I often think about what I would do if Pinterest went away. (ps- here is how to use Pinterest to grow your blog).
What if Twitter, Linked in, or Google + started charging to share your posts the way that Facebook has started to do.)
We need to be prepared for any of these circumstances and the best way that you can do that is to build your e-mail subscribers.
I currently use feed burner to share my posts once a day, with my email subscribers.
I PLAN on adding a “weekly newsletter” as well, for those readers that do not want a daily email “clogging up their inbox.”
You can use a simple company like MailChimp to do the weekly newsletters.
It is on my ‘to-do’ list.
So, should you give away freebies on your blog?
We do. We currently offer my subscribers this free ebook: Free eBook download “Instagram A New Marketing Frontier” – Reap your own reward from this Billion-Dollar Deal.
Since offering this free ebook, my subscribers have skyrocketed!
OPTIONS FOR FREEBIES:
1-Ebook (something simple)
2-Printables
3-Mini-book (maybe 7 recipes or something like that)
Sounds great, right?
High numbers? We agree – We do love it, but…
The problem with offering a freebie is:
1- Some will unsubscribed after they receive the free e-book
2- The opening rate is much lower. Before I offered this book, most of my subscribers were opening the daily emails. Now that rate is much lower.
3- Now that I know that they have subscribed just for the freebie, how will they be as followers?
I have gone back & forth with this, but in the end, I am keeping my free e-book because I want to have that option in case I have a great post that I want more people to see. What if there is an awesome sale? I’m sure more people will open that one.
For now, I check which posts are opened and which ones are not and it helps me to steer my blog in the direction that more people enjoy reading.
So, what do you think?
Do you offer a freebie on your website?
I currently do not have a freebie I offer. My open rate is a bit low, but climbing. Thanks for the article.
Great insight Becky. Is there a way to check how many subscribers are opening the email they get when a post is published to wordpress?
Yes, I use my feed burner to check my open rate. Do you have feed burner (google?)
Great advice. I don’t have a freebie. I also don’t check my open rate. I used to when I first started but have gotten out of the habit. I use mail chimp and will begin keeping track of my open rate now.
I haven’t even wrapped my mind around boosting my numbers by any other means yet. Establishing myself on fb, pinterest, stumbleupon, g+, reddit, twitter is about all I can handle at the moment. Maybe someday…
This is a great post !! I don’t currently have an “all the time” FREEBIE on my blog, but now I’m thinking that I should look into it. 🙂
I’ve been meaning to make a freebie for readers to start an email list, but haven’t yet found time. One blogger told me that she deals with low open rates by removing some subscribers from her list every now and then- the ones who never engage. Thanks for the info!
I seriously need to make an email sign-up list and these are great points to think about. Thanks for sharing on the weekend re-Treat link party!
Britni @ Play. Party. Pin.
I offer a weekly recap email to subscribers. I have tossed around the idea of doing a freebie but have some of the same concerns you have. Will my open and click rate go down? I may try it this spring and see what happens. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Great post! I am currently in the process of creating a freebie for my website.