It’s 100% true:

To build a sustainable business that delivers profit year after year, you have to build your list and your following.

The problem is: People are missing one of the simplest things they can do to ensure that happens.

Search engine optimization, Facebook Ads, videos, contests, podcasts or radio shows, the latest “trending” flavor-of-the-month tactic, all fail spectacularly without one thing:

A great freebie.

Because if a thousand people show up at your door for dinner, but you’re not serving what they want, they’ll eat elsewhere.

But when you can create an awesome freebie, that problem solves itself. Because the people who show up on your doorstep actually WANT to join your list.

But how can you create that amazing, magnetic, breakout freebie?

Here are 7 powerful keys to get you started:

What makes your freebie a “gotta have it!” sensation is NOT the format.

• It’s NOT that it’s a quiz.
• Or a checklist.
• Or a 7-day challenge.
• Or a report.

Or whatever the “hot freebie format” of the moment is.

What makes your freebie hot is the opportunity it presents to solve a problem your tribe has been struggling with for years. Or achieve an outcome they’ve been striving for even longer.

Because when you can do that, and your freebie creates sizzling excitement, anticipation and curiosity …

When your freebie creates red hot “I won’t be able to sleep until I have it” yearning, the size of your list is only limited by the number of people who know about it.

Because when their yearning makes it physically painful not to opt-in … they will opt-in.

So stop trying to make your freebie “interesting”. And focus instead on making it “must have!”

Which leads to the biggest a-ha of creating a successful freebie:

It’s about the DESIRE, not the delivery.

Before he founded the runaway success LeadPages, Clay Collins revealed his most successful freebie that up until then was not a huge report, a multi-day challenge or a complicated sequence of videos.

It was a single page with the 4 incredibly affordable tools he used to create his popular “Marketing Show” video blog.

People were shocked to discover you could craft highly successful videos with simple affordable tools anyone could master.

And because not knowing what those tools were drove people mad with curiosity, they signed up for his freebie in astonishing numbers.

And they will do the same for yours when you stop focusing on what your freebie looks like. And start focusing on how to make your tribe want it.

So, what’s the key to creating that hot-flash of excitement and electric anticipation that moves them to opt-in?

The key is the word “already”: Your freebie must address an urgent problem they ALREADY have, or get them closer to a cherished outcome they are ALREADY searching for.

Because if your followers have have an itch and you  show up to scratch it, they have no choice but to let you do it.

So:

• Make a list of the hot-button problems and outcomes that are top of mind for your tribe right now.
• Choose the ones they yearn for the most.
• Build your freebie around those few.

And watch your response rate soar!

A movie trailer has one goal: To get you to buy a ticket for the movie.

And the goal of your freebie is not just for folks to say, “That’s neat!” It’s to introduce your prospects to the outcomes you provide so they enroll in your programs.

Just like a movie trailer includes some of the best scenes from the movie, include some of your BEST stuff in your freebie.

This shows your tribe you know what you’re doing, gets them closer to the big outcome you make possible, and positions your products and services as the way to get all the way there.

Your freebie should not only get them closer to the outcome they want, it should actually give them a taste of what it would be like to have that dream satisfied …

… without fully satisfying that desire.

Because once your followers deeply experience how amazing it will feel to have the thing they want so badly, and once they see how possible it is (because of your skills and talent), they are much more likely to purchase a product or enroll in a program that can take them the rest of the way there.

Because once people know you are the FASTEST path to what they want most, who else are they going to work with?

Every great freebie is designed as the tip of the iceberg.

It’s the first step that leads your prospects on a journey to becoming your client and achieving an outcome they cherish.

The problem is, so many entrepreneurs leave them there, confident they will “get it” on their own, and decide to buy.

Hot Tip: They won’t.

So once you’ve shown them the tip of the iceberg, show them the path to the rest of it:

• That could be an email sequence
• It could be a series of videos
• It could be a webinar.

Or a combination of all of them that leads to a direct offer.

The key is: Don’t set up the joke and then leave them hanging for the punchline. Build a path from that initial tantalizing glimpse to the big awesome payoff. So it becomes easy for them to buy, because they WANT TO.

The big takeaway is this:

When you combine a red-hot attention-grabbing freebie, a follow-up that builds their desire, and connect all of it to a program that takes them all the way to their dream, you have a tribe of happy clients.

And a business that gives you everything you want while giving your clients everything they want.

STOP thinking of your freebie as a thing: A quiz, an assessment, a checklist, a report.

And START thinking of it as a way to grab their attention, build their anticipation. And deliver them to an offer that makes their life amazing.

Because when you do, their response will make your life amazing as well.