Internet Marketing: Moving The FREE Line
The FREE Line
What is the FREE line? You most likely have been participating in numerous free line offering without even realizing it. When developing a marketing strategy you need to have something of interest to offer people for them to give you their attention. The more you can engage them and offer value for solving their problems the more they will begin to know like and trust you and even rely on you for certain information. Essentially in internet marketing all the content you offer on your blogs, videos and pertinent reference sharing, is free.This is all upfront to be freely consumed by your fans,readers,audience, potential customer. This would be the top of your sales funnel. The free line would be the line that divides this part of your product/service line from those that you charge a fee for.
Internet Marketing Sales Funnel
The Sales Funnel is essential for every business whether online or or not. It is in your marketing process that you eventually get your prospects/ideal clients to pass into action in regards to your product. As I stated above, the free offering is the initial point of contact. It is the funnel opening. Then as the funnel gets smaller and the message more targeted with more expensive products you will have less people passing through but they will be very engaged customers.The more you can attract to the free offering the better.
Even for the customer to do an exchange of their personal info for a more valuable piece of content like a free report, e-book, marketing tool or free blog, the free offering has to be very appealing.
moving the free line
Moving The Free Line
As more and more people are using the internet for sharing content, entertainment, learning and researching the competition for those potential customers is growing. Since the revolution of the dynamic web with web 2.0 and social media, the speed with which things are changing is growing exponentially. Tools and information are changing daily. People want to be in the know to follow the market changes and are willing to pay for the top information to do it. But it has to be the newest from those “in the know” as yesterday’s can be found for free somewhere.
It is said that in order to remain competitive you have to give to away some of your best content for free. Those that can give away the most will certainly be those that make the most sales and the more of that that is being charged for by your competitors is even better. Think about your own behaviours online…with a little click of the mouse you are gone onto the next bigger better faster (cheaper) site. Word spreads quickly too as to who is doing what. There are no secrets anymore and the sooner you add that to your tactics the better. Moving the free line is a necessity to remain competitive and relevant. Moving the line down forces the top of the funnel to get larger. More people will be served as well if it is truly valuable. What you sold last time is a new free add-on to what you are selling today. Your task is to see how far you can push it.
On my last Squidoo lens you can read more on moving the free line and see how marketers may want to pay attention to the power of the people using the social web.
Make a Splash With Your (Above the) FREE Line Offering
When working on your free offering it is best to think about the WOW factor and how you can make a splash with it. I have seen and heard of many creative campaigns around competitions and book launches. One that stands out is Moon Fruit a website producer. To promote their company they had a give away of 10 Mac books on Twitter. They made quite the buzz with that and increased traffic by 600% or something. The point of entry was to tweet.
One that I am fond of because the offer was so helpful to me was of course to have someone build my blog for free. Social Spin is doing this. I was around when they were doing the beta testing on it and jumped at the offer. Now they have just launched full force with an even better offer including a training I paid for several months back. They are having a real door crasher event with this.
The early adopters have explored, tested and trained across the social web. Now all types of businesses realize the importance of building a web presence. The free offering of a blog set up is great for social spin as their back end is training. In order for their training to be beneficial to their end users they need to ensure they have the best tools in place first…so in my mind this was a genius offering that I am sure will entice thousands to part with their info. It is all in their benefit. Social Spin knows what it means to come from a place of service. Check them out if you haven’t already and get your free blog.
Are You Moving Your Free Line?
I would love to know how you have been moving your free line since last year. Why not tell me in the comment section below or name some of the best ones you have come across either online or offline.
Thanks for dropping by
Rebecca Happy~The Connector Gal
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Hi Rebecca, I love your post, even though I only partially agree. I have seen and participated in many promotions that have moved the free line. They seem to work great and the ones that I have witnessed seemed to be very successful, both in terms of sales and in terms of information given out for free. The idea behind this concept is that if you give away your highest quality content, people will think “if this is your free content, what will your paid content be like…”
But the free line approach is not always necessary. For example, if you are in a not so competitive niche, or you have a product that is in high demand, there is no need to use the free line tactics. It does not hurt, but it is not necessary to succeed online. Or if you have a blog where you provide valuable content year round. You will have build a loyal following. Your list will be targeted and there again you should not have to use the free line tactics.
And these are just examples. There are many instances where the free line is not the marketing method of choice in my opinion. It all depends on whether you already have your readers attention and whether they trust you or not.
That is just my opinion. I realize that my opinion is not in line with general consensus online, but it is the way I see it. Hope you don't mind me sharing it with your readers Rebecca.
Thanks so much for your ideas Karin and I do not at all mind you sharing them here…I very much appreciate your input. I will challenge it a little though..if you think about it blog content is all free for the most part. I do not think I have come across one where you have to pay to subscribe. And if you rad some of the very informative blogs some of the information that is being shared (for free) is what you will find in products and books (even hardcover) that others are charging money for.
Even look at your blog Karin..it is chock full of really helpful information and it is all there for free without me even having to give you my contact info. I would say in summary that that is the very top of the funnel…the place where people begin to find out about what you have to share.
Hey Rebecca, this is an Excellent Blog Post. I love the way you put things into perspective with the phrase, “free line” that term is so easy to understand and so true and relevant to the ideal behind offering free “things” for LEADS! Its always been the concept behind it. I, myself, need to nurture my leads a bit more. Are you familiar with ThumbVu TE? Did I tell you about it? This is a great way to CATCH PEOPLE AT YOUR FREE LINE! Hit me up if you want my link. otherwise, AWESOME blog post and thanks for the great tips and advice. God Bless, Curt
Rebecca, so true what you have said about how quickly something you paid premium dollars can become a free bonus to a newer idea. The age of social media/ networking is moving at the speed of light. One free line that quickly comes to mind is Ed Dale “The Challenge” this is a phenomenal list builder for him and his team. As a marketer I am sure you know the value of the list. Great post my friend.
Rebecca,
Great article, and highlights an issue that I'm facing right now! I've been blogging and giving away articles, reports, monthly newsletter and monthly teleseminars. Now starting to monetize with a course and experimenting with what my list wants, how they want it and what will they pay for it. Very challenging, yet I'm doing my best to move forward with it.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Adam
Rebecca, loved the post. It's true moving that FREE line has it's advantages if and when you do it correctly. The more you give away the easier it is for you to generate more sales, it can be a challenge but it is so worth it!
Lori
Great post Rebecca, well put together and gives the right amount of value. The marketing funnel has to be done a certain way to make money. If there is no strategy and you over deliver with value there are no conversions to customers or a downline. People won't see any value in your expert advice if they get everything for free. If you have a strategy with no value you still have no conversions. No valuable information won't allow you to market correctly and get the information that people need to move to the next step. With the right formula anybody can close on multiple customers in a week. Successful online marketers are concentrating on having the right campaign with the right amount of value to get high conversions. We all need to make money but make sure it's a win win for everybody involved. The top network marketers use this formula and thought I would share it. I think free stuff gets a lot of leads but it's the way you market from the time they're first interested to the end conversion of that prospect to a customer or distributor that can't be left out. It's not about trying to sell you my system. The system is just one of your solutions and proper marketing creates the income you need to survive in this industry. Thanks for your great article Rebecca.
Thanks for that Rebecca. I realize I could be doing more with my blog.
Thanks again,
Michael
Hey Rebecca
Nice article and squidoo page.
Like Karin commented, offering your best products for free depends on your market
But it is the perfect model if you are in network marketing. Offer some of your best tutorials or services for free to help others start their home business and build relationships.
Not everyone will join you in your business, but those who do will love you
I think in the the world of social media and info marketing people will love you too. Some will say that the free line is what kills good content and others will say it is what will define the leaders…
Karin actually went on to think about what was written here and expanded on her thoughts in her own blog post..check it out Peter. She always brings great insight. http://automarker.net/blog/unlimited-traffic-to…
Thanks so much for dropping by.
I love the funnel graphic!
When teaching classes I get asked all the time “what would be a great offer?” All of your ideas and points are wonderful, thanks for sharing.
I think one other simple way to determine if a offer will produce any results is thinking if I went to a site with an offer like this would I take advantage of it? Obviously if the answer is “no” then the offer is probably not very good.
Awesome post! Have a wonderful day!
Joe
Hi Rebecca
Great post! the free line, I love it.
I love the way you have used the sales funnel to illustrate how this works, those of us who are marketing on line are always looking for ways to increase our database because that traffic = sales leads via your conversion rate. This is a great article, well done and thank you!
Lisa
I am interested to hear of your results as you start to get a handle on all this Lisa…Knowing that you are a whiz at offline business and using social media it will be fun to watch.
that is a good perspective to keep in mind…or perhaps the offer is good but I am the wrong customer for it.
I would say the first time I fully experienced this model was from the book The Secrets of The Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Eker….inside the cover, you got 2 FREE tickets to a 3 day looooooong intensive workshop. For anyone who survived and experienced that were certainly well on their way down his funnel.
Rick,
I totally an grateful for all the rich comments and pieces of information you leave me both here and in reply to my comments on your blog. You have such a wealth of experience and insight that you offer so freely it is refreshing. Thank -you.
Rebecca,
Good post…. and some great comments followed. Those free offers are a strategy many offline businesses use as well…think free samples. With blogs, as you pointed out so well, information of value is given freely and the higher the value, the more repeat visits, the more subscribers, etc. That was a great example of moving the free line!
Thanks so much for sharing your information……
Sincerely,
Robin
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