So, now let’s get in to the five steps of selling with social media. Step 1 is to create a free sample or special gift. OK. Here’s what’s kind of tricky that we’re doing today. We’re really selling just by giving away great free content because something that’s unique about social media, you can’t just like stick a link up to your sales page. You cannot stick a link up to the product page on your e-commerce site and just say, “Buy this”. I actually get those pitches sometimes on Twitter where maybe I’ll ask about a resource for something else.
No one is going to pass around a straight up sales pitch. It’s not compelling to other people. So what we’re going to do instead is give them something that they will want to pass around. So the first step is to craft your freebie opt-in. This is something that’s talked a lot about in info products. But I really want to emphasize that this does not just apply to info products at all. This applies to all different sorts of retail businesses, service businesses; whatever it is that you do. This is just a way to give people a little sample. So, some examples of what you could do would be you could give some sort of checklist that people can use.
You could actually just offer a 15-minute consult of your time if you’re a service provider. You can give people a spreadsheet they can fill in. You can give them some sort of video training or e-mail training or a top ten list. You’ll notice that I have things on here like checklist and spreadsheet. That’s because people like things that are really, really quick tips that they can go out and use today. So, a resource likes a checklist that they can go down the list or spreadsheet that can track their finances; maybe if you’re a bookkeeper they can start implementing today. That’s actually much more valuable than some sort of 80-page e-book or 20 hour video series. A lot of people really go overboard with the content here. And you want to focus much more on something that people can go out and use immediately than impressing people with pages and pages that they’re never ever going to read.
So you might have to get a little creative here on what it is that you offer. But let’s say that you are a bookkeeper like I just said. So the opt in could be a checklist of the tax deductions that most people miss. Of course, 15-minute consult is one that applies to you. You can give a spreadsheet tracking, expenses in the different categories; you could create a video where you’re teaching people how to use QuickBooks or where you’re teaching people how to easily organize their finance; maybe a little system that you have for how to organize receipts. You could also put that same information in the form of an email or top ten ... for bookkeeper it could Top Ten Mistakes that are Losing People Money or something like that, something that people would be interested in relating to your area of expertise.
And then once you’ve figured out what that freebie is, you’re going to go thru a three page sequence and I’m going to show you exactly what those pages are that I use in my own social media selling process. So I think this will make more sense if I actually go thru the three pages.
In this case, if I have a video about how to use Twitter in ten minutes, maybe I could give a video going thru the first five minutes, and then I can say, you know, for the last five minutes, opt in for the next video. Or what I’ve done in this case is I just made a video of me describing what you’re going to get when you opt in; telling people the outcome, telling people why they want this. You’ll notice that this is not a very fancy setup. You know, I don’t have a very pretty background. It’s just my home office where I’m actually sitting right now. You can tell that this is ... you know, the lighting’s not great. I just actually made this with the camera on my built-in MacBook Pro. So don’t worry if you don’t have a fancy video setup. Videos are really great tool for getting people to opt in. It just has more of a personal touch, especially if you are a service provider or your business involves you in some way, it’s great to give people a video for that little taste of your personality and who you are. This is the first page that people see. This is page 1 which is your e-mail opt in and a sample. So you can see they put in their name and email down here. Next I’m going to go into more technical detail about how to create this, so don’t worry if you’re wondering that right now.
Now, after people submit their name and email, they get to the second page you need to create which is the page reminding them to confirm their opt in. When you use a system like this, I do recommend that you’ll do something called double opt in or double confirm which means that once they put in their name and e-mail, they’re going to receive a second e-mail that says confirm that we have permission to email you. And the reason that you want to do that is because otherwise, people are going to put in junky emails just to get to the content. So they might see this page and say, oh, I want that free video about ten minutes, but I don’t actually want to give her my real email, so I’m just going to put in a fake here.
And then if they got to the video on the very next page, they would kind of get what they were going for, but I wouldn’t have their real e-mail address to add to my database. So this page says, “Thanks. You’re one step away from your free video.” I made another video of me explaining how to opt in. That’s optional. You can also just explain it in text. And then, here’s what’s important. You’ll notice that I have my sales page. In this case I’m promoting Your Backstage Pass to Twitter. I have my sales offer right here right below this video. That’s really important.
You want to send people straight to the pitch. We’re going to talk about this more later. So that step 2 is getting people to confirm their email and offering them the sales pitch. And again, this is not just for info products. This is an info product that I’m selling here, but if your pitch is obviously e-commerce, you can put the product here. Or, if it’s an offline business, you can say “Buy an hour with me, come in for the special.” You can put your direct pitch for whatever you’re selling. Even if it’s an offline product, you can just collect their email to confirm it or you can them pay for it online but deliver the service or product offline. So this is not just for info products. You know, if you’re a tire service, you can say, click here to get your tires rotated. And then you just schedule the time with them from there. So that’s page 2.
Page 3 is the one that actually delivers the good stuff, the meat and again repeats the sales offer. So here’s my video, Twitter in Ten Minutes a Day. So the way that they get this is once they confirm their email address and that confirmation message, you automatically send them and email with a link to this page; you’re ... what I’m calling page 3, the one that actually has the meat. So again, you’re sending that out in the email message after they’ve confirmed. So on this one you have the meat and then you repeat your offer down here. So I didn’t repeat my whole sales page. I just put a link to it. You can do it either way. So, that’s creating your opt in.
Again, there are three pages. The first is the opt-in page with a sample. The second is the page telling them to confirm and you want to include your direct offer right here. And the third has the meat of the content, the freebie content you’re offering along with a repeat of that pitch. So let’s go back to PowerPoint and talk a little about how to get this done.
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