Taking Notes From Frank Kern - List Building - Should I Just Give Away Tons Of Stuff For Free?

Try finding info (free, of course) from Ryan Deiss and also from Mike Filsaime. I think it's Ryan that does a great job explaining how to use a free report or video as a lead gen tool - then following up. Filsaime has probably the best explanation of upsells/downsell strategies of anyone I've seen. His Butterfly Marketing book (still free, I believe) is a great resource.

In short - when you give away free stuff - go for the immediate upsell to a moderately priced product. It all depends on what you're selling and what you're giving away, of course - but you should be able to at least present a product for sale right from the start of the relationship. If they say "no" to the upsell - either go for a lower-priced downsell or offer them something else for free. If you offer a 100% money-back guarantee on your product (which you should - or offer a free trial period), then you'll get some sales earlier on. Brian Tracy refers to it as the "Law of Reciprocity" - when you give someone something OF VALUE - they feel compelled to do the same for you (i.e. to give you money by buying something). Don't be afraid to ask for the sale IF you're providing real value with your freebie.

For example - I give away free advertising with no strings attached. If you get good results, you're likely to want to go for the paid advertising. If not - you won't. Either way - I've developed a good relationship with you because I gave you something for free and didn't try to scam or oversell until you had a chance to see if what I offer is of value to YOU. The message that I'm going to ask you for money later if I provide value is stated right up front. There's no need to keep piling on more and more free stuff - and there's no reason not to ask for the sale if you're really providing something they need/want.

It's not the quantity of free stuff given away, or even the quality. It's the MANNER in which it's given away. If you want to sell a product about topic X, and as part of your prelaunch, you can GIVE AWAY the kinds of things competitors in niche X are charging for, then you suck all the attention out of the market, and have it ready to aim at your HIGH TICKET solution for problem X. But if you don't have the money-making stuff ready to go, giving away tons of value is the WRONG thing to do.

The issue is that in any given Kern email, it is hard to remember ALL the PREVIOUS Kern content he's given you that factors into how you read it. He can send a one sentence email to his loyal list and it works BECAUSE they can "hear" him and "see" him and all of those bits in their brain influence the content. If you or I were to send a one sentence email to strangers, we should not be surprised at getting a different result. "Frank Kern" is a carefully manufactured persona, and the messages describing that character to the marketplace are very specifically engineered to do this. To embed "Frank" into your mind. As a copywriter, I can say with great certainty that it's NOT a copy thing in any given message that makes Frank's stuff work the way it does. It's the accumulation.

I sort of stated it before, but this strategy works in a market where there are:

A. Multiple suppliers selling the same thing at roughly the same price.
B. The customers in this market buy and buy and buy.
C. You have some degree of visibility and recognition in the market.

What you are doing is taking YOUR competing product, marking it WAY up, then you GIVE AWAY the parts your competitors sell. THAT is moving the free line - not just picking a niche and arbitrarily giving away tons of free info.

RIght here, totally for free, I'm going to give you my single biggest secret for creating "content" that will NOT make people resistant to a sale. It's so easy, you may disregard it as being too simple. I assure you it works.

Basically, you ONLY create free content that is focused on PROBLEMS in the niche. You amplify the intensity of the problems, you augment their knowledge of problems, you teach them the nooks and crannies of every pothole they MIGHT run into one day.

Why?

This provides VALUE to them psychologically. Saving people and warning them away from danger FEELS like you've helped them. But in reality, all you've done is tune their brain to recognize problems in more detail.

And when you talk about problems, this is information that people accept WITHOUT resistance (unlike results claims, for example). They feel that you are being altruistic because they can't connect it to an ulterior motive.

And finally, it feels valuable but doesn't give them anything to actually DO to make progress. They know what to AVOID, but they aren't busy. The last thing you ever want to do is give away free how-to info, because when people actually DO it, they'll be too busy to buy your shortcut.

So don't do that.

Now, why does this work to sell stuff? Presume the next product I am promoting is say, SEO software for the sake of example. Now, in the weeks preceding this promotion, I will create "content" that talks about how VALUABLE good SEO is, BUT reveal the HONEST DIFFICULTY that comes with doing it well. I will talk about flaws in available software. I will talk about incomplete strategies. I will talk about the issues with relying on unethical outsourcers.

Then, just when you're feeling full of ideas and super confident, BOOOM. You get a promo for some software that eliminates the need to hire outsourcers and is simple to use and works with detailed overall SEO strategies, too. You think "wow, I was just thinking how this is exactly what I need."

And the best part is you won't remember I am the one who gave you that idea.

If you do the method I described above correctly, you will seemingly be describing a problem unsolvable by available means and they will practically BEG you to tell them about a solution that avoids the potholes and roadblocks you've been pointing out.

As stated, be EXTRA CAREFUL that you only use this strategy when you have a product you can sell for MORE than the competition, then what you give away is the level of product they sell. That is when it works. Otherwise, you're shooting yourself in the foot when you give away free stuff that other people sell. It ONLY works with the high-ticket product.

This is the exact reason I recommend the above. Good response, John.

They almost all use a method similar to what I described above as part of the prelaunch. The reason you "know" a pitch is coming is because they are carving out a space in your brain - they are describing the empty shape of the problem at hand - then they drop their perfectly shaped product right into that spot, so of course people want it. You feel it coming and yet anticipate it as something that will FEEL GOOD.

This is because unlike other people, they never seem to be selling something you DON'T NEED. That's because the bulk of their marketing - all the stuff people THINK of as "free content" is really what is creating the need.

Make sense?