Convert the Reputation & Attention You Get From Your Free Give-Away

Posted by Melody Campbell on October 6, 2009 · 4 Comments 

“Free is not a magic bullet. Giving away what you do will not make you rich by itself. You have to think creatively about how to convert the reputation and attention you can get from Free into cash.” Chris Anderson, author of  Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Do you realize that “free” is a business strategy?

This quote from Chris Anderson’s book says it well. The powerful strategy behind the free giveaway that you give to new subscribers gives you the opportunity to build reputation and attention; your on-going strategy is to convert that into to cash.

You’re missing out if you’re not giving away something with enough value to build reputation and attention to your message, method, & promise.

Your emailing strategy is the “build” – continuation of what you started with your free special report, mini-guide, white paper, manifesto, audio, video -whatever your give away is – the backend is in the email follow up. You lose momentum and credibility if your giveaway and your follow emails don’t build your reputation and capture your prospects attention.

Take a look at your lead capture strategy. This is a pivotal piece in your marketing. A lot is riding on this.

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Comments

4 Responses to “Convert the Reputation & Attention You Get From Your Free Give-Away”
  1. Tammy Barbee says:
    October 13, 2009 at 2:22 am

    I agree. I am in the process of giving some things away for free. When do you know what to give away for free and when to let others know, hey this is such and such and pay this?

  2. Dave Meyer says:
    October 14, 2009 at 2:53 pm

    Hi Melody,

    I agree… “Free” can be a great attention getter… but by itself, it’s not enough. There needs to be something after the free that builds on what you have started and makes the clients want more. My opinion is that the free should be something usable by your clients, based on your current business, and should open the door to the question “what’s next?”

    For example, a coach I knew focuses on generations in the workplace. A great topic. But her giveawy is a cookbook. It’s no wonder that she can’t build on her giveaway since her target market finds the gift nice, but irrelevant. Think about how your client wil use our giveaway and what the perfect next step for them would be. And then show them the steps to take!

    Thanks for the great ideas…

    Dave

  3. Elaine Lockard says:
    October 22, 2009 at 7:40 pm

    Good information. Very useful for me since I am developing a signature give away to build my list. Thanks for the info from your article and from the comments.

  4. sam says:
    November 18, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    I agree with Dave that your freebie has to be something that your customers will want and certainly has to be of enough value and quality that your reputation is increased. The hard part is after the gift. You need to have something ready to sell them or else you’ve just got a list of names

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