Don't Do List

Don’t create freebies to sell products

This will probably be the shortest post I ever write here
The takeaway is simple: don’t create freebies to drive sales to paid products.
Here’s why —
The venn diagram of people who search for and download freebies, and people who search for and purchase paid products is actually two separate circles:
notion image
A common adage among novice marketers is that you should create free offerings to drive traffic to your paid products, but the reality is that these are two completely different customer segments: one with high purchasing affinity, one with little-to-no purchasing intent.
It is no surprise that it is significantly easier to sell a $25 product to someone who is expecting to spend $25 as opposed to someone who is looking for something free.
I have learned this the hard way, having wasted countless hours developing freebie products and lead magnets for various businesses: ranging from eCommerce to software.

Case Study:

For example, one of our product businesses has served over 3,000 paying customers and over 11,000 freebie downloads. Of these thousands of users, just two purchased a product after downloading a freebie.
💡
Exception to the rule: if your freebie is a “preview” or excerpt of the full product, this can be conducive to driving actual sales. But if it’s an entirely separate product, the chances of high ROI are incredibly slim.
 
 
badge