AP 0998: Should I Periodically Offer New Freebies to My Audience?
Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 998. How crazy is that? We're so close to Episode 1000.
Remember, stick around the next couple days because we're offering prizes to those who entered the last couple weeks for a $100—no, $1,000, because we're approaching Episode 1000. It's a $1,000 Amazon gift card. One today, one tomorrow, and then we're done with that and then we have a big announcement in Episode 1000—that's coming Monday, so make sure you subscribe. Yes, you can subscribe because I'm not just finishing up at 1000. There will be more episodes and you will want to subscribe if you haven't already. For now, let's talk about Cookie, because we're answering a question today from Cookie, which is a really good question.
All right. Now, here's today's question from Cookie.
Cookie: Hi, Pat. My name is Cookie Rosenblum and I'm a fellow podcaster. My podcast is called Weight Loss Made Real. I've been doing it for a couple of years and it's doing pretty well. I have three short questions; I'll be as fast as I can. I've been giving away to podcast listeners a downloadable copy of my book, which does sell on Amazon, but I've been giving it away free for about two years and it's been excellent at growing my list. My list is still growing by 2 to 300 people per month. Do I need to periodically offer different new freebies? The old one is still attracting people to my list. New people, it's still new to them, so I'm not sure how often I should think about redoing it. Is there something I should do to keep the interest of the people I already have?
My second question is how often should I mention the free book in the podcast? I don't mean more than once within a podcast, but should I mention it on every podcast in the outro?
Number three is, does it make sense to use Facebook ads to lead people to the podcast? I know it makes sense to lead them to the freebie, does it make sense to lead them to the podcast? Pat, thank you for everything you do. You're amazing. Thank you.
Pat Flynn: Hey, Cookie. Thank you so much for the question. I love to talking to other fellow podcasters who are looking to improve and build their email list. It's one of the things I found that podcasters need help with most and that is building their email list and just so cool to hear you doing already 200 to 300 per month already. Hopefully, we can help improve that. Do you need to start offering new freebies to get people to join your growing email list? You should start looking at . . . Yes, basically. You don't need to create one new one for every new episode like our good friend Amy Porterfield does. That's just insane, although she's created systems that made that a little bit easier for herself like templates for landing pages, templates for these ebooks that she's giving out, and checklists and items that she's offering.
I would consider offering one new freebie the next quarter. If you can do that, Cookie, I think that's going to do you a lot of benefit. That freebie should be something that answers a pressing question that your audience has. That way it's going to be likely to be downloaded. It's going to be also nice offer for those who are already subscribed. Just send it to them directly. They don't need to resubscribe to it. For new people, it's going to be great, because maybe there's some people who just keep hearing about this book that you have and this offer for a lead magnet. They're just like, "I just don't want that. That's not for me." This new thing, maybe that's what draws them in. Maybe, they were on the fence and now they're going to look to subscribe and then they can get both, even.
I definitely think expanding your lead magnet presence would be great. I went from one, which was Ebooks the Smart Way, which was my only lead magnet for four years. It was a very similar situation for me, Cookie. When I started adding new lead magnets, I started to see exponential growth in my email list. I added then, Affiliate Marketing the Smart Way, Email the Smart Way, and a few others to the Podcast Cheat Sheet, and all these other things that then lead people into, potentially, courses and things like that. That's the other thing. Your book is great and that's a great lead magnet for low hanging fruit. But creating a lead magnet that specifically leads people into the list because it answers a pressing question and then can lead people into a product that you might have to offer, or some sort of webinar that you do or something else, you're helping a person through a progression of experiences with you, and that's what this can do, and it'll also grow your list at the same time. Should you mention the free ebook on your podcast with every outro? I think it's important to have people lead to somewhere and that's just another reason why you should have another lead magnet, so you can mix them up. Because likely if you're saying the same thing every single episode, people are going to tune it out. People who already have that book, they're just going to maybe fast forward because they already have that book. Adding a new lead magnet, similar to what Amy does, but not quite as much because that's just crazy overload work, unless you have the systems in place to do that, it would work. Again, like I said, one per quarter. That's the rhythm that my team and I are working on with these new lead magnets. Sometimes, these lead magnets can be videos and maybe it's just access to a landing page that has a video that you're creating. Maybe it's a chapter, instead of the whole book, to a new book that you're coming out with. Not giving away the whole book, but maybe just a chapter, to be a teaser or maybe it's a list of tools and resources. It could be a number of different things.
Then to finish off, "should I use Facebook ads to lead people to my podcast?" You can. A lot of people lead people to the lead magnets, which is fine, but there's another thing to be said to leading people to podcast where you then mention that lead magnet. You can even test this out. Create a new lead magnet, mention it at the end of a podcast, and then spend Facebook ads, even 20 bucks on that ad to send people to that podcast. You'll see that you're going to actually get more people to download it, more higher-quality people to download it because they will have spent that time listening to you on your show building that relationship with you. I think it's really, really important. I even know a number of people who are paying for ads for other people's podcasts that they were featured on, because they know that first of all, they're even paying that person to run those ads for them, or just simply boost those posts. I'm on another person's show, I say "Hey, if you want to post this on Facebook that I was on your show, that's great. I'll pay you 100 bucks to boost it" That way it gets shown to more people, and now more people who trust that person who's then featuring me on their show is going to bring more people back to my website, and maybe even download that lead magnet.
Cookie, I hope that helps and gives you some information that can take you forward and help you grow your email list. Thank you so much for the question. I'm going to send you an AskPat teeshirt for having your question featured here on the show.
Also, here's a quote to finish off by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Quick, short, but good quote and that is: "Make yourself necessary to somebody." That's good. How do you make yourself necessary to somebody? Well, that's the trick. Before I announce the winner, I just want to also say thank you so much for listening to nearly 1000 episodes of AskPat, or at least a combination of you helping to make this happen. Without your questions, none of this would exist, and again make sure you listen in and subscribe to Episode 1000 because changes are coming. But, good changes, and there will be more AskPat episodes so don't worry. Yeah. Let's get to it.
All right, two more giveaways, again, each day, today and tomorrow. We've done it all this week. We're giving away a $1,000 Amazon gift card to the winners here who picked up on the clues since Episode 900, and we are celebrating the upcoming Episode 1000 this coming Monday, by giving away $1,000 dollars every day of this week. We've given away $3000 already, and another thousand today goes to Darla Peduzzi, so thank you Darla. Congratulations.
Like I said, for the previous winners we will have emailed you already, but here it is announced for everybody, and I think everybody wants to congratulate you. Maybe you are just hoping that maybe tomorrow with the last spot their name can be drawn, if they indeed entered this contest, which isn't available to enter anymore, but one more chance tomorrow. Good luck to everybody, and again, Darla Peduzzi, thank you so much and we will have emailed you so look out for an email from either myself or my assistant, [email protected] for that information so we can get that over to you. So congratulations, thanks so much. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already, because we have another episode coming tomorrow, another winner, and then on Monday, Episode 1000.
Today's question comes from Cookie, who has a podcast called Weight Loss Made Real. She has three short questions. Should she periodically offer new freebies to her audience? How often should she mention her free book on her podcast; on every episode? Does it make sense to use Facebook ads to lead people to the podcast?
Do you have a question about audience engagement? Record it at AskPat.com.
AP 0999: Should I Go Full-Time with My Online Business?