one of the first things I learned about list building. Give away your best content for free to build your list… making multiple offers of products that compliment yours and so on. One Easy Step? Well… In the grand scheme of life, it’s super easy…
You asked “How Can I Copy?”
This is exactly what we’re doing (in a nutshell)
We created a fantastic product (5 eBook system) and are giving it away for free. Our system teaches MLMers how to create an eBusiness to support ther MLM Business… (It’s actually a huge market.)
In about 8-10 months down the road; we plan on launching a paid video course…. Our list we are building now is giong to serve a couple of purposes…
1. We are going to give away our paid video course away in a givaway to a few of our loyal subscribers and heavily promote that on our blog… We will give away our paid video course and stay in close contact with our subscribers who get the system… Walk them through it… In turn, we’ll ask them for testimonials, and it will create a buzz and our lists will grow. (also they will help us revamp and edit anything that needs it)
2. We’ll give our list the opportunity to buy our paid course at a massively discounted price and the chance to become affiliates. We’ll have them promote everything on their blogs and such to get a huge buzz going and continue with the give aways of the paid product.
3. We’ll give our affiliates the opportunity to do a special pre-launch of our paid video course to their members for a discounted price for X amount of days or give their members a discount for signing up through their sites… Then we’ll go live and set up a certain amount of time that we are going to sell the course (example: for 2 weeks or X amount of people)…
4. We’ll then revamp our course… and relaunch it all over again in the same manner…
5. Through this whole process we are actively searching for affiliates whose products go along with what we are doing so we can make them part of our offer as well.
We’ll be incorperating everything you talk about in this post… It’s not an overnight process, but as you pointed out… It’s proven to work… Thanks for spelling it out with the example, I’m going to download the Adsense book right now….
.-= BrianJUY´s last blog ..Blogger, TypePad & WordPress Review… Part 1 of 4 =-.
Thanks for such a detailed comment Brian! I love your strategy and I am sure that it will work out fantastically for you! I am currently looking at ways that I can mimic the strategy that I have listed – because their is so much value in it.
Looking forward to following you as the process unfolds with your list.
My list building efforts have never been great, moreover I always run out of backend products and always hopping markets. I guess that don’t drive me enough to put extra time on quality list-buiding.
But your article has inspired me again to take a plunge at List building. I’m going to do them for my current websites.. right away.
So long I’ve also tried Bulk mailing with not much success for my ebooks. But I guess it works best with every other market apart from ebooks.
Recently I came across this site, if you could give me green signal I would go ahead and buy this email database.
it’s http://www.bulkmailingGladiator2010.com
Can this actually make a difference in my business?
Thanks again for sharing.
This basically describes what I am doing with my blog now: offering a short free ebook in exchange for subscribers to my list. So far it has been working out pretty well for me. But I just started yesterday so I have to see how it unfolds over the next couples of weeks.
Good advice!
.-= Steven | The Emotion Machine´s last blog ..My First Free Ebook On Mental Health And Energy =-.
Great list building advice! It hurts to think of giving away your best for free, but sometimes you’ve got to look at the bigger picture.
.-= Kiesha @ Highly Favored – Christian Inspiration Blog´s last blog ..We are God’s masterpiece =-.
this reminds me of the principle…give and it shall be given unto you..a variation of ask and it shall be given unto you…giving first is the best way to get..it builds a kind of reciprocity…
.-= mk akan´s last blog ..HOW THE BIGGEST PROBLEM ON THE INTERNET CAN MAKE YOU RICH =-.
Hi Tom,
As usual, nice advice! Yes, this is a way to build your list. As BrianJuy said, it’s one of the well known ways to build a list.
However, we are real estate investors. So, we don’t want to give a house away for free LOL.
But, believe it or not, this morning at the breakfast table, we were talking about writing an e-book. We are well seasoned investors (in business since 1989). We have lots to share with investors and with potential buyers. Besides the fact that giving freebies builds lists, it also benefits the whole community when the contents are of value.
So, I thank you for reinforcing our idea and bringing us back to the basics.
Enjoy your evening!
Nadia
.-= Nadia´s last blog ..Invest in Real Estate?!… =-.