To Free or not to Free - Help Needed

[Debbiedle]

It has been my experience that you can give it for free and sell it and you will still have sales! People are bone idle and or stuck for time and learn in different ways. In the past it was said never sell anything on the net that can be found for free, I believe that the net has become so big that there is little you cannot find for free. So I would look at it from a different angle. What do I want to sell, what is easy to deliver once paid for and then give the rest away if necessary?

[Chatmaster]

Hi Vincent

My contribution to this is the following. You must have free information. The Internet is very different in that way, because you obtain more and more targetted traffic, which will result in more sales and a handy database of people interested in your topic.

How it works is simple. You have an information website, right? Now in terms of information 93% of all people looking for information on the web will make use of a search engine. Take for example Jim Novo (good read btw), he gives alot of valuable information on his website for free. But to understand the full concept you will need to buy his book. Now by just providing the information he does for free on his website, I personally have referred his website to countless of people, getting the viral thing going and I just linked to him because know this guy is good, scoring him another backlink.

The web is all about reputation, you can tell millions of people that you know something, they will only believe you if they witness it for themselves.

By not making free information available, search engines cannot find the information and therefore you miss out on all those valuable searches. People have no idea who you are and that you are for real, because they cannot discover you as a person. You cannot collect a database and therefore your online marketing strategy becomes so much harder to accomplish.

Some writers also makes use of other techniques to get the points over.

• Writing a complex article and making it very difficult to understand without proper explanation. The explanation is then available in the book.
• Writing content that are dependent on information available only in the book
• Taking extracts from the book and making it available.
• Publishing researched articles motivating the need for the book known.

I personally suggest that you divide your content into three sections.

1. Completely free content with valuable information without registration. The articles has 2 goals and that is to get information freely available for search engines and to serve as a conversion tool for the "registration required" articles.
2. Articles that requires registration for access but are free for download. This provides you with a database of people interested in your topic, that leads to the next step...
3. Sale of books

[Vincent]

Thanks for the tip and your input, much appreciated- this is something that I never knew. I thought search engines searched for anything and everything.

Hi Vincent
By not making free information available, search engines cannot find the information and therefore you miss out on all those valuable searches.

I like this idea as well, will definitely consider when redoing my webpage

I personally suggest that you divide your content into three sections.

1. Completely free content with valuable information without registration. The articles has 2 goals and that is to get information freely available for search engines and to serve as a conversion tool for the "registration required" articles.
2. Articles that requires registration for access but are free for download. This provides you with a database of people interested in your topic, that leads to the next step...
3. Sale of books

[Dave A]

Chatmaster is something of a guru on this.

I was pretty blown away by his international reputation as I've been tip-toeing around the SEO world picking up tips. There' something special about seeing a South African make an impression on the global stage.

I'm pretty sure he's worth his fee if you want to enlist his personal professional help

[Chatmaster]

Thanks Dave, appreciate the compliment!

[Dave A]

Just telling it like it is. Obviously you can't blow your own trumpet and not everyone hangs around those circles - so they'd never know.

[Ann Williams]

What the USA gurus say on what to give away on the internet...

Give away a part of something - but make sure that the part given away is useful. For example, you have some wisdom to give, say: "The ten best ways to market your business." Give away three of the points for free - the whole points. There must be some solid information in them.

This is in preference to giving away a touch of everything - but nothing really useful.

The other point they make, is that ideally you shouldn't actually give away anything for free. All readers should 'pay' for the stuff they get by giving you some of their details, and preferrably specific permission for you to contact them on occasion. (To allow you to build a relationship with them.)

www.Entrepreneur.co.za (nothing to do with Entrepreneur Magazine which is www.entrepreneurmag.co.za) is a good example of this. They have free articles but you have to sign up for free membership first which involves giving some of your details, including your e-mail address. Brian then sends out e-mails to this membership base on a regular basis. (Although permission given here is tacit.)

So ideally you should give away some (or all) of your forms; but don't just make them downloadable from the site. Rather tell your visitors that they are available, all they have to do is fill in an online request for the forms they wish to have (get this done through an autoresponder), and the forms asked for will be sent to the requester's e-mail address.

Then, on occasion, send them an e-mail telling them about your new e-books or reports etc. Also ask them if they would like to receive a regular newsletter from you. Just don't be too pushy... getting three or four e-mails a week from you from thereon out will just get on their nerves rather than building a relationship of mutual benefit. (Which is after all the main reason for making the offerings in the first place.)

(More ideas like this on our Electronic Marketing course; next being held in Centurion on Wednesday, 6th February 2008. For more details see:
Workshop marketing )

[Vincent]

Thanks for that piece of advice.

I've been a bit lazy on that webpage and have let it slide slightly. I will definitely add an auto response to the outgoing email. Before anyone can download a document, they need to fill out a form, and then an email is sent which activates the download. The activation is done on each occasion, which gives me an idea of how many people are downloading.

I have also added a forum ('stole" the idea from this forum), which I hope will increase traffic to the webpage.

Hopefully all will be ready by the end of the month.

[Karenwhe]

This is a very interesting thread with lots of good ideas.

IMHO is not about free or not free but more like what you want to give free why and what you get in return.

There is no free lunch. So question: what do you want in return for your ebooks? (e.g. leads? lists? etc). I can't remember who said this, but someone called it Moving the Free Line. Entering the arena of lists and newsletters is very much "permission marketing". Personally, I would never suggest to anyone to start anything in permission marketing unless it is their primary business, as it is time consuming, long term and most give up before they see the rewards of permission marketing. I also hear of a new term to this with a twist called "education marketing". Still long, time consuming, very rewarding but only for those that have a good business model behind it and the time and resources to execute.

I think that one needs to think through strategy before deciding to sell or give something free. In that strategy one should work out what is the return for the free stuff, how much does it cost you to get a qualified lead, what is life value of a customer and then how much is the data worth?

In general imho, one should have both.

I also recommend reading the book by Jay Abraham: “Getting Everything You Can Out of All You've Got: 21 Ways You Can Out-Think, Out-Perform, and Out-Earn the Competition� (it is on amazon)

It is full of ideas.

On a different note, I also do not think that people DIY on advise, that is of course from my personal experience, you tell people what to do and they still want you to do it for them.

Also imho the pay for subscription model is not out of date at all. Finding valuable paid subscriptions that have absolute and undisputable value to the customer are few and far between. As Trout says, there are too many "me too" products that is why the old model seem so outdated, because there are no new distinctive or innovative products and services with true value to customer/consumer so the model seems outdated. Wherever there is TRUE value people pay, how many will pay and how much they will pay and how much can the owner of the site make will depend on many things, but one of course is the size of the market.

[Vincent]

Hi Karen, I agree with a lot you say. First off I must say that my webpage was a first attempt, although that's no excuse. The most fundamental mistake I made was not to research what I wanted to do, so my webpage became a 'me too' with a price tag. I just wanted to sell documents, as a side-line.

The ebooks, they are all available on the net for free, one or two of them are on this forum. Most documents that I have are available on the net for free as well. The ones that are not, such as my 'full and resale franchise agreements,' which are comprehensive will not be available, a fee will be charged. If people want changes made to the document, this will be done for a fee. But primarily the web site is now to generate leads, which is picking up nicely, with some work starting to come through.

I also do not think that people DIY on advise, that is of course from my personal experience, you tell people what to do and they still want you to do it for them.

I agree, I offer the docs for free, but my service and time is charged out.

This thread and the input from various people has been great, and I would like to thank everyone for their ideas and suggestions.