When I play (a great MMORPG, try it for free), and I kill monsters and beasts and other players, I often aquire the loot they drop. This can be old boots, cloth, coins, notebooks, and all kinds of junk.
You know what is really great about an online game like that? There are vendors that will take your junk and pay you money for it!
Wouldn’t it be nice if that could happen in real life, as well?
Think about it: Going down to the supermarket with bags full of used paper clips, warn out shoes, swimming suits that shrimped in the closet, used cinema tickets… and then having them pay you money for your junk?
Well, unfortunately real life doesn’t work like that. If it were, you could just raid the nearest trash can and grow rich.
This blog post is not about selling junk. It’s about how you and other people consider things that are free.
List Building – Do You Give Away A Free Gift? Great! But People May Not Think It Really Is Free
We’ve all read somewhere that in order to get people to sign up for our lists, we have to give them something for free.
This could be a free report, an eBook, a video, or something like that.
Great!
And then people will jump up and down in excitement and join our lists, right?
Nah… Earlier, maybe. Many years ago, free stuff wasn’t available all over the internet. Today, it is. And free is no longer free.
If you get an eBook or report for free, it’s true, you don’t pay money for it. But you pay with something just as valuable: Your time.
Your potential list members are well aware of that.
They know that if they fill out your form and give you their name and email, it would cost them:
1: Time to read whatever free product you’re giving away, or worse – watch your videos (takes longer time than reading).
2: Space in their inbox for all the pitches you’re going to make to get them to buy your stuff.
This is a steep price to pay. Are your product really worse it?
Show It To Them – Show How Valuable Your Free Gift Is
Today, it’s no longer enough to tell people that they will get a free gift.
You must explain to them, WHY it’s important that they get your gift and read/watch it, HOW it can help them, WHEN they should do it (now!), and WHAT would happen if they just leave without getting it.
Make them realize just how valuable your product is, and make sure that they understand that even though you’re giving it away for free, it doesn’t mean that product is cheap. Tell them – no! SHOW them, how valuable it really is.
Can you do that?
How?
Let me know in the comments 😉