How to create a Freebie! A complete Guide.
How to create a Freebie.
A complete guide!
Freebie what?
Pinterest has now officially overtaken Snapchat in the race to become the most popular image sharing platform, with user numbers hitting around 291 million by the end of 2019.
That said, with such a diverse – and, quite frankly, massive – audience, getting your Pinterest marketing and Pinterest SEO spot on is integral to ensuring your business success on the platform. After all, what use is a great Pin if it doesn’t lead to website visitors and conversions? And one of the great ways of increasing your website visitors is by offering them a Freebie.
Let’s talk about the value of Freebies for your Pinterest marketing strategy; covering the history and use behind Freebies and Printables, looking at how to make a freebie, and identifying what types of freebie are ideal for your business model.
WHAT WILL YOU LEARN:
What is a Freebie.
What are Printables.
How to use Freebies.
What type of Freebie can you use?
How to promote your Freebies.
How to create Pins for your Freebies.
How to market your Freebie on Pinterest.
What is a Freebie?
A freebie is something that you give for free any visitors who give you their email address in return. In essence, it’s an exchange, and forms one of the biggest pulls in a successful Pinterest marketing campaign – the user gives you their email address, in return for something that you have told them will be of value.
One of the most popular forms of freebie is a Printable, which becomes available to the user as soon as they join your mailing list.
What is a printable?
Printables are basically digital paper files that users can print and use as they see fit, whenever they choose. Perhaps it’s a wedding checklist, or maybe it’s a recipe or a traveling schedule; the only thing we can say for sure is that it must be something the user will find valuable and will inherently link back to your brand.
Why you need a Freebie.
So, we know what freebie’s do, but why do we need them? Surely if someone likes our product or service and wants to stay in touch, they will.
Well, that may be the case for occasional committed customers, but for many, they need that final push to click the subscribe button. Something completely free that you present to your readers as a reward for signing up to hear from you on a regular basis. When it comes to marketing, that seems like a pretty good exchange, right?
How to use Freebies
Let’s start with the end goal – our mailing list. Creating a mailing list is a labor of love; something you have to nurture and look after, else risk losing subscribers. This means sending relevant and engaging content, without overloading their inboxes; offering deals and useful tips; asking for regular feedback and getting ideas from readers.
One of the most valuable forms of freebies that we frequently use is printable content, which encourages and guides potential customers towards entering your marketing funnel. When constructed correctly, you can then use this funnel to guide them towards other products and services they may like.
Remember, users will find you through great Pinterest SEO or one memorable Pin, but retaining their interest and converting them into paying customers is all up to you. By providing a small nugget of information or visual beauty for them to download and print off, you are keeping your brand at the front of their mind every time they look at it. And you can’t put a price on that kind of repeat marketing.
What type of Freebie can you use?
This is where understanding your audience comes into play, as you will need to determine the type of content that they find most valuable – and what is most likely going to entice them into signing up to hear from you on a regular basis.
Put yourself in a customers’ shoes for a minute – how many marketing emails do you receive from brands you shopped with once, and how many do you unsubscribe from? Why did you unsubscribe from them as opposed to those from another company? What kind of content do you most enjoy receiving?
A great way to identify the best kind of freebie for your current audience is to assess how you can help your audience. What are their doubts before buying your products or service and how can you take that away from them.
Some interesting examples of freebies are checklists and how-to guides.
How to promote your Freebie
Once you’ve created your freebie, you need to start getting it out there and in the line of vision of your potential subscribers.
Whether you choose to use a Printable or another form of freebie, such as access to a new discount or service deal, there are a few sure-fire ways of promoting your Freebie that tend to bring in positive results. Here are some of the best:
• Sign up pop-ups on your website
• Webinars and giveaways
• Create a dedicated landing page for your freebie
• Advertise the landing page across all your social profiles
• Use Pinterest and your most popular Pins to plug your freebie
• Write a guest post on another site and direct people back to your landing page.
• Identify the most-visited pages on your site and put your freebie on them too
Creating a Pop-Up on your website.
Yes, they can be quite annoying but used sparingly and when attached to a valuable cause, website pop-ups can drive people to take notice of something they may have otherwise ignored. Take a look and perhaps give it a go – you can always delete it!
Add it to your blog!
That means adding it to the bottom of relevant blogs and writing new blogs about this Freebie something that your readers haven’t seen yet, and which promotes your freebie from start to finish. You want Pinterest users and readers to know that this freebie is not something they should miss out on!
How to create Pins for your Freebies.
Creating some targeted Pins to include within your Pinterest marketing strategy is a smart way to drive traffic and increase conversions.
STEP 1 – Create a Pinterest opt-in template (pin with text overlay), in line with the style of Pin that your target customer engages with the most. By now you should have some understanding of who your customer is, and so creating a Pin that markets them directly is a simple way to get their attention and drive them to opt-in on your website. Everyone loves to see content that feels like it was made just for them, so harness that feeling and use it to pull in potential customers, and if you’re not sure exactly what kind of Pin they would like to see, try a few examples out and monitor which has the best reaction!
STEP 2 – Add a keyword description to your Pins, using everything you’ve learned about Pinterest SEO and how it ties in with clever marketing. Including a clear call-to-action, as well as some background information around your brand and the product or service you offer, identify the most typically-searched keywords in your sector and use them throughout the captions and descriptions for your Pin. Hashtags are also valuable ways to support your searchability, so using some of your strong common hashtags will direct potential buyers towards your profile as well.
STEP 3 – Don’t forget the all-important link to your opt-in landing page. The end goal is to get users and visitors to sign up and join your email list, so make sure the link is there – and that it works!
How to market your Freebie on Pinterest.
Now that we’ve identified the need for freebies and understood what we need to do to create attractive content, it’s time to look into how we market them through Pinterest.
With Pinterest attracting so many millions of users every day, distribution and ensuring a wide network of viewers is both integral to success and relatively straightforward to achieve – when done correctly.
Save your opt-in Pins to the most relevant board FIRST:
Initially, this will rely on your existing Pinterest profile and the way you break your Pins down into relevant boards. Your freebie Pin needs to attract just the right user in order to work, so making sure you Pin it to the appropriate board is absolutely crucial. But even that’s not enough.
The first place you save your Pin informs Pinterest of what your Pin is about, and impacts not only which users it displays your Pin to, but also the search results it shows up in, and the sector it assigns your Pin to. Select the wrong board, and your freebie Pin will end up in front of all the wrong users.
Once you’ve linked your first freebie to your existing boards, it’s time to start a new one. By creating a dedicated freebie opt-in board, you can keep all your targeted Pinterest marketing pins in one place – both for your own benefit, and that of your users. Remember that your freebie Pins should contain at least some of your most valuable pieces of content, so it is likely that users will want to find them easily and return to them whenever they want.
You can also use this board to pull together other relevant resources from other users and Pinners, creating a hub of activity and content that is relevant to your subject matter.
Next to pinning on your own boards, you can also pin the opt-in pins to relevant Pinterest Group boards and Tailwind Tribes.
After a couple of weeks, you can head over to your Pinterest analytics and see which version of the opt-in pins are receiving the highest number of website clicks. You can create more versions of these opt-in pins and spread them again over your own boards, Pinterest group boards and Tailwind Tribes.
Now that you know which opt-in pin template converts best you can take it to the next level and start with Pinterest advertisement. No idea how? Head over to this Pinterest Advertisement guide.
Now you have all the tools on creating your first Freebie.
If the idea of freebies and opt-in Pins is a little overwhelming for you, my Pinterest management packages are designed to support your Pinterest marketing strategy and implement the very best tools to see a great conversion rate. Get in touch today to find out more about how I can help you.