The Right Way to Use Freebies to Build
Your Online Business
© 2004-5 by Bruce Carlson - Published May 5, 2005

As most people know, freebies carry a lot of weight. One of the
most powerful words in marketing, especially Internet marketing,
is the word "free".

This little word is so powerful that even its mere presence in
an email subject line sets off all kinds of alarms.

This is because, by now, most people have been "freed" to death
(thanks to the accursed spam), so in certain contexts they get
pretty suspicious of freebies, as they should.

But way before anybody ever thought about the possibility of
computers, or an Internet, there was a saying -- "Nothing in
life is free."

And when it comes to advertising we all know, deep down, that
there is usually going to be something attached when that little
word is thrown around.

As long as a customer perceives that there is indeed some
genuine value for him or her in what is being given away they'll
still grab it, however.

Giving away something for free as a part of your offer has long
been considered one of the cardinal principles for selling on
the Web. No matter what it is you're trying to market, you're
practically considered to be nuts if you don't use freebies.

Take ezines, for example. The vast majority of ezines cost
nothing. They're free. Yet many people who publish free ezines,
myself included, use or have used freebies to entice people to
subscribe to our ezines. It's so difficult to establish value on
the Web that we actually have to give something away in order to
give something away!

There's a right way and a wrong way to utilize this powerful
little word "free". There is also a basic principle concerning
the use of freebies in Web marketing which holds true for ANY
information product, not just ezines.

In the few paragraphs that follow, I'd like to pass on a couple
of simple little techniques for the effective use of freebies
which will quickly result in increased sales for you and also
help you to develop a new perspective and attitude about
establishing value when doing business on the Web.

USE BONUSES WISELY

In order to increase your sales by using freebies you need to
make sure that you use your bonuses wisely. This way you'll
qualify your prospects and get people who'll want to buy. The
result will be a marked increase in the percentage of prospects
who convert to buyers.

Unfortunately, the Web is full of examples of how not to use
bonuses. For example, how many times have you seen an ad
headline that read something like this?:

Subscribe now for FREE to Joe's Ezine and get your BONUS special
report!

Now there's nothing wrong with giving away a bonus report to new
subscribers. But, it shouldn't be your up-front selling point.
Your up-front selling point should be the benefits which your
product offers your customer.

Ask yourself first, "What can my product do for my prospect?"
Begin your pitch with the benefits they will receive. Some great
sales letters just jump right in with a bullet list of benefits.

So you sell your prospect on your benefits first. Then, once
you've convinced them that your product can indeed help them,
you can "casually" mention your bonus, perhaps even as late as
the P.S. to your sales letter. It could go like this:

P.S. Incidentally, when you subscribe to Joe's Ezine you'll also
get my BONUS report entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know
About Widgets But Were Afraid to Ask". This report is valued at
$47, but is yours for free as a thank you for subscribing.

See? Now the freebie has some value. Since your customer has
(hopefully) already decided they want what you have to offer,
the freebie comes across as a true extra. That's value. And
that's how you turn a larger percentage of your prospects into
paying customers.

Using the freebie as bait up-front for something that's already
free is not smart business. When you do this you're instantly
decreasing your chances for making sales. This is because that
powerful word "free" will automatically attract people with a
"freebie" mentality. You may get big numbers of prospects but
they'll be predisposed not to buy from you. You trigger that
mindset when you dangle the freebie in front of their noses
right off the bat.

Once people get into that freebie mindset it's difficult, if not
impossible, to get them out of it. They will sign up to get the
freebie and then keep waiting for more freebies. When they see
that they're not going to get any more they'll move on. If they
do end up buying from somebody it probably won't be you.

YOUR BONUS IS A SAMPLE OF YOUR LARGER PRODUCT

Another key to using freebies is to make sure that what you are
offering is a sample of something larger. If you offer a free
email course, for example, it should be designed to draw your
prospect into one of your affiliate programs, or to sell them
something through a referral, or else to pitch your ebook or
some other product you have the rights to sell.

In similar fashion, if you offer a free report then the report
could be a sample of your work, again to sell your ebook or
other product.

Offering a free ezine is one of the most popular and best ways
to get out a sample of your work, provided you have original
content. Then you can package up your original content with a
few extras into a larger package like an ebook and offer it for
sale.

If you don't have original material, then you'll need to be
patient and use your ezine as a way of establishing and building
trust with a list of subscribers/prospects. This can take quite
a while. But it's well worth it in the long run, especially if
you enjoy publishing an ezine.

Whichever type of bonus you do decide to use, just make sure
that it's a sample designed to lead toward something larger -
the sale of an actual product.

And don't try to sell the huge $500 marketing course first.
Start out by selling something inexpensive. The $20 - $50 range
is what most marketers look at for the first sale. After that
you can sell the bigger ones through follow-ups leading to
"backend" sales. Oftentimes the really big sales don't come for
a long time, unless you have a well-established name and
reputation.

Bruce Carlson is a veteran freelance writer
and educator living in Finland. Sign up for
Bruce's Dynamic Copywriter newsletter today
and see how easily you can improve your online
copywriting and marketing skills and boost your
sales!
http://www.dynamic-copywriting.com

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