Is Free Hurting Us?

[TimCastleman]

Ok I want to ask this question of fellow copywriters - is free advice and sale critiques hurting us?

Now I will be the first to admit that I probably slit my own throat on this one but I'd like to get some feedback.

A few weeks back I asked if anyone wanted a FREE video sales letter crit. About 10 people took me up on this and the results were all positive. Fast forward to this week when I launched a WSO offering the same thing plus my private email to ask follow up questions for $27.

So far nothing. Now let me be clear - I am not pimping my own WSO. In fact I will try to figure out how to remove it from my sig for this post so no one gets the wrong idea.

My question is this - with people posting 10-15 Please review my sales letter request a day and a ton of us going out of our way to help answer questions, give free advice and critiques do you think that when you move to charge for those services it hurts you.

Meaning why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free. My guess is if Alan decided to charge $20 for every person who wanted a sales critique the request would go down greatly because people don't like to put their money where their mouth is some times.

Just looking for feedback. Do we hurt ourselves by giving away the cow instead of charging for the milk?

Tim

[briancassingena]

Hi Tim

I'm not sure where your problem lies (I haven't seen your $27 offer) but I do know that giving something away for free should not hurt anything. If you haven't gotten any sales then it is becuase of something else. PM me a link and I'll have a look.

On the other hand free advice is always futile. If the person acutally uses the advice, especially from here, they will get results. But people struggle to actually use advice they pay for, let alone that which they get for free. If they don't want to use it, that's up to them, but you can't get hung up on whether they use it or not.

Try selling more products on the front end rather than services. Sell an actual product and have the service included as a bonus. It is the same as the old hard product vs soft product arguement: A critique of your site may be far more valuable than an ebook, however people will not pay for it as easily as they will pay for an ebook.

[1 Marketing]

Hi Tim,

You have got a strong point there... Why are we giving away the cow instead of charging for milk...

It's only because the current economic conditions have forced a very vast segment people who are entering online writing profession. With the limited number of service buyers and day by day expanding number of service providers we are compelled to do some below par works and activities.

But even under these tough times, who ever holds his standing high is working stable.

[John_S]

Just looking for feedback. Do we hurt ourselves by giving away the cow instead of charging for the milk?

I just charged $250 for a critique to a medical equipment manufacturer grossing around five mil in sales, with a history of direct response marketing and a control piece they want to beat.

My secret is I try as much as possible to avoid trying to get milk from a pig.

[shawnlebrun]

Hey Tim,

I don't think it's hurting us... I just think there's a fine line between giving some free advice, and giving away EVERYTHING... so they can take it and run with it themselves.

I mean, when I put myself into someone else's shoes... I'd want to hear some tips and advice from them, just to make sure they know what they're talking about.

Eben Pagan talks alot about "moving the free line" and giving away some of your best content... in hopes that it will turn into more business.

But when I first started copywriting, I tried to strike a balance.

I'd look at a site or sales letter, and then give a few immediate suggestions on how someone could improve the selling power.

And from there, I'd ask them if I could send a more in-depth proposal, that would include more tips. They almost always say yes.

So, from my point of view, I don't think that doing some stuff for free, like a consultation, is bad. It's just that you have to know when to turn it off and go in for the close/sale.

[Cherilyn Woodhouse]

I don't see this as much working locally... I can spend 30 minutes on the phone with someone, telling them how to increase their business, and at the end of the call I simply ask if they would like me to do up a proposal for them etc.

I always get a yes. Nobody ever says no to writing up a free proposal for them, telling them what I can do and how much it will cost.

And out of all of the people I do proposals for, so far every single one of them has turned into a client. Why? Because my proposals WORK.

Its all about giving away "part" of the solution, but not all of it. I agree, critiques might be a hard sell right now in the forum, because people believe they can get it for free right here.

But - and this is just a suggestion... What if we all talked to the admin, and came to an agreement. With every critique we give, we can give the asker a PARTIAL answer - and say "If you want some more detailed tips, click here." - Give them a link to a salesletter and an affiliate link where they can PAY to get the rest of their critique, with part of the sale going to the WF. Set your own fees, etc. as long as 50% goes back to the forum.

Then people are still getting some free advice, and if you give good advice you can be rewarded for it with a small payment. Then, work that into a system so you can close those prospects for a rewrite.

Am I way off base here, or might this work?

- Cherilyn

[dorothydot]

"But - and this is just a suggestion... What if we all talked to the admin, and came to an agreement. With every critique we give, we can give the asker a PARTIAL answer - and say "If you want some more detailed tips, click here." - Give them a link to a salesletter and an affiliate link where they can PAY to get the rest of their critique, with part of the sale going to the WF. Set your own fees, etc. as long as 50% goes back to the forum."


I like this. At first when it was copywriters-helping-each-other hone our personal skills, I had absolutely no problem in critiquing.

But these days, it's wayyy too blatant. I think also we should limit the number of partial critiques given to a particular requester to like 3 or so... so they don't get like 17 different partial critiques = a full and money-making critique for free.

I heartily believe in copywriters helping each other.

Dot

[Cherilyn Woodhouse]

I agree, Dorothy. I have no problem in helping people with some critiques... I mean, the reality of it is, some people really can't afford a copywriter. Some can only afford a couple hundred dollars for a copywriter. But there are copywriters on here who are charging thousands of dollars, and doing critiques for free to help them out.

It used to be, you could post a critique and get some PMs asking for advice, and maybe one or two once in awhile asking if you could do a project for them. Now the critiques have turned into a free copywriting service.

I agree, we should continue helping those who simply can't afford a copywriter yet. But there should be something in it for those of us who spend hours each day offering up our advice and knowledge at no cost. Many of us charge hundreds of dollars for a critique outside of the forum, and there should be a way to monetize all of the work we put into keeping the critique requests filled.

Not only would that attract better critiques, because the copywriters who have exhausted themselves giving out free advice may come back, but the people requesting the critiques will value the advice they get more if they have to pay for it - even if payment is optional, and inexpensive.

I mean, even just bring back the "Buy me a Beer" function - something...

- Cherilyn

[Daniel Scott]

My thoughts on the matter:

We shouldn't put a limit on the free advice we give. The fact of the matter is that it's one thing to tell someone what's wrong with a letter... but it's a whole 'nother ball game to fix the critter.

If you would rather not volunteer your valuable time for free, I totally get that. But to restrict what can and cannot be said in a forum (keeping in mind that critique responses aren't usually obusive) comes across to me as a bit unsporting.

Some of the best advice I have ever gotten I got from Vin Montello. Obviously he doesn't have any problems getting paying clients.

Having said all that I agree that a "buy me a beer" function would be great. Some kind of "donate if you want to" function, in any case.

With regards to your offer, Tim, it may just be a case of you "fishing" in the wrong spot. Many of your potential prospects may not understand the value in your offer vs. a critique in the CW forum here.

The difference, of course, is that here you get a crap-tonne of useless (even counter-productive) advice, whereas the GOOD copywriters (such as yourself, Cherilyn, and Dorothy) give powerful advice.

Of course, we can't make people see that... just as we can't make them understand that good copywriters charge what they do for a REASON.

IMHO, the WSO forum has gradually turned into a crazy "get rich quick" fest with few of the offers being any good. There's still great ones there, of course, but they are a lot harder to find than they used to be.

Maybe you would be better off offering this somewhere else... not sure where/how though.

Kind regards,

-Dan

[John_S]

We shouldn't put a limit on the free advice we give.

It's not free. Time taken away from productive paying pursuits does, in fact, incur expense. What we're talking about here is the mirror opposite lesson from the client side "you get what you pay for." (Little Hint: The free advice people aren't learning the lesson)

Time to, once again, excerpt the most ignored part of Scientific Advertising

Two advertisers offered food products nearly identical. Both offered a full-size package as an introduction. But one gave his package free. The other bought the package. A coupon was good at any store for a package, for which the maker paid retail price.

The first advertiser failed and the second succeeded. The first even lost a large part of the trade he had. He cheapened his product by giving a 15-cent package away. It is hard to pay for an article which has once been free. It is like paying railroad fare after traveling on a pass.

Here is the defacto headline you are running -- whether you know it or not:

"Why Should I Give My Stuff Away When I Can Pay Money To a Copywriter Who Will Slap FREE On Everything?"

The word free is a crutch to avoid marketing and copywriting. That it's often the single major support making a lot of copy work is disturbing, at best.

[Daniel Scott]

Hi John,

A couple of points:

First of all, I meant free for the client, not for the copywriter. Obviously it does take time to do a critique, time that could be used in paying pursuits, as you pointed out.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at in the rest of your post... I've read it several times, and still can't grasp the crux of what you're trying to say. If you have the time and inclination to rephrase it for dense brain, I would be grateful... although I understand if you would rather not.

Kind regards,

-Dan

[MyOnlineSuccess]

There's only one way to really test any copywriting and that is to test it. Most of the time, it's the really "stupid stuff" that converts really well.

Learning to distinguish between valuable advice and "noise" is an important business skill and maybe failing at it a couple of times is the best way to learn?

As for free...if you provide enough value in the "free" then people will automatically want more. Free is only hurting us if "free" holds back. You need to give away real value and make people want more.

Give and you shall receive is pretty much the principle upon which internet marketers thrive. I have found that the best marketers don't just give stuff away for free. they give you value by giving you a "result" for free and in doing this they increase the desire for more.

So no, free is not hurting us

[Bruce Wedding]

Originally Posted by John_S

My secret is I try as much as possible to avoid trying to get milk from a pig.

Bingo!

I've gotten $400 per crit from people working offline DM.

[John_S]

As for free...if you provide enough value in the "free" then people will automatically want more.

Give a pig a cookie for free and he's going to ask "where's the milk?"

...To riff on my previous point.

To put things more charitably, you have several types of people who buy products and/or services. Two types are consumers and customers.

Consumers have absolutely no consideration for your product and consider any price too much. They'll put up with paying, but will abandon you instantly when someone offers a lower price.

Customers in contrast view price as only one factor of many, and not the only factor. They return to buy upsells and cross sells.

As for free...if you provide enough value in the "free" then people will automatically want more.

Yes. And they'll want it for nothing. Especially with digital economics -- everybody's darling term nowadays.

What I think you (might) be implying is if you give your stuff away, you don't have to market, write skilled copy, or sell. This is the common idea from the online world. It's absolutely misunderstanding digital economics in a ruinous way, but that's the way popular ideas with some truth at the core usually devolve.

Giving your stuff away demands more marketing savvy, not less. Certainly not zero.

More people spout the popular drivel about digital economics than understand this implication or demonstrate the requisite level of skill.

[vistad]

Using a free talk to provide a free proposal that works, that sounds remarkable. As for critiquing, a copywriter is free not to do it so what is the fuss? I am not an experienced copywriter but have read over 100 sales pages, most of them functional, and will be writing a sales page some time after mid-July.
It would be useful to provide a greenhorn like me about 50 URLs which are classified and then create a sales letter.

[lharding]

Hi,

I think taking a long term view on this. I'm starting out in the Internet Marketing business. I can't afford to have someone write my sales copy, so I do it myself (now I know we could get into a discussion about how crap that approach is and how much money I'm losing etc). I haven't posted to this forum asking for reviews of my sales copy. What I'd like to think is that if I did, and I got some good feedback that helped me make some sales (please just 10 bucks would be nice), the first thing I would do is outsource my sales copy work to someone that can help accelerate my business. I don't mind plodding along at the moment because I've run out of money, but when the money does come in, I would prefer to focus on other aspects of the business.

So, I guess what I'm saying is. If you offer help to people when it's needed most (and of course you'll always get people taking advantage), you'll likely to get repaid in the long term.

Best regards, Lee.