Why is Free so Expensive?

LOL, I too have found ebooks to be very expensive!

Part of the problem might be that few ebooks give any indication of the readers their book is intended for. I can remember books that actually gave information about who they were intended for ... beginners, intermediate, or advanced. I suspect some of that was also for marketing though.

Marvin

Key phrase: "Most of the Time"...

My question is: What do you do when you receive something that is free AND has great value?

Do you send the person an email? or do you just consume the info, and proceed to never send a thank you email? Do you ever open up following emails from them?

You "visit on a regular basis"....do you ever give back to those IM'ers like they give to you? (It does take an aweful long time to write good, quality, content....)

It seems like it isn't just IM that uses that word a lot.

The one that really got me the first few times I saw it was

"free gift"

Because I couldn't understand what otehr kind of gift there would be. Then almost when I thought I had that idea understood, along comes

"free gift with purchase"

<sigh>

We can also change the thread to say why posting on a forum is expensive.

This is true - but there is more to life than work and money...just sayin'.

Rob

Opportunity cost only comes into play if someone decides to watch a funny video on Youtube instead of doing work. If someone is Reading a report or watching a video on stuff they are unfamiliar with, what is there to say they might not use the info a week later to great effect?

I'll play Devil's Advocate here and say that 'Free' is often the most valuable thing you will get in this industry.

Why?

Because a lot of the 'free' stuff is something most newbies will never pay for, but absolutely NEED.

Fundamentals of business and marketing spring to mind. Marketers give that information away because it's needed it, but we all know that no one wants to pay for it.

"The Dream" is what SELLS. Strategies, Methods, systems, etc.

Fundamentals don't sell. But you can bet your ass you need them.

-just sayin'

Jack,

I broadly agree with your rule within a slight modification - I like to allow 10% of my time for non focussed learning and research - which in a sense is just listening to the broader market to try and pick up on trends, what's new, where the pain is, where the opportunities are. Much of it involves in dabbling in the 'free' offers and seeing what's new in the content and also what's new in the method they are bringing it to market

So my 'rule' is 30-30-30-10

30% is spent focussed on understanding and studying my niche, looking at competitive products, talking to clients

30% is spent building my own products

30% is spent promoting my products

10% is spent on (hopefully) serendipitous learning

This approach makes 'Free' (the subject of this thread) reasonably good value for me.

Whether or not a piece of information is "usable" all depends on the audience/the person who consumes it. Are we assuming that everyone is all on the same level here?

To an internet marketer, with 20 years of experience, even a free video with advanced internet marketing tactics and strategies may, in fact, not have a single piece of of "usable" information. To others, it could be an absolute goldmine.

IM'ers/product creators...at least the good ones...really try their best to tailor their product to meet the needs of AS MUCH of their audience as possible. Of course, if you remember statistics 101, you'll have outliers in just about anything you do. Paid or free, you'll have some who absolutely love a product, learned so much, and gave it incredible reviews. For the same product, you may also have people who felt like the material was amateur, and they derived absolutely no value from it. It just all depends.

Yes, FREE things typically lead to sales/up-sells on the back-end. That isn't always the case though. Sometimes, the value derived for the IM'er is simply gaining a loyal following of subscribers. Thousands of people give up email addresses each. Why? Because the IM'er is doing what an IM'er SHOULD be doing....effectively gauging need and doing their hardest to provide to meet that need.

Free can also be used at the right time to provide tremendous value to both the receiver and the deliverer. I own a tax prep company and during our slow time of years we run promotions where we do new clients returns that meet specific criteria for free. No catches, no cost, no limits on complexity. Just free.

Why?

To build a relationship that over time can provide a huge value to both us and them.

To provide activity for my employees and to keep them learning.

To generate paying referrals during that same time period.

I do free estimates for the same reason. If you don't like the fees, the refund, etc, you are free to leave. All you invest is some of your time and the risk of getting a professionally prepared tax return and an education.

Free is often over used and used incorrectly but it is still one of the most powerful words in the world.

I certainly agree that we need to avoid the "everything free is useless" mentality; that is just not always the case. But how can we quickly tell so we don't spend too much time (money/opportunity cost) finding out?

My general approach is to find people whose opinions and actions I have grown to respect from my previous experience, and check them out.

Other people ... well it depends on the interest generated by their headline first, and the first paragraph or so of the copy second.

Of course, I also consider some things like this forum a form of recreation. Thus I avoid the whole question, and anything I learn here is a free pure benefit .

Marvin