I was talking to a friend of mine who had just finished a 30-minute interview on a radio show in Portland and when I asked how it went she replied, "Great but no-one signed up for anything on my site."
So I asked her what special free gift she had offered the listeners.
Silence…
Then she said, "Ummm…what? You can do that?"
I said, “Of course. How else do you expect them to come to your site?”
It's extremely rare for people to just run to your website to buy products or sign up for your newsletter after an interview. You have to give them a reason to go to your site!
Create a simple Cheat Sheet (like the one I created on the right hand side of this blog) and give it away everywhere you can! BUT make sure it relates to whatever your media topic is.
A Cheat Sheet shouldn't be long. It only needs to be a few pages, and consumable in under five minutes.
When you get to the end of your interview, ask the radio host if you can share a special gift as a thank you to the listeners. Most of the time they will have no problem saying yes and letting you promote something as long as it's not a sales pitch.
Then go ahead and let the listeners know what you created for them and that they can grab it for free at your site. Now to make this even cooler, I would create a different web address and call it On AIR Gift.com or Wayne Radio Gift.com or something really easy to remember.
Here are three more ideas that work:
1. We had a monthly nutritionist who, at the end of each interview, would offer a cool recipe – something she just made the night before and was absolutely delicious…people had to have it!
2. One guest came on and offered his book for free. He talked up the book – he offered solutions and then he gave away the book. I heard his list grew by 36,000 names with that promotion.
3. Another guest was giving away an e-book version of his book…but it was only a mini version. It had maybe 15 pages…and then he had a link to up-sell to the real book – and he said that strategy worked very well.
And please, always remember, when you are going on the air to share information – you MUST deliver some usable content: Something listeners can put into action – that is the easiest way for them to trust you and give you their precious email.
Wayne
PS Oh, that friend in Portland…well she had seven new people sign up after her latest interview!
