Just a couple of days ago, I started receiving promotions in my inbox for a product called Kajabi by Andy Jenkins. If you’re at all involved in Internet Marketing then you probably would have received those emails as well. Andy Jenkins is one of the big celebrity stars in the Internet Marketing world up there along with people like Jeff Walker, Frank Kern, John Reese, etc. If you’ve seen any of their recent launches, they were being run on Kajabi. What Kajabi is is basically a product launch and membership platform.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is not to talk about Kajabi, but rather to talk about something I found quite interesting about the launch. Usually in these type of launches, a lot of valuable free content is offered in the form of videos. This is called free line content. Basically the idea is to give out some of your best stuff to impress people and establish in people’s minds the kind of quality they will get in your actual product. You see this in recent launches like Product Launch Formula, AffiliateDotCom, Outsource Force, Video Boss, etc. Usually, the catch is that to view this content you usually need to put in your email address in the squeeze page provided.
With this pre-launch however, the video provided is completely without any strings attached. ie. you don’t need to provide you email address.
*gasps*
You mean you don’t need to give up your precious (or throw away) email address to view the oh-so-awesome content that you absolutely MUST check out?
Yup, you got that right.
But why? Isn’t it the logical thing to do to get a visitor’s email address first? Don’t you want to be in contact with them so you can keep buttering them up and hammering them with your polished marketing pitches?
In a word?
Nope.
A Different Approach
It seems that with this launch, Andy has deliberated not used a squeeze page for his pre-launch videos. Rather, he lets the video itself do the work of convincing you to sign up to his early bird list. If you think about it, that does make quite a bit of sense.
Just about every other big launch I’ve seen requires you to give up your email address before being able to view the free content. This is a generally accepted practice but more people are getting wary of giving up their email addresses because of the ridiculous amount of scam offers by unscrupulous marketers. Of course, I’m not suggesting that the gurus are giving scam offers. My point is that you need to work that much harder to convince people to give up their email addresses.
By not using a squeeze page, you effectively remove the barrier to accessing your pre-launch content. Yes, an opportunity is lost to get new people onto your email list but in return, you get two important benefits. Firstly, your free stuff comes with no strings attached. If nothing else, it generates a sense of good will and people are more willing to give back because you’ve taken the first step. Secondly, the leads you eventually get are much higher quality because these are people who have reviewed your content and express interest in knowing more about your product. Not a bad trade off if you asked me.
The Death of Squeeze Pages?
Interestingly enough, in the past week I have seen 2 other launches that don’t utilize a squeeze page. Rather they make their content freely available and entice people to sign up for early bird notifications or special bonuses. So the question is, are people moving away from squeeze pages?
No.
Squeeze pages definitely have their uses. The concept of squeeze pages are totally different in that they offer a bribe in exchange for an email address. This is a often employed tactic in growing lists and remains highly effective. In a pre-launch situation however, it could be that not having a squeeze page works better because you WANT people to see your content (and spread the word). It could also be that you want to intentionally have a squeeze page to give a sense of exclusivity for your content.
At the end of the day, the decision to use a squeeze page or not depends on your priority and what you want to achieve. Personally, in a pre-launch situation I would prefer not needing to opt-in to view content. It does mean that I will risk losing some people upfront for various reasons but I believe the trade off is acceptable. Besides, I would rather they decide they don’t want to sign up to my list AFTER they watch my video than before.
What do you think? Do you agree with foregoing squeeze pages for pre-launch material? Let me know in the comments. Also, if you’ve found this post informative, do share it by retweeting. 
Yup, its that time again where Google once again tweaks its search engine algorithms in the never ending quest to deliver more relevant results to users (or at least that’s the official line).