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!
[affmage source=”clickbank” results=”10″]internet marketing[/affmage]
[affmage source=”overstock” results=”10″]email marketing[/affmage]
[affmage source=”overstock” results=”10″]internet marketing[/affmage]
[affmage source=”chitika” results=”10″]internet marketing[/affmage]
[affmage source=”linkshare” results=”10″]internet marketing[/affmage]
[affmage source=”cj” results=”10″]internet marketing[/affmage]