Selling Them on the Freebie

“Internet marketers” tout the efficacy of freebies as a means of attracting people to your business. Not only is the theory flawed, but it is, in fact, far more complex than they make it sound.

If you give a “meaningless” freebie, you’ll attract freebie seekers, who want the goods, but don’t want to buy anything. So you have to choose a freebie more carefully, making sure it brings in interested people.

One of my clients told me that she felt that our free website assessment was the most valuable thing we could offer, because it helped her see that we really could help her. In fact, 50% of the people who we give a free assessment to DO hire us. It also gets us some decent referrals from people who do not buy.

But the problem is, it is VERY hard to even give that away! The same is true of a marketing consultation. Both services are very valuable. They give someone the benefit of our knowledge, with no strings attached.

People don’t ask for it though. We can go to a trade show, and BEG people to fill out a card for a free assessment, and if we have built a relationship with them, they will. But if we advertise that free assessment as our front line approach, nobody calls. They are afraid to commit.

When a prospect calls for other reasons, the first thing we offer is the free assessment, and they take it. But they already decided to act to improve their site, and they already decided to ask us to do it.

Otherwise, we have to sell them on US, before we can even get them to take the freebie. Not too efficient!

People are scared to commit to even a free service. I think it says a lot about the state of the internet now that the word “free” has such negative connotations to honest business people. Makes me wonder if I shouldn’t put a token fee on it, just to remove that feeling of mistrust! Sad, because I’d gladly give that to any business owner who needed it, because it helps them, and it helps us.

Freebies only work if you are going after gamblers, or the inexperienced. When your target market is smart people, they mistrust freebies, even when they are good ones. If you want to use one, you have to find an effective way of selling them on the freebie before you can use the freebie to sell them on your service.