Online Marketing For Offline Businesses - How to Use a Free Consultation to Get Them to Opt-In

Lately, I've been writing about different tactics businesses can use to get their prospects and customers to opt-in to their email list. There are many different ways to entice prospects, customers, and clients to submit their names and email addresses and one of those ways is by offering them a free consultation when they do so.

In this scenario, a prospect or customer surfs the internet looking for the type of product or service you sell in your store. They come across your website and click the link to take them to it. Once there, the first thing they see is a box asking them if they'd like to consult with you about their needs at absolutely no cost to them. You might use a headline in the box like, "Get Your Free 15 Minute Consultation Now," or, "Here's How to Get Your FREE 20 Minute Consultation."

This person is excited because not only can they go ahead and look around your website to see what you have to offer and what you're all about, but they can actually arrange to speak with you and find out some of the things they desperately want to know before investing in a product or service like yours. So, they enter their name and email and click the submit button and you now have another name you can add to the list of people whom you send your newsletter or special events and sales to.

Now, you have an email set up in your autoresponder that goes out to them and asks them to contact you to set a convenient time for the two of you to talk.

Think you don't have anything to offer people in the way of a one on one conversation with them? Think again. Every day you're open for business, you have conversions with your customers and with the prospects who come into your place of business to see what you have to offer them. Think about the many questions you get asked on a daily or weekly basis and make a list of them.

Come up with four or five of the most common questions people want to know about the business you're in, and viola! You can speak to an individual, either on the phone or over an instant messaging program, for three to five minutes about each of those questions and you've given them 15-20 minutes of your valuable time.

Plus, most importantly, you've added another name to your list and, because these people had a personal conversation with you, they already know, like, and trust you. So, they're less likely to unsubscribe from your list.

Using your home page to offer your customers and prospects a free consultation is a good idea for three reasons. First, as I said, they get to speak directly with you; going a long way towards helping them know, like, and trust you. Second, while speaking with you they start to get the idea that you know what you're talking about when it comes to your industry; making them more likely to buy from you instead of one of your competitors. And third, The fact that you're willing to take time out of your busy day to speak with them one on one, lets them know that you actually care about them getting the information they want and need and not just about making a sale.

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