My list marketing results so far - freebie vs. paid

Dana,

For most people, it's going to be the case that a customer list is far more responsive than a general sign-up list.

Whether a freebie is worth it or not depends on a lot of things. How does it set the expectations for your subscribers? How are those changed or reinforced by the initial follow-up sequence? Where do the prospects come from?

Those things can, if properly handled, narrow the gap a lot.

From there, it comes down to the question: what kind of numbers are you driving? If you can mangle the various factors to the point where the ratio is only 2:1 (tough, but often possible), and you get 20 times the subscribers with a freebie (not tough, if you go at it right), you'd be well-advised to do the freebie.

A lot of people have opinions on this. Some of them are based in experience, and others are just going on their gut response or something they read somewhere. It really does come down to knowing what's involved in both, how to present a freebie so that it doesn't set the wrong kinds of expectations, and testing everything.


Paul

Paid lists are more responsive because they've already bought something from you and trust you and they have a way to pay. BUT......your results might be a little skewed. For example I'm on your freebie list (or one of your freebie lists), but only because I bought the product you promote to that list before I got on your list. Great ebook by the way. I guess I'm trying to say you might have cross list contamination because two people advertise at the same place and get clients at the same place. Your ebook perfectly complemented the product I bought a few days before, if I didn't sign up to your list just for that reason I would be crazy.

The possibility of building a huge list would be my main incentive for using the freebie approach. You're right, even if the huge free list was LESS responsive then the smaller paid list - if I'm getting a decent amount of results from the list, what the heck, why not.

Personally I think the best option is to use free e-mail marketing and customers lists and affiliate marketing. (Rather than thinking either/or.) Because all of them running together will produce the best results.

Remember that while a customer list will be more responsive there's no point losing money from people who were interested in your offer and just needed more convincing.

For me the purpose of free e-mail marketing is to build a relationship with your prospects and convince them to buy. That's more of a business-minded approach rather than thinking of a list to "make money."

I have a huge list using freebies approach and the conversion rate really low, i believe to make a sale thru this type of list i need at least 5k subscriber (min).

To have paid list is worth it since they already acknowledge us and we also build up a strong relationship with them. Compare to free list the conversion rate is much greater even the paid list is small. I'm in progress to develop a paid list by providing the cheap and valuable product to free list. This is just to cover my cost of handling this huge list

You can create a product for affilates to sell with 100% commission (full version of your product) and even give away a freebie, light version, or sample of the product, course, system, ect.

Software companies will give away a "light" version so people use it and then upgrade to the full version. Some companies give away the full version until it expires.

You can find a half (or so) of a book on Google, but you gotta pay to get the entire book. You can do something similiar in your situation.

There really is no right or wrong way to do it, but what you prefer and make of it.

Last few week I'm adapt limited time marketing tricks. The conversion rate is much better, and I'm testing the day of broadcast for a few months and the result shown broadcast during weekend convert much better than weekday.

I'll make sure each freebies come with a "best offer" page, even the conversion is poor but I'm just try my luck.

I have a list (non-IM) for famous quotes and people never buy but I started to send them to a page where I put the quotes and have adsense and that has helped. Also I am looking for relevant e-mail submit cpa offers and will test that.

Debbie

Loren,

Thats another good idea.

Create a course, system, in a memebership/video format (because systems are more valuable than products/ebooks) then just give away bits and pieces of the system away as freebies

To monetize your non-buyers list, you could have your follow-up marketing strategy be different for your buyers list and your non-buyers list. What I mean is, segregate the lists, and then do ad-swaps with your competitors. Market your competitors' products to your non-buyers list, and collect commissions.

You'll also be able to build your customer base using this strategy, by picking up subscribers and sales from your competitor's list. It'll be a win-win for everyone.

You can send ads to your non-buyers list more frequently than you do your buyers without offending them - if they do opt-out, you haven't lost anything.

There are some GREAT suggestions on here! I love the idea of working with competitors, too.

I would think that previous paid customer lists would be much more responsive to a new prospective sale because they've already bought a trustworthy product from you and you would assume that they have the means to purchase other products. I guess trying to prevent promoting the same products would be the only concern, as some of your competitors may be promoting the same services and products as you on the same site. Researching that the offers are unique firstly would prevent "double ups". Hope this assists!

Laurel, so far I've only promoted my own stuff to the list. When big launches come out it's inevitable that a bunch of people will be promoting the same thing; the way that people seem to get around that is by offering huge bonuses and incentives.

Having a great relationship with your list is important - but if you are on the lists of a bunch of different people...and they are all promoting the same huge launch...I can see being swayed by an offer of truly valuable bonuses, no matter HOW much I might like someone else who is promoting the same thing - but not offering a bonus that I want.