What Makes You Opt-In For A Free WSO?

"Free"....

I actually just have a gmail account that I use for opting in for anything. The only time I login is when I need to verify my email and I never read any other emails

Interesting - thanks for the insight Dan and Chase - I appreciate it!

If the free WSO smells bad I do not give my email.

From the copy it is often obvious that the "seller" only wants the email and does not care about his readers.

So, if the copy is somewhat decent and the offer mot some old shoe I give my email.

I tend to stay away from most free WSO's. If someone has something of value to sell they will usually charge money for it. A lot of marketers have tarnished the reputation of free products and people don't seem to value them as much anymore. If I were you I would charge at least a few dollars for your product if you are planning on giving it away.

Well, in my situation, it's alike to article writing. And, as you probably know, before hiring an article writer (or in this case, paying for articles), you want to make sure the quality is up to par and that you'll be receiving quality. That's kind of the purpose of it being free initially, know what I mean? What do you think about that?

You only have one email address ???

Create multiple email addresses from providers that allow pop3/imap access and retrieve the emails to one central address that you never give out. If an address gets abused you can just remove it from the list that your central address retrieves. With so many free providers you should never be in a situation where you are worried about giving away your email address.

The fact that it's free and if it has good comments/reviews

Beautiful Sales page.

The value of what is on offer (if it will do me any good in whatever I'm doing) and the fact that it is free.
I have a specific email for Opt-ins as they can get quite annoying, particular when the chime on my phone goes off every minute at night !!!

Unless the sales copy or something is a total turnoff, I pretty much opt into everything I come across. I don't then sit there and read or watch it all immediately. But I do have a folder for it with different categories (traffic, software, social, etc.) and I will just put it in there. Later if I'm looking to be inspired for posting, writing, creating, or whatever for one of my sites or a possible product, I'll sort through and see what pops up.

Additionally, I love to learn and even with success and the focus I put into my own endeavors, I still constantly am reviewing, reading, watching, and taking in as much as possible.

These habits for me will usually product a "light bulb" moment where I come up with my own angle or idea to create or leverage something positive for my business or my readers...

I suppose I'm a collector...

In short: Value.

I, too, collect..but I also don't opt in to just everything. Since I know the list owner is going to want me to buy, I don't opt-in if I don't think that I will buy from them.

Free WSO's are bad news. lol. I don't know who'se teaching people to do them, but it's not good advice.

Think about it.

Unfortunately, alot of wso's out there are low quality. People know that. So when people see "FREE WSO", what does that say to them?

Many people are going to read into that. And their first instinct is 'this wso must really be bad if they can't justify charging $7/$9 for it.'

So is it any surprise why WSO's with *FREE WSO* in the title get little to no clicks?

Those two words don't help you.. They work against you. If you put that in your title, you are shooting yourself in the foot.. Even if the quality of content is good. people won't ever know.. because most of them won't click on it in the first place.

Also.. giving away stuff for free can work against you.. because many people believe 'if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Put it to the test. Go on the streets.. and try to give away flat screen tv's for free to random people.

Watch as you have a HARD time doing it.. People won't accept it.. because they'll think it's all some kind of act or prank... That there's gotta be some kind of catch.

Same is true with WSO's for FREE. If it sounds too good to be true.. people will be hesitant.

Not only that.. What kind of people you are attracting when you go free?

The freebie seekers, the bottom of the bottom aka the worst of the uglies. lol

Seriously, if they've got a hard time spending $7-$9 upfront.. you probably don't want them on your list anyways.. They are gonna give ya hell.

And to make matters worse, when you go *free wso* you scare away serious buyers.

You just heard from WillR and Alexa that they don't opt in for free wso's.. and neither do I. because I assume it's going to be crap or it's all a ploy to get my email, offer little to no value, and spam me to death.

Either way. just say no to doing a free wso. Seriously. If you've got decent information.. (even if you don't have a reputation yet or alot of proof) I would still say you're better off charging a few bucks for it.

Or at the very minimum if you really wanted to do a free WSO.. I would do it with a twist. don't mention it being Free in the title thread. People will click to check it out. Do it like a traditional sales letter. They'll scroll all the way down to the bottom to see the price.. and that's where you can shock them by telling them you have a special deal going where they can get it free.. if they act fast.

I guarantee that will get ya a better response.

Aren't free WSO's just threads from the Main Internet Marketing Discussion Forum packaged as a pdf document? No need to get those when you keep up with the forum ;-)

In response to the OP: I use a separate email address for free stuff, whether it be free WSO's or other optins, since those are created for list building, and I always try to learn from other people's auto responders.

the copy and the headline

well here's what I look at Jill - the numbers... and they don't lie ;p

If you do a search in the wso section for all threads that have ' FREE WSO ' in the title.. you'll notice a trend. They all died fast. lol. Those 2 words KILL.

And I don't mean kill, like they crushed it... I mean kill as in dead. no pulse. someone give him CPR! haha

Almost all WSO's with those 2 words in the title crash and burn. check it out for yourself. The vast majority get extremely low open rates / and comments... Compare that with any other topic and you'll see a stark contrast.

Also, any wso seller will tell ya that a HUGE majority of the traffic you get on your wso is from jv's / affiliates. They send the bulk of traffic.

And if you do a free wso, you probably aren't getting any of that either. lol.
Even if you went free, got people on your list then immediately upsold them something.. unless you're getting insane EPC's and it's some freak miracle.. most affiliates aren't going to promote it. Affiliates want to get paid on the front end. It's what they're used to. It's what works.

Here's 1 example. Bobby and I promoted Traffic Travis on CB this last year. Mark Ling tried doing a free signup on the front end and then upsell you on the full feature software.. Guess what? launch tanked. lol and that's Mark freaking-ling. he's the man

We had leader-boarded on a big launch right before that launch. We had a great list. We sent massive traffic to that offer... and the conversions were CRINGE-WORTHY.

And I mean like.. we sent 3,000+ clicks the first day and made like 2 sales haha
I cried a little.

Lesson learned. do you think we'll promote those kind of offers again? no way in hell lol.
Will other affiliates? probably not.

Yes. there are a few 'free wso's' that have got decent views/replies (and that's cuz they gave away the freaking farm, and have bumped that thread for the last 3 years straight haha)

But those were from a handful of guys that were well known on here and were giving away some irresistible offer - insane traffic plugin / software / step by step blueprint on how to make millions..

And even then.. I'd still tell them they are making a big mistake.

Had they have sold it.. they would've made more money, still built a good size list, and filter out all the junk/freebie seekers who had no intention of buying in the first place.

The WSO section is a marketplace. it's a buy/sell section. People go in there with the intention of buying and getting a good deal on stuff. So if you try giving away something for free.. it's going against the grain and not meeting them where they are at.

I am adamant against this, because I've seen the numbers, the back-endm and how it stacks up over and over again.

With Paid WSO's.. You make alot more money. You get alot more sales. You can recruit a ton of affiliates. And you weed out freebie seekers.. And you do this all in one blow.

So why do it any other way? it doesn't make sense.

I had taught alot of the top guys on here.. and I told em from day 1 that Free WSO was a paid idea and showed them the proof.. but a few of em didn't listen to me.. and tried doing it anyway and it tanked. lol. it blew my mind.

most people do free WSO's because of fear. Most of them are doing their first wso. They don't have alot of rep/cred/social proof or any proof that the method they are showing people actually works haha

And because of it.. they are afraid to charge money. because they aren't confident and don't see the value of it.

But it's bullocks. and it's all in their head. If they got cool info that will help people.. people will gladly spend a few bucks on it.

Wow.

I can't believe nobody's actually mentioned... THE OFFER.

I'll sign up IF what they're offering promises to be valuable enough for me.

And by "valuable", I don't necessarily mean "has a specific DOLLAR value".

If I'm looking for a guide on how to do A, B and C... and you offer me that for free, I'll find that valuable.

It's ultimately about the OFFER.

The headline, fancy graphics etc are just there to entice me to accept the OFFER.

And the offer might entice me if it's something I feel I want... or better still, need

Good sales copy

If it sounds somewhat interesting, I'll do it because I have a spam e-mail address where I don't care if I get lots of junk mail. And yes, I do look through it. It's not like I just ignore the thing completely but I don't give it the same weight that I give to my regular e-mail address. I think most people do this....

If the sales copy has enough technical info in it that you that it appears the person knows what they are talking about, if it is not to hypey, if the reviews or comments from others about it are good, how I feel about it, if it is something I'm even remotely interested in and more---might be reasons why I would opt in.

From my experience on this forum and elsewhere, I've paid for things that weren't worth a penny and I've gotten for free some valuable information I would've been willing to spend a few hundred dollars on so you just never know.

When I find such valuable free information on here, I try to share it when appropriate in threads about that topic.

Overall though, optin in is not a big deal to me cause I can always opt out and I use several email addresses anyway.

Wow, this thread just shed completely new light to me...

The fact that it's free and the hope that it will be filled with great information - especially if it was inspired by the knowledge that someone learned from here on the Warrior Forum.

First off, if I were to do a free WSO .. you can bet it will be drip delivered via email. You want a free bite of the burger .. you will listen to the cook talk.

When signing up to a free WSO it is always about who is offering instead of what. The best lessons always come from the processes being used .. not those being taught.

I haven't created any WSOs but I do have a few quality download sites that I give away free content (a lot of free content).

FREE is perfect for promoting your site.

I look at it like this, even If a person that visits my site never buys & they like the free content, chances are very high that they will recommend my site/products to at least one other person. Even If all the non-buyer does is post a single link on a public forum or any other social media, email, etc... mission accomplished (new traffic)!

If the FREE content is quality, it's like having affiliates that you never have to pay.

Don't underestimate the power of FREE!

A lot of people are saying that the deciding factor is the "free" aspect, but I disagree. There are many free offers that I do not opt-in for.

First of all, if the squeeze page/site content is badly written, and it looks like the marketer did not put in much effort into it (the actual written content - NOT the aesthetics), then I can assume that the marketer will also not put much effort into actually giving me valuable free content, in both the product and the subsequent emails. If I am not getting meaningful content with no effort put into it, why would I opt-in?

Also, I only opt-in for products that are different than all of the other free products. I do not want 20 different rehashed reports on how to write a sales copy (unless one of these reports actually offers a unique method). I only will give out my email for something that I do not already have.

Definitely having second thoughts about running a free WSO after reading everyone's opinions!

I am willing to give my info to anything that has two key factors

1) plausibility - it must be legitimate. I can almost always tell when something smells fishy/

2.) Benefits - It must be giving me something valuable. I'm not expecting the world here, but being "free" doesn't cut it for me. It must also bring something to the table.

If Warren Buffet offered you advice that would help you become financially independent and debt free in the form of a free WSO, you'd turn it down on the assumption that the information mustn't be good because it's free?

Strange.

-Chris

Its funny cause there are tons of free stuff I would never subscribe to get, I like certain topics and when something free is there, you never know maybe a nugget you do not know. "a wise man will listen to a fool as he may learn something but a fool listens to no one".

That said, if it is a garbage bag surprise. What use is having my email when i will never buy from a garbage man or woman.

Interesting discussion, I've learned a lot from you all.

I was considering giving away free WSO, but I am not sure now........

I certainly agree that Free stuff has a much lower perceived value especially when free information is so readily available on the net.

The fact that video marketing is so effective is because videos have a higher perceived value than written content.

People are already suffering information overload, they don't need more low quality information. They need information that can specifically help them with their problem.

The hard part is - how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

I don't opt in to very many free WSOs. The reason? Most of em cover subjects I really don't care anything about. I'm not gonna bother to download something I'm not gonna want to read just because it's free.

I did get one that was free that was incredible (Thanks Justin). When I get ready to release a special product I am making, I might actually go and buy a product he has on the subject that isn't free. While the free version gave me good info - I want to get a better view of the subject and after reading the free product, I know he'll have a good workable procedure for me to implement.

I've also downloaded a few free products that were crap. They were free. Doesn't matter - it's not like it took me hours to tell they were crap.

Win a few, lose a few. Big controversy. Wanna hear me yell? Charge me $47 bucks for crap. Then I'm pissed. GU*RANTEED.

I do not think that much of anything would these days...

A direct download link perhaps via a private message... but I guess that would not be an opt-in, would it?