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Would You Give Away Your Paid Product For Free In Exchange For A Buyer To Your List?

by jamesmol
24 replies
Some time ago, I approached various marketers in a specific internet marketing niche and asked them if they would allow me to give one of their paid products away to my list of BUYERS ONLY. The way that this would work was for my buyers to opt into THEIR squeeze page in order to claim the product.

I thought this was a great offer but my response was horrible.

What is your opinion on this? Was this a stupid request on my part or were the non-responsive marketers the ones losing out?
#buyer #exchange #free #give #list #paid #product
  • Profile picture of the author mikehuff
    It's essentially the equivalent of a free WSO then, right?
    Lots of people use them to bring freebie seekers into their funnel, so why not? Just gotta keep the offer relevant to the needs of the list.'

    Seems like if the offer were right it'd be a win-win for you and the product owner.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Lots of "it depends" here...

      > How familiar were these marketers with you and your products (and therefore, the likely quality of your buyers)?

      > How good was the match between their products and yours?

      > Was this a cold contact? In other words, was the very first communication from you a request to give their paid product away?

      > Did these marketers have a back end, or was the product you wanted to give away all they had to offer?

      > Was there any implied quid pro quo beyond "my buyers get your product, and you get their emails"?

      I could go on...

      As Mike said, it would seem that if the offer were right, it would be a win-win. So it seems that something (and not necessarily on your end) about the offer wasn't right.
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  • Profile picture of the author Warrior X
    I'm game. I'll even give you the email. (serious offer, it's the product down there in my signature.)
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    • Profile picture of the author theaccountant
      I never give ANY freebies online or offline.
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      • Profile picture of the author yakim1
        Originally Posted by theaccountant View Post

        I never give ANY freebies online or offline.
        I don't know what niche you are in but you're probably not building a list. If you are, I would like to know how you are doing it.

        Best regards,
        Steve Yakim
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  • Profile picture of the author Stuart Walker
    What were you hoping to achieve from it?

    So your list get a nice freebie but you also give away a load of your subs to a possibly more experienced marketer.

    If I was the one getting the subs I might be happy with it but if I was in your position I'm not sure I'm so keen on the idea.
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  • Profile picture of the author AdrianCostan
    Well if it was a WSO than it would be against Warrior Forum TOS. Your WSO can not have a smaller price than the one listen on WF ( that includes free )
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    • Profile picture of the author jamesmol
      Hey guys

      Thanks for all your responses!

      The nature so far has been quite varied and very interesting.

      John McCabe obviously raises a number of interesting points and these things are clearly all relevant.

      The real question that I was asking here was whether you would consider letting someone give your products away for free in exchange for a buyer to your list.

      Perhaps my biggest disappointment with the responses I got was the small number of warriors that bothered to respond. This seems to be quite a common theme here on the Warrior forum.

      When people reach out, I would have thought that at least a one line reply, even if the answer was no, would be appropriate.

      Just like RockingLastsForever stated, if I was made this offer I would have jumped at it and this is why I was so surprised at the poor response.

      As many have asked, I should probably tell you a few things about the offer. Perhaps the easiest will just be to go to this video that I put on one of my sites: CIMR Partner Download | Complete Internet Marketing Resources

      Essentially I wanted to offer their product as a bonus when I sold one of my products. The deal would be that in order for the BUYERS of my product to claim the free bonus, they would have to opt into the other product owners list to download the product. AS you can see, the products were also going to a very targeted buyers list.

      In essence though, I have an Internet Marketing resources site with a lot of licensed content in it. I also have a free resource listing opportunity. I offered free backlinks and even the possibility of posting on the blog.

      I suppose the biggest issue is that I was not well known on the forum at the time I sent out these requests and in essence it is a "cold call".

      I also tried something similar with fellow product owners. This time AFTER I had launched 2 products in a particular niche, one as a WSO, I sent a review copy to all the warriors in the niche with a request to do some cross promotions. While my response was better than before it was still pretty low.

      Thanks to everyone who responded. I will PM those that have shown some interest in this.
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      • Profile picture of the author WillR
        Originally Posted by jamesmol View Post

        Perhaps my biggest disappointment with the responses I got was the small number of warriors that bothered to respond. This seems to be quite a common theme here on the Warrior forum.

        When people reach out, I would have thought that at least a one line reply, even if the answer was no, would be appropriate.
        Wait until you get 10-20+ of these messages each week and then see if you can be bothered responding to them all. Almost every message I get from someone I don't know on this forum is asking me to do something for them right off the bat. Someone I don't even know just expecting me to do something for them whether it be write them a review or promote their product or whatever. They all sound exactly the same and it starts to get old very quickly.

        When I just get canned messages like that it's very clear they have been copy and pasted and sent out to a number of other people so I give those people the same courtesy and respect they showed me -- ie: none.

        You won't have much luck if your plan is just to approach people you don't know. If you walked up to complete strangers in the street and asked them to do you a favor, how many do you think would? Not many. If you expect people to do favors for you then you need to build relationships and do things for others before you expect them to do stuff for you in return.

        Even if you are asking someone to promote your product for commissions. I get this all the time. Product vendors who make it out as though they are doing me a huge favor by letting me promote their product. You have to keep in mind every promotion someone does they end up passing their best leads (buyers) on to more lists and thus those leads get less valuable over time. So yes, I might earn commissions from promoting your product but I also have to weigh up whether the loss of leads is worth it. In a lot of cases it is not.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Perez O'Connor
    I did a post on giving away premium products for free not long ago. However, I meant your own products and not others in exchange for subscribers. Mine was to give away all your current best stuff now in exchange for opt-ins, and later in future with other products or services you can monetize and promote.

    In terms of services that did this, onlywire and social monkee were good examples
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  • Profile picture of the author Sam Fitz
    Originally Posted by jamesmol View Post

    Some time ago, I approached various marketers in a specific internet marketing niche and asked them if they would allow me to give one of their paid products away to my list of BUYERS ONLY. The way that this would work was for my buyers to opt into THEIR squeeze page in order to claim the product.
    I apologize, I don't see what you stood to gain in this scenario. Besides a slightly happier list, since you're giving them something of value for free. But you're simultaneously diluting your list by having them opt in to another list that presumably is in the same market as yours.

    I think I must have missed something, so I apologize in advance.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jajistan
    From an electronic product point of view I can see this working really very well. If your partners only currently have one product then they could always offer a limited version with your mail shots and then they can always charge for the full version.

    My product is physical so giving it away it tricky and more expensive for me, although if a sports/bodybuilding blog with a good list offered a taster of my product then that could also work very well for me, dependant upon my initial required investment.
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  • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
    I think the real issue would be the quality of your list...especially
    if you're arranging multiple offers like this.

    Some marketers are a lot more aggressive with their email offers
    (often to excess) so it's quite likely even if you started with a
    responsive list they'd be beaten to death with offer after offer
    from some marketers and that could seriously dilute the value of
    your original list.

    But if you choose your partners well it might be a good strategy.

    With any joint venture unless you're sending a physical mailing and
    following up by telephone you shouldn't be expecting a high response
    from internet marketers with lists.

    Kindest regards,
    Andrew Cavanagh
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  • Profile picture of the author Zend
    You definitely don't want to fill your list with people who wants freebies, adding value to them is okay though. There are many ways of building a list without giving free stuff, you can give them report of your sales, how to do things, statistics of certain facts, etc. which is strongly related with what kind of people who you want to add to your list.
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  • Profile picture of the author ceenote100
    I'd give away a free report. But giving away a paid product for free? Hell no.
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  • Profile picture of the author khooster1
    It is okay to give freebies.
    This help to develop the list faster.

    The key is to develop your buyers list.
    You will need to sell your product in order to build such list.
    Can't do that with affiliate marketing.

    You can always use your freebie list for other uses.
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    • Profile picture of the author jamesmol
      This is really interesting to see how everyone has a different opinion on this issue. That is what makes this business so cool!

      Let me answer Sam Fitz' question because it will probably answer a lot of other questions too.

      The plan was to create my own product and sell it as a WSO (or some other method such as ClickBank).

      I then approached people in the same niche and asked them if I could give away a copy of one of their PAID products, one that they regularly sell, for free as a bonus to my product. It would be in the sales letter and this would add a lot of value to my product.

      The trick here is that this product would:

      1) Only be accessible to BUYERS of my product (on the download page)

      2) In order to get the bonus my customers would have to opt into my partners list to get it.

      I get real value because I will probably make more sales because I am selling 2 or more products (mine + bonus/s) for one price. For this I give up a buyer to my fellow marketer. I do not really look at these people as competition but rather as JV partners. At the end of the day, we all buy multiple products on topics that interest us, so you may have ended up on that persons list anyway...well, that is my take on it.

      The JV partner gives away a valuable product that they usually sell but they get something valuable in return, being a TARGETED BUYER. If they have a decent backend, this should be a no-brainer.

      My customer gets good value and I get the credit for getting him all this free cool stuff.

      I hope this gives you all a bit more food for thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author jayatana
    just giving the freebies don't matter, but to give paid product i will think it twice
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  • Profile picture of the author thedanbrown
    YES! Give out 100% commissions any day for a fresh buyer lead... If you look at all the great marketers out there they offer 100% commissions (or close to) on their front-end products because they know that they will make the majority of their income in the back end with upsells
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  • Profile picture of the author David Michael
    My opinion is giving out samples of a paid product is better than freebies
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  • Profile picture of the author eshoppingez
    Well, if it were me, I'd jump at the offer, but I would most certainly have a backend or upsell offer in order to make money from my new buyers list.

    Also, this won't really work if your list buyers are not targeted to my product's niche.

    For example. if my product is about offering services and your buyers list was formed by people buying your CPA guide (for instance), your buyers list would be of much use to me then, right?

    If done right, with the right product with upsell and the right buyers list, this would be a profitable trade.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bayo
    Originally Posted by jamesmol View Post

    Was this a stupid request on my part or were the non-responsive marketers the ones losing out?
    Some people will take you up on your offer and some won't. It's just a fact of life on this one and I don't see anything wrong with your logic or approach.
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  • Profile picture of the author kevinlairre
    Op,

    Well, if you think about it from the other person's opinion - the person whose paid product would be distributed to your list - for him to get an opt - in ... it 's not really a win - win situation from his end ...

    I mean the way things usually work is that someone distributes a freeby for an opt - in ... and the opt - in list is then pitched and sold on the paid product ...

    if however someone already is distributing his paid product to your list (he could also distribute his paid product to any other person's list for that matter too) for free ... he would infact gain more opt-ins that way ... So he needs a much better reason to exclusively offer ONLY YOU the right to distribute his PAID product for free ...

    Also, if he offers his paid product to you and others lists as well to increase his list size ... it would de - value his product and obviously that product would then be categorized as a freebie and not a paid product, since it's not only available to YOUR list subscribers, but to OTHER list subscribers as well ... so it would essentially become a freebie given away for an opt - in ...

    Just my 2 cents ..
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  • Profile picture of the author khooster1
    How big is your buyer list?
    If your list is small ( less than 2-3K),
    They will not be bothered to JV with you.

    They will not depreciate/dilute their product's exclusiveness/ value
    If the monetizing gain is not attractive.
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