Freebie Seekers

Hi Gary,

I actually meant products, services and offers rather than regular content on Web sites and blogs.

And yes, lots of people with different views. You see lots of people using the word “FREE” in their advertisements and offers, although it is proven to attract the wrong kind of people. Even for James Brausch’s Glyphius, the word “FREE” is a negative word (-31); “Complementary” is much better (+103).

Personally, I also get more out of paid courses. And frankly, my own mindset changes and I put a lot more effort into it when I create a paid course. Maybe it’s because I know I will attract the right kind of people with it.

James used the right words when I talked about this subject with him, “You don’t wanna have freebie seekers in your business. They do more harm than good.”

~Marcus

That’s interesting indeed, Chris, as probably most Internet marketers will also tell you that a red headline on sales pages will trigger the highest conversion rate. Look at common sales letters and you’ll see what I mean.

But did they actually TEST different headline colors? I doubt that. James did (so do I), and he figured out that a dark blue, black, or a dark green headline always wins big time against a red headline.

Same with many other things that people “have heard” or “read” once (eventually from books that are decates old). We need to test in order to find out if it really DOES prove to be more profitable.

In other words, when you read that the word “Free” would be a powerful or even a profitable word, I would simply go ahead and TEST that against another word, such as “Complementary”.

However, I would not test it in terms of conversion rate (that *might* be higher towards the word ‘Free’), but against which kind of people you’ll attract and how fast your Internet business grows with these kind of people.

I confess we might not get results that fast as we’ll also have to use “taking action” as a measurement.

And it’s certainly not only about sales, it’s about how many people you can get to take action based upon the material you’re selling, and how many people you can help set themselves free.

THAT is something that keeps me up at night.

~Marcus

I think you’re absolutely right that people value something much more when they pay for it. To me that’s a big reason you have to pay to adopt a pet: you’ll care for it better, because you have an investment in it.

I wonder if people have tested charging very small amounts for a report ($5) instead of giving it away for free. That would probably result in fewer downloads, but theoretically more purchasers would come back to buy other services in the future.

I like this take on Free by direct marketing ‘legend’ Jim Straw of BusinessLyceum.com so hope it’s okay to quote Jim in full…

“One of my all-time “big” response ads was:

FREE BOOK — “Offshore Banking Is Not Evil.”

Over 50,000 people requested that “freebie” from 1986 to 1988. — Every “Free” booklet I sent out cost me nearly $3 … plus the cost of the ads. Instead of the usual 15% to 20% conversion rate (paying customers) I usually got from “inquiry” ads, the rate was a low 2% to 3%. — That promotion ate my lunch.

In 1988, I changed the ad to read:

OFFSHORE BANKING is not evil. Free.

Each inquirer received a one-page flyer … which cost me about 20¢ to send to them … offering the book for $10. — The response to the ad was much, much smaller but the $10 price tag on the book paid for my ads and my conversion rate went up to 30%, producing a significant profit on the very first mailing.”

Lots of takeaway messages from Jim’s example but I’ll highlight one.

Catch the attention of the ideal prospect FIRST, then ‘Free’ can be used to help tip this targeted group from a “No.” to an “Okay. What the heck, yes.”

Hey Marcus, I agree with you to a point. I have had freebies pushed on me by various people and I might download them, but probably won’t read them. However, if I go looking for something, that’s when I’ll read or use it. Depends what your needs are. :)

I’d have to agree with you on this one marcus. Especially the complaints part.

I run or maintain several websites offering completely free services and they generally have mostly passing traffic. Theres a few solid repeat visitors for every couple of thousand. But in general they arrive expect free stuff and the feedback is mostly positive.

However in contrast another site of a client offers free products when you purchase a main product. This produces a wealth of problems, from customer complaints that the free products are wrong in some way or other, or if they return the main product they should be able to keep the “FREE” products. We tried various connotations of the word and eventually had to settle on complimentary and outline in the terms and conditions various limitations to the word complimentary.
But when using PPC using free is very powerful, as long as its made blatantly clear that its buy this, get this free. That way peopel are clear that they are going to buy to get the freebie.

See? That’s exactly what I mean… One may get a flood of subscribers by using the word FREE but what about their quality? That can be quite another story…

~Marcus

You can talk another view on this though. You can capture those people then convince them they need a paid product more. Free sells and always does, but it works well when you’re using it as an incentive (aka bundling one thing with another).

“You can talk another view on this though. You can capture those people then convince them they need a paid product more. Free sells and always does, but it works well when you’re using it as an incentive (aka bundling one thing with another”

Agreed, because not all free offers are inferior, its the manufacturers best way to publicize their product. If people likes the product they consume it or else they can skip it. Simple deal and no risk involved.

Wow! I had never thought about it this way before. Maybe I should start charging and I’d have more visitors? hmm