I love giving things away.
I know, I\’m supposed to be a marketer. I\’m supposed to know how to get the full value for everything I supply.
But every year, I give away tons of fantastic freebies. I give away content, e-books, videos, training sessions, teleseminars and all sorts of other wonderful things.
If I had to calculate the total value of the goodies that I pass out for nothing every year, I\’d need to buy a wide-screen calculator.
And yet, I don\’t regret giving away any of them.
That\’s because not only do my users benefit, but I benefit too.
There are three ways that you can benefit from giving away free gifts.
The first is very simple: take money from advertisers. That\’s how Internet publishers do it and many of us are making very nice sums this way.
The rule for earning with ad-supported freebies is to make the ads useful. If the ads are obtrusive, users will go around them. Then they\’ll go away and they won\’t come back. If the ads are useful — as Google\’s ads are — users will read them and make the most of them. That means advertisers will pay you for them.
Every time someone accepts one of your free offers, they also leave their contact details. Over time, that gives you a valuable database for future marketing. Your non-paying customers might not be leaving money but they\’re still increasing your wealth.
The rule here is not to abuse the trust that someone gives you when they hand over their email address. Only use it for the purpose they intended.
And free items can also act as samples that show users and potential customers what you\’re offering. White papers, free reports and chapter samples can work this way. They let readers see the quality of your advice and understand what they\’ll get if they buy your products or become regular users of your sites.
The rule here is the golden rule that applies to every aspect of using freebies to drive sales: make sure that what you give away is valuable.
Hand out garbage, and you\’ll get garbage right back. Hand out quality products and the value of those products will come back to you in spades.