3 Ideas for a Copywriting Freebie or Opt-In

If you’ve been scouring the internet looking for tips on getting copywriting clients, you’ve likely come across the idea of a freebie, lead magnet, or opt in.

The idea here is providing incredible value to potential clients before they send you a dime or even book a discovery call. It positions you as a trustworthy expert and shows that you’re invested in their success, even if they don’t book with you.

And in exchange for getting that awesome copywriting resource to try DIYing or assess where they’re at, you get their email address. It’s up to you to be responsible and not spam these good people who are out there just looking for resources to grow their business, just like you are.

So while you definitely should send an automated follow-up email a couple days after the freebie delivery to ask how it worked out for them, don’t take this as a blank check for constant follow-up and nagging communication. Nobody likes a needy emailer.

Anyway.

No matter what type of freebie you offer, there are four important elements:

• Value — demonstrate that you’re 1:1 services will be valuable by offering them something impactful before they even work with you
• Simplicity — create a freebie that focuses on one thing. Don’t try to solve all their problems at once.
• Consistency — your freebie should be consistent with the services you provide. So if you’re a copywriter, your opt in might not get the most impact if it’s about public speaking or setting goals.
• Follow-up — make sure you send a follow-up email a day or two after the freebie delivery to ask how it’s working out for them and if they are interested in any copy backup. You can do this manually or set up a simple journey or workflow that sends an automated email through MailChimp, Flodesk, or another mailing list tool.

If you don’t have a freebie yet, consider these options for delivering solid value to your audience:

SEO Audit Workbook:

SEO is going to be a hot topic in most of your discovery calls and discussions around project scope, so this is a great opportunity to tee you up to help them with their search rankings.

You can dive into explanations about alt tags and headings for the techy people and use plenty of digestible examples for those who’d rather pretend SEO doesn’t exist (even if they know they need it).

You can suggest your favorite keyword research tools, like the competitor analysis tool by UberSuggest or the Yoast plug-in for WordPress blogs.

Give them a step-by-step checklist that walks them through basics that they can handle on their own and make it clear that you’re here to make these foreign concepts easy to handle.

Brand Voice Workbook:

A huge part of your partnership with potential clients may be helping them find their brand voice and tone. You can start the process by offering a workbook that walks them through a reflection on:

• the values of their brand
• how they want their audience to feel when they encounter their brand
• who their audience even is

Most business owners are super focused on the operations of their business and are running their social accounts or drafting one-off customer emails late at night after the “big” stuff is handled. Copy is often an afterthought by necessity, so don’t underestimate the value of this exercise.

You can also provide a checklist for speaking in the first-person, using “you”, and focusing on their audience more than the actual product or service they provide.

Write an About Page that People Want to Read

I don’t care who you are, writing about yourself is HARD. And somehow it always comes back to coffee…

You can write an intro about how the best About pages are actually about their customers or clients, not about them. Write up a simple formula they can follow that introduces them and then ties it back to their audiences journey, pain points, or desires. Here’s how I chose to do it on my own About page.

You can totally still throw in a few fun prompts like:

• Overuser of ________.
• I splurge on ____, _____, and _____. But I [insert cheap habit here]
• But I’ve also been called a _________, _________, and ___________.

It’s always so much easier to write about others than it is to write about yourself. So your audience will probably breathe a sigh of relief when they see a chance to painlessly check “update my dang bio!!” off their to-do list.

Maybe even take a page out of your own book and use your new freebie to revamp your own About page!

Let’s talk freebie delivery

The simplest way to deliver your freebie is to drop it into a shared drive, like Google Drive or Dropbox, and share a link to it. Then you can share the link manually, by directing people to a page on your website, or within an automated email delivery sequence.

If you’re using one of my Showit website templates for copywriters and designers, your website is set up so that someone enters their name and email, clicks a button to get the guide, and lands on a page where there’s one final button to “Download Now”. You’ll just set that button to link to the freebie you uploaded to your shared drive.

If you’re using a mailing list tool, you can create an opt-in form and a workflow or journey that is triggered when someone submits that form. The workflow will automatically send an email that contains the freebie. Using a mailing list is a great way to automate your follow up. You can set an email to be sent a day or two later asking how the freebie is working out for them and if they have any questions. This keeps you top of mind and positions you as that helpful expert who’s invested in their success.

Finally, if the thought of editing website pages or setting up a mailing list is just too much, you can just manually share the link to your freebie on your social accounts or by email on request.

Just know that if you move the file within your shared drive, you may have to update the links wherever you’re delivering the freebie to make sure people don’t experience a broken link instead of your helpful resource.

Let me know if this was helpful or if there’s another aspect of opt-ins or website strategy that you’re interested in!