Have you ever thought you’ve finished a job, but it keeps reappearing in your in-box?
Five months ago I designed the inside pages of a free offer for my client, Jean, but I owed her a 3-D cover design.When I asked if she still wanted her 3-D cover, Jean told me she didn’t know why she needed one, or what a 3-D cover was.
Her response came as a surprise because when Jean hired me in late December to design her free offer, she had a WordPress site up and running. Five months later, she had not launched her site, nor did she have a way for people to access her free, valuable information.
It then occurred to me she had fallen into the same trap as many new business owners. Someone tells them to get a WordPress site because it’s free, and good for a start-up business, but doesn’t tell them why. Inevitably their site stagnates and they miss opportunities a business online brings.
Why WordPress is Good For a Start-up Business
Yes. It’s a free download, but that’s not why it’s good for start-ups. WordPress began as a blogging platform. Active blogs — those in which new content is added on a regular basis — rank well in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! because search engines search for new content.
What makes WordPress good for business start-ups is:
- WordPress makes it easy to add new content, and
- sites that are actively updated draw interested prospects to you.
…But You Need More Than WordPress
You also need a way to capture the names and email addresses of people who are interested in your product or service. If you don’t have this ability, you have a “brochure” type website. Brochure type websites might look fabulous, and have lots of bells and whistles, but it’s like having a retail store that’s full of product without a sales clerk — and the doors are always locked.
Unlock The Doors and Get Good Cheap Help
Start up businesses like Jean’s need to let tell as many people as possible, what her business does. Like all business owners Jean constantly needs to sell herself and sell her product, plus communicate and engage with people who want what she has to offer. Hard as we business owners try, we can’t do everything.
WordPress makes it easy to communicate, but you still need to build your list of interested prospects. That’s where good cheap help comes in — it’s called an email autoresponder.
Email autoresponders capture the name and email addresses of people who enter them in the opt-in box on your website. Autoresponders work 24-7 by collecting names and addresses of interested prospects, and store them for you. Having a database of names and email addresses allows you to continue communicating with people who are already interested in you, and your product. You can also use this same database to roll out new products and special offers to the very same people who are most likely to buy.
The most popular email autoresponders for startup businesses are MailChimp, AWeber, and ConstantContact. FYI: I’m with AWeber because it’s important for me to be able to phone customer service and speak with someone when I have a question.
Free to Fee
Today people want a “free taste” before they buy. That’s where a graphic designer can be your most valuable resource, and that’s why Jean hired me. She had great content, but it looked boring. I took her long, drawn out text and turned it into digestible bits by adding big headlines, subheads and carefully selected bolded words to make her content engaging and fun to read.
Why all the fuss? Because you really do want people to “consume” and find value in your free product. You want them think, “If her free stuff is this good, her paid stuff is definitely worth the asking price!”
Why A 3-D Cover Graphic Is Important
The reason for making a 2-D cover graphic 3-D is because it’s eye catching and gives your ebook or MP3 instant credibility. People only give out their name and email address to a source they like and trust. Your Free Taste is not really Free because you’re getting a lot in return: the opportunity to build a relationship and a potential customer.
TIP: A captivating title helps a lot, too.
Jean’s 3-D graphic is not yet done, but here are some examples of free offers I designed recently:
If you don’t yet have a free offer that provides value to your potential clients, start one today.
My ‘right-out-of college’ years in New York City at Glamour, Mademoiselle and Weight Watcher’s magazines gave me great experience writing and editing, which benefits all my clients.
Call today to book your Irresistible Free Offer — inside and out. I look forward to hearing from you.
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