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Abstract

service like ConvertKit or MailChimp.</li><li>Create a freebie that your customers NEED. It should solve a problem for them.</li><li>Automate the process so when the customer signs up, your email service will automatically send out the free product.</li></ul><h1 id="f0db">Keep people on your list</h1><p id="8f22">This is most important for me. I’ve subscribed to many different mail lists in the past in order to obtain the original freebie. However, I always eventually unsubscribe unless the content creator can consistently provide me with some value.</p><p id="e1de">Yes, when you send an email, you usually talk to your subscribers and send them links to recent videos or blog posts. However, that doesn’t excite me enough. Anyone can access your recent public content with just a Google search. I don’t want to give away my email without getting something <i>exclusive</i> in return.</p><p id="5949">This is where free items come back into play. Every so often, send out new offers to your list. Ensure you tell your subscribers that this is exclusive content for them. Create something to excite your customers.</p><p id="b5aa">How to do it:</p><ul><li>Create a series of content that you would like to give your audience for free.</li><li>Send out the product regularly to the customers. You could aim for once a month.</li><li>Ensure that you explain it is exclusive content for your loyal subscribers only. If it is part of a series, explain when your subscribers can expect to receive more.</li></ul><h1 id="a2f7">Give customers a taster of your product</h1><p id="8f78">A few weeks ago, I attended a free four-day summit. Each day you were granted access to about 5–6 interviews for 24 hours only. They each went for about an hour, meaning you had access to up to 6 hours of content daily. If you missed out on content for a 24 hour period, you simply had to miss out. Or, you could pay a small fee to have lifetime access to the content.</p><p id="2c84">This is brilliant because it is likely that most people would not be able to watch all interviews every day for the four free days. However, each summit attendee would be able to get a taster of the high-quality and valuable content. They would finish wanting more and wishing they could still have access to the product. That’s exactly how I felt after finishing the summit.</p><p id="874c">That’s the key. Your content must be excellent. This summit contained interviews with many content creators and presented insights about a variety of niches. When you allow access to your paid content, ensure that you provide a wide variety of information so your audience wants more.</p><p id="e8ea">How to do it:</p><ul><li>Create a lot of high-quality content that provides plenty of value to the customer.</li><li>Allow your email subscribers to access it for free and for a very limited time.</li><li>Once the access is finished, offer your subscribers to access all content at a discounted price.</li></ul><h1 id="020f">Obtain feedback for your paid product</h1><p id="5cbe">You’ve just developed your paid product and you think it is of high quality. You think it will solve all of your customers’ problems. The question is: how do you<i> know for sure</i> that your product is valuable? Furthermore, how should you even price your product?</p><p id="c0f4">One way to obtain this type of feedback is to offer out y

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our product for free. You can personally reach out to a select few of your most engaged email subscribers. Offer them the product in exchange to give you feedback on how to improve it, as well as feedback on how much they would pay for the product.</p><p id="b069">You are designing your product for your customers, so it only makes sense that you would seek out their advice.</p><p id="cea1">How to do it:</p><ul><li>Every time you send out an email, ask a question and encourage people to respond to your email.</li><li>Take notice of the people who tend to respond back to your email most often. These people are engaging with your writing.</li><li>Send out personalised emails to those engaged subscribers, offering your product in exchange for feedback and even for reviews.</li></ul><h1 id="9499">Thank you gifts for your customers</h1><p id="e548">I think that having thank you gifts is very underrated. When your customers have spent their hard-earned money on your paid content, why not send them a small thank you of a free product at the end.</p><p id="1d11">I do this with <a href="https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-4-steps-i-took-to-turn-my-spray-tanning-hobby-into-a-successful-business-5a06aee888db">my spray tanning business</a>. I have regular clients who are my ‘bread and butter’. They are always the ones I can count on to show up. After the lockdown ended, they were the first people to come back to me. So, I offer little gifts every now and then to say thank you for being loyal customers. Sometimes it is a small bottle of moisturiser, other times I offer a Christmas discount. I just ensure I keep it within my niche.</p><p id="0d85">Surprise your customers with free gifts every now and then.</p><p id="893a">How to do it:</p><ul><li>Create a free gift that is a direct follow-up from your paid content.</li><li>Don’t tell your customers about it. This should be a complete surprise.</li><li>Give the gift to your customer with a note of gratitude.</li></ul><h1 id="e5a0">Final thoughts</h1><p id="b1ae">I think there is such a heavy emphasis these days on how to create and sell paid products. However, the most important thing you can do is <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonysmith/2018/08/01/how-to-build-lasting-customer-relationships/?sh=4591f583447a">establish a trustworthy relationship with your customers</a>. Without that relationship, there is no use selling anything. If you are strategic, using freebies will strengthen your customers’ trust in you.</p><p id="0d3b">The ways to use free content includes:</p><ul><li>building your email list</li><li>maintaining your list</li><li>giving a taster to your paid content</li><li>obtaining feedback</li><li>providing thank you gifts</li></ul><p id="a26c">Having this in your business toolbox can help you gain sales and have a loyal following of repeat customers. That is the business dream.</p><p id="49f9">For further reading on this topic, <a href="https://www.startamomblog.com/how-to-create-printables-grow-email-list/">I highly recommend this article</a>, which also contains tutorial videos.</p><p id="5e0e">Furthermore, the summit I attended was <a href="undefined">Tom Kuegler</a>’s. See <a href="https://readmedium.com/how-to-make-5-000-meet-30-influencers-and-jumpstart-your-writing-career-in-2021-d00588883f0f">his article</a> that explains more about it.</p></article></body>

The Most Overlooked and Underrated Way to Grow Your Business: Freebies

If you’re a content creator looking to increase audience loyalty or an entrepreneur trying to sell digital products then some well-timed freebies can promote engagement and increase sales.

Photo by Ekaterina Shevchenko on Unsplash

Freebies have been used as a marketing tool for a long time. It is nothing new. I remember when I was little, I could buy a packet of chips and get a free Tazo inside. For me, the incentive to buy the chips was the fact that I would be getting another one of these little cardboard discs to add to my collection. Similarly, McDonald’s used to offer a free Coca-Cola glass with any medium or large Big Mac meal.

The difference, however, is that these freebies came from a storefront from large, established businesses. If you are going into business by yourself, or if you are a digital content creator, it may be hard to know exactly if and when you should be giving out freebies. After all, you don’t want to be just churning out free content without any monetary gains.

Because of this expected loss, creators and entrepreneurs often overlook or underrate how profitable giving away freebies can be so here is a list of times when it would be suitable for you to give away free products to grow your business.

Gain email subscribers

For most entrepreneurs, having email subscribers is key to building a successful business. Your email list is the people who have faith in you and want to hear your thoughts. They will be the first people to see and buy your products. Therefore, they are your ‘bread and butter’.

One great way to encourage people to sign up for your list is to offer a freebie. You need to offer something of value within your niche. Find a problem that your customer might have, and solve it with a freebie. For example, if your niche is teaching people how to blog, you could offer outlines of several blog post structures. If your niche is health and fitness, create an exercise planner for a whole month. If your niche is painting, design a paint-by-numbers printable for your customers to use with their own paints.

The key questions you must ask yourself: what does my customer need? How can I solve a problem in a free printable or a free tutorial?

Once your customers start signing up to access your freebie, you’ll be able to build a relationship with them.

How to do it:

Sign up for an email service like ConvertKit or MailChimp.
Create a freebie that your customers NEED. It should solve a problem for them.
Automate the process so when the customer signs up, your email service will automatically send out the free product.

Keep people on your list

This is most important for me. I’ve subscribed to many different mail lists in the past in order to obtain the original freebie. However, I always eventually unsubscribe unless the content creator can consistently provide me with some value.

Yes, when you send an email, you usually talk to your subscribers and send them links to recent videos or blog posts. However, that doesn’t excite me enough. Anyone can access your recent public content with just a Google search. I don’t want to give away my email without getting something exclusive in return.

This is where free items come back into play. Every so often, send out new offers to your list. Ensure you tell your subscribers that this is exclusive content for them. Create something to excite your customers.

How to do it:

Create a series of content that you would like to give your audience for free.
Send out the product regularly to the customers. You could aim for once a month.
Ensure that you explain it is exclusive content for your loyal subscribers only. If it is part of a series, explain when your subscribers can expect to receive more.

Give customers a taster of your product

A few weeks ago, I attended a free four-day summit. Each day you were granted access to about 5–6 interviews for 24 hours only. They each went for about an hour, meaning you had access to up to 6 hours of content daily. If you missed out on content for a 24 hour period, you simply had to miss out. Or, you could pay a small fee to have lifetime access to the content.

This is brilliant because it is likely that most people would not be able to watch all interviews every day for the four free days. However, each summit attendee would be able to get a taster of the high-quality and valuable content. They would finish wanting more and wishing they could still have access to the product. That’s exactly how I felt after finishing the summit.

That’s the key. Your content must be excellent. This summit contained interviews with many content creators and presented insights about a variety of niches. When you allow access to your paid content, ensure that you provide a wide variety of information so your audience wants more.

How to do it:

Create a lot of high-quality content that provides plenty of value to the customer.
Allow your email subscribers to access it for free and for a very limited time.
Once the access is finished, offer your subscribers to access all content at a discounted price.

Obtain feedback for your paid product

You’ve just developed your paid product and you think it is of high quality. You think it will solve all of your customers’ problems. The question is: how do you know for sure that your product is valuable? Furthermore, how should you even price your product?

One way to obtain this type of feedback is to offer out your product for free. You can personally reach out to a select few of your most engaged email subscribers. Offer them the product in exchange to give you feedback on how to improve it, as well as feedback on how much they would pay for the product.

You are designing your product for your customers, so it only makes sense that you would seek out their advice.

How to do it:

Every time you send out an email, ask a question and encourage people to respond to your email.
Take notice of the people who tend to respond back to your email most often. These people are engaging with your writing.
Send out personalised emails to those engaged subscribers, offering your product in exchange for feedback and even for reviews.

Thank you gifts for your customers

I think that having thank you gifts is very underrated. When your customers have spent their hard-earned money on your paid content, why not send them a small thank you of a free product at the end.

I do this with my spray tanning business. I have regular clients who are my ‘bread and butter’. They are always the ones I can count on to show up. After the lockdown ended, they were the first people to come back to me. So, I offer little gifts every now and then to say thank you for being loyal customers. Sometimes it is a small bottle of moisturiser, other times I offer a Christmas discount. I just ensure I keep it within my niche.

Surprise your customers with free gifts every now and then.

How to do it:

Create a free gift that is a direct follow-up from your paid content.
Don’t tell your customers about it. This should be a complete surprise.
Give the gift to your customer with a note of gratitude.

Final thoughts

I think there is such a heavy emphasis these days on how to create and sell paid products. However, the most important thing you can do is establish a trustworthy relationship with your customers. Without that relationship, there is no use selling anything. If you are strategic, using freebies will strengthen your customers’ trust in you.

The ways to use free content includes:

building your email list
maintaining your list
giving a taster to your paid content
obtaining feedback
providing thank you gifts

Having this in your business toolbox can help you gain sales and have a loyal following of repeat customers. That is the business dream.

For further reading on this topic, I highly recommend this article, which also contains tutorial videos.

Furthermore, the summit I attended was Tom Kuegler’s. See his article that explains more about it.