Now, if the website he or she is visiting is a squeeze page, this is easy to do. Because that’s pretty much all that is on the page … your opt-in bonus.

But when you have your opt-in box in the side bar of your main website, how do you get it noticed … and desired. Here are a few tips.

Include Eye-Catching Virtual Packaging

Have your graphic designer create a nice three-dimensional representation of your opt-in bonus. Virtual packing is just as necessary as physical packaging in creating desire for a product or opt-in bonus. Put this graphic in your opt-in bonus and it will get noticed more often.

List the Benefits

Include a bulleted list of the top three benefits your opt-in offers. This helps entice the visitor to opt in to your list.

Point to the Opt-In

Include a big, bold arrow that points directly to your opt-in box or bonus. Arrows draw the eye and will help get your opt-in noticed.

Ask a Compelling Question

Create a headline that asks a question that your ideal target is thinking. Make it provocative, controversial or just intriguing. Be sure it is a question your opt-in bonus answers, of course!

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

How To Get Your Opt-In Bonus Noticed is a post from Women's Business Gallery

I must say that I’m very honored. My newsletter was chosen out of more than 160 entries and it is still in its infancy! And, my newsletter is in very good company … the newsletters from Bryan Caplovitz’s SpeakerMatch, Lisa Sasevich’s The Invisible Close and Vrinda Normand’s Irresistible Writing Training Company are also finalists.

Now, I ask you, if you like my newsletter, would take a moment to go to this website and give me a thumbs up?

My Newsletter is a Finalist! is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Your ideal opt-in bonus needs to walk a fine line between providing enough value to win over your new subscribers, while leaving enough to be desired so they will consider hiring you or buying your products.

So the big question often becomes, “How much information is enough?”

Only you can really answer this question … and you may even need help from a small sampling of your ideal clients.

Traditional wisdom is to provide the “What” and leave the “How” to your paid products and services. But, if not artfully done, this can lead to frustration and resentment in your subscribers.

Another way to go is to provide the first step in your particular process in greater detail, and just outlining the rest of the steps. As long as the first step isn’t so complete that they won’t feel the need to continue, this is a good option, as well.

Yet another way to go is to provide a small percentage of the actual product. For example, a sample chapter from a book, or sample audio from a series of audios. This has been used to great effect in the publishing industries.

I remember getting those floppy records in the mail that were sampler of music from a larger series. It would “show” you the difference between the music available elsewhere and their digitally remastered version. Now days, some of these companies will send you the first CD in the series. But it is the same concept.

Basically, you need to create that awesome first taste, that like a first kiss is wonderful to begin with, but also holds so much promise of more to come.

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

How Much Is Enough? Creating a Quality Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Tim Knox Talks About Producing Quality Products is a post from Women's Business Gallery

PLR Content
Grab some PLR or Private Label Rights content and create a special report. Be sure to read through the content and spiffy it up, because much of the PLR content out there is written pretty terribly. That said, it is usually based on solid key word research, so you know the information is targeted if not eloquent.

Resale Rights Reports
Some resale rights reports allow you give the content away for free. Be sure you want to be associated with the report, and then you can offer it as an opt-in bonus.

Create A Multi-Author Anthology Report
Using articles from an article directory, you can create a free report for your opt-in list. Be sure to add at least one article of your own … better yet, write an introduction to each article, as well. Put your name on the cover as editor, and you’ve got yourself a decent opt-in bonus.

Create A Single Author Anthology Report
Gather a bunch of your old, evergreen blog posts and articles and create a report just like the one above … only this time you are the only author.

Re-Purpose Old products
Are you retiring an old product that still has good content, but doesn’t sell as well? Try re-purposing it as a opt-in bonus. Maybe you have a teleclass recording you no longer distribute, but has good information. That could work, too.

Each of these ideas can be implemented fairly quickly and will make a decent opt-in bonus. In fact, many of these ideas can be used as the seed for an ideal opt-in bonus. So go on … get an opt-in bonus out there and start building your list!

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

Making Due: The Filler Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Here are some suggestions for creating a follow-up autoresponder sequence that takes place after your subscriber confirms their subscription in return for an opt-in bonus.

Message 1: Did you get the download?
In this message, you ask they if they got the download. And, just in case they didn’t, give them the download information again.

Messages 2 through infinity: Help your subscriber consume your free information.
For the first few messages, highlight content from the opt-in bonus and encourage him or her to read, listen to or watch your bonus. These messages can come every few days, but don’t string them out longer than a couple weeks, or you’ll fatigue your new subscriber with too many messages.

After you’ve wowed your new subscriber with all your free information, make an offer either of one of your products or services or an affiliate product. If you do this early on in the relationship, you’ll get your subscriber in the habit of receiving offers from you. Go too long without asking for a sale, and when you do make an offer, you’ll tick your subscriber off and increase your unsubscribe rate.

That said, make an offer too early and you’ll get the same response.

Now, you could stop here. But you don’t have to. In addition to your monthly newsletter (you have one of those, right?), you can also send regular automated follow ups that showcase your free content and make related offers.

One way to do this is to set up a blog broadcast. Aweber offers this option.

Another way is to program a year’s worth of content into your autoresponder follow up messages schedule. If you can come up with 12 to 52 questions you commonly get asked by your clients, this is an excellent way to go. In each message, you present the question, answer it and then make a related offer of one of your services, products or affiliate products that is relevant to the question.

Do you have evergreen articles in an article directory? What about evergreen posts on your blog? You can set up follow up messages that direct readers to these articles or posts. This can increase traffic to your website while showcasing some of your best free resources.

I hope you found these ideas helpful. If you have any you’d like to add, please feel free to put them in a comment below.

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

Follow-Up: The Key to a Consumed Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Through Your Shopping Cart

Many shopping carts allow you to set up a free download. Basically you set up your opt-in bonus as you would any other product, but give it a zero dollar price.

This option can get confusing for some and often requires your subscriber to enter much more than their name and email address to acquire the download. This will, in turn slow down the growth of your list.

Through Your Autoresponder

Many autoresponder systems will let you attach files to outgoing emails. Although this can be an easy way to do it, it can also trigger spam filters. So your delivery rate will be lower and you’ll get more complaints and unsubscribes.

Via a Download Page

This is the most common method. Usually, once the subscriber confirms their subscription, they are sent an email withe the URL for the download page. If you set this page up correctly, the likelihood that a hacker will find it is pretty small. But, that’s a very small price to pay for the scores of legitimate subscribers you’ll get.

This is what a typical squeeze-page system looks like:

Step 1: Opt-in or Squeeze Page
This could be an opt-in dedicated page, or the opt-in box on your website. In this step, the visitor to your web page is offered an opt-in bonus in exchange for their name and email address. They input their data and click a “Subscribe” button to move to Step 2.

Step 2: Confirmation Page
If you are using a double opt-in list builder option, which you really should for this type of list building, it is good form to display a page at this point in the process that explains that the visitor needs to click on a confirmation link that will be sent to the email address they put in the form. Most autoresponder software will create a default page for this step, but you are free to create one that is branded for your page, too. Aweber also gives you several default options: plain text, audio or video.

Step 3: Confirmation Email Message
Your visitor receives an email message asking them to confirm they want to subscribe to your list. Most autoresponder services let you customize this message so that it is consistent with your brand.

Step 4: Thank You, Here’s Your Download
At this point, there are two ways you can go. You can create a download page and send your visitor there automatically once they click the confirmation link. Or you can create another “Thank You” page that explains the download information will be coming in yet another message. I’ve seen both methods used about equally.

Step 5: Follow Up
In this message you either are giving the visitor, now subscriber, the download link for the first time. Or, you are just confirming that they received it and giving it to them again. This is always a good idea, because not everyone will automatically download your gift if they receive it upon clicking the confirmation link. This follow up message makes sure they received what they asked for.

Of course, you should have a series of follow up messages set up that also help your new subscriber consume your opt-in bonus. But that, my friends, is another post altogether. (In fact, I’ll be covering in my next post on Wednesday!)

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

Delivering Your Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Beginners Guide…How To Create A Download Page is a post from Women's Business Gallery

So, you need to walk the tightrope between value and promotion, keeping a balance of both so that your opt-in bonus serves both you and your new subscriber.

How do you do that?

First of all, you need to see your bonus and the information it provides through the eyes of your ideal prospect. This can be challenging because you already know all this stuff you’re providing and it is sometimes hard to step back from that.

If you can’t, have someone else evaluate your bonus for you. Ideally, have someone from your target market give you feedback on the bonus.

Barring that, you can follow this formula: provide your prospect with the what they need to be doing to solve their problem, but not the how.

This, of course, is a somewhat controversial formula. Many believe you should provide at least a little of the how. But that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself given what it is you have to offer and what your target audience will find most enticing.

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

Keeping the Balance: Offering Value & Promoting Your Business in An Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery

Your prospect is going through life missing something. That something is what you can help them with. Your opt-in bonus provides them with a pathway to acquiring that something and becoming whole.

Of course, that’s a very melodramatic way to put things, but I hope you can see what I’m getting at.

If your prospect is at point A and they want to get to point C, they are going to have to go through point B. That’s your opt-in bonus.

Your “gift with subscription” does several things acting as point B:

It is attractive to your ideal prospect, thus enticing them to opt in to your list to get it.

It provides value, thus convincing your new subscriber that you have even more value to offer.

It introduces them to you and your business, thus giving your business relationship a good head start.

When your opt-in bonus can do all these things succinctly, it has hit the sweet spot and will help you grow your list quickly and efficiently.

“Would You Like To Know the Secrets to Enticing Your Ideal Prospects
to Give You Their Name and Email Address?”

Take this free e-course and receive a recording of Cindi Dawson, the Teleseminar Coach, grilling Carma Spence, author of Home Sweet Home Page, about creating enticing opt-in bonuses: Opt-In Bonus Secrets.

Occupying the Sweet Spot: Your Ideal Opt-In Bonus is a post from Women's Business Gallery