Is Free Good For Internet Marketing
Is Free Good For Internet Marketing
In the world of internet marketing free is a great asset. But free is not complete.
Internet marketers use free information to grow their online businesses. Free is one of the means to get people exposed to what you are doing.
Have you ever noticed how grocery stores provide free and money off coupons? What is the purpose of these? They provide these coupons to get you inside their store. Their hope is that once inside you will purchase something else – they really hope that you will complete your shopping there once you find your free items.
It’s the same way with internet marketing. Internet marketers provide a lot of free products and information to their subscribers or potential customers. The hope is that you will upgrade to the more complete product – the rest of the story so to speak.
Let’s look at one area where free is used – ad swaps. In this context, I am referring to internet marketers offering you a free gift if you will provide them with your contact information. Once you provide that information you become a member of their list.
This is call list building and it is vital to internet marketing success. You may not want to give out your contact information and in today’s spam world that is understandable. However, if you want to survive in the internet marketing business, you will soon be asking people to give you their contact information also. List building will become your number one priority.
Now, you will find that the free gift that you obtain when you sign up for someone’s list is not the end of the information that you will get. The list is the avenue that the list owner will use to allow you to continue to shop for additional items and some of these will be designed to provide a lot more of the details that are needed to complete the process.
These items will provide you with much more detailed information about his business. Seldom will a free item be the end of the products that are available on the subject. The free item may just be a basic outline of the process. The list owner really wants you to have more detailed information of the process and he will be sending you additional offers that will provide that information.
Except now he will be offering the information for sale. In short he hopes that you will be like the grocery shopper and that you will purchase additional items to build your internet marketing business.
Let’s look at another why that internet marketers use free – product launches. Product launches are a great way to build your list, especially if you can JV with some partners that already have large lists.
Briefly, in this application you have a new product that you want to sale. You design a sales page that offers lots of bonuses. You are offering a lot of free stuff in order to get the reader’s to purchase you product. When they do you have a new subscriber/customer on your list.
Now what about those JV partners? Well, they are promoting your product to their list as well. When someone on their list looks at all those free items and decides to get them by purchasing your product, guess what? You have just added someone that you did not have access to before to your list.
The free items were an enticement to buy your product, but behind the scene they were also a means for you to build your list. Now you have many new people to promote your products to. List building is very important to internet marketing survival.
There are many more ways that free products are used in internet marketing. Someone may give you a free recording of a seminar on article marketing. But behind that free recording will be an offer that they want you to purchase and likely they have used the free recording as a list building effort as well.
So back to the original question, “Is Free Good For Internet Marketing”? It not only is good for internet marketing, it is main stream. The next time someone launches a product, take notice of the free products that are associated with the launch. All internet marketers use free and you should also. It’s the list building that is critical.
Tagged with: article marketing • free products • internet marketing • list building • product launches
Filed under: list building
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Yes, and Jeff Dedrick “free” launch proves that.
Fred
Fred Lotgering´s last blog ..Are You Losing Followers? Some Possible Explanations
Yes, free is great if the materials are top-notch, and many are. But using just free tools and methods can only take you so far, then there’s the need to upgrade to bigger and better tools and resources…
But stay with Free where appropriate and go to the paid tools as need dictates – otherwise you can spend a fortune and keep spinning your wheels!
Doug Champigny´s last blog ..Free Internet Marketing Gifts If You Act Now!
Have to agree free with great quality is a good way to generate leads and prove your capabilities so people will trust you enough to spend money with you.
Most people get the free but mess up on the second part.
Mike Paetzold´s last blog ..Are you using the PLR you purchase?
This is interesting as I have recently been offered more and more free stuff! It became so crazy that I didn’t even look to see what half of it was. But I get your point. Thanks.
With more valuable free stuff that marketers are giving away, it helps to show their potential buyers what more they can have if they pay a bit of money for their paid products… this is a great way to build up trust and a relationship with buyers.
Joel Osborne´s last blog ..Free Contest: Win This New Blog
Great info.
Free…ethical bribe…JV swaps…all good ways to build your list as well as giveaway events.
Don’t forget the backend, as Mike mentioned.
That’s the meal ticket.
Keep up the great info.
Ron Barrett´s last blog ..Webhosting For Newbies – What to Look for in a Web Host – Part II
Lonnie, this is a great article that explains the email swap process to build a list. The other point that people should consider is that this is mot spam as anyone can unsubscribe at anytime. If we as marketers follows up with our lists on a regular basis and buid realationship then we’ll have happy subscribers for a long time
Free is good…to a point. You have to determine when to migrate from freely offering everything via your blog to when to actually sell your knowledge as well.
Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach ´s last blog ..Today’s Humor – Office Cubicle Crewing Rowing Event
Free is nice. It has always come with a warning. And you have done so here. Free is an entry point. By expressing interest in your free product the person getting the gift is indicating they are at least somewhat interested in the topic, when they do, they are no longer a member of the general public, they have become a prospect.