why free stuff sucks

I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately about “building your email list.” They say rule number 1 is to give something away. Okay, I guess there’s merit to that suggestion. But quantity does not equal quality. If you want quality subscribers who are more likely to buy whatever you’re going to sell in the future, you want people who have already shown a willingness to buy from you.

zombie snacks

I’ve been running booths at trade shows since the early ’80s. No matter what the focus of the show is, the aisles are filled with what I call “bag zombies.” Almost immediately after entering a show, they get a bag. Sometimes one of the suppliers provides them at the time of check-in. Without thinking, open-mouthed and with a thousand-meter gaze, these people begin to crawl back and forth through the corridors, turning their heads from side to side. While distracting booth staff with nonsensical questions like “What exactly do you do?”, their hands pick up anything that isn’t nailed down. Lots of stall vendors give things away, and I’ve seen bag zombies clear a table in seconds. Some have no shame, they literally will. your bag.

Now, here’s the sad part. These zombies will leave the show, laden with full bags or perfectly good marketing materials that vendors have paid good money for. They will take those bags to the office, or home, and put them in a corner. Other things pile up in the bags. Six months to several years later, these zombies discover the bags. They stick their heads out and look confused at a pile of junk they stole. Since it doesn’t work for them, they throw it all away. All the time marketers spent planning their swag, perfecting their sales pitch… all the money they spent designing, producing and shipping their marketing swag… gone. All wasted.

That is not worth it

I’ve talked to dozens of people who got free downloads. Books, stories, white papers… it doesn’t matter. Less than 1% of them have read everything they received for free. Less than 10% read some of your free downloads. The rest do not read anything. They collect stuff because it’s free. And they treat it with exactly the care and consideration a free download deserves: they ignore it. They don’t value what they get for free. Since it was free, they didn’t take the time to read it. Free stuff isn’t worth it to them, and any effort put in by the giver is also wasted. Whether it’s an author giving away a sample chapter or a company giving away a comparison chart, these digital bag zombies suck it up and place it on their hard drives, where it sits in the dark until, at some point. , the downloader removes it.

What is the solution?

So if giving things away works to build an email list, what can you do to turn a quantity list into a quality list? The fancy word is segmentation. That is, divide your list into people who are stock market zombies and those who are really interested in what you have to offer. You sell them something.

Now, I’m not talking about something expensive. A line doesn’t have to be a mile wide to be a line, it just has to exist. One of my clients offers a service worth $600 for $49. Another client offers a complete book for $0.99. is what I call test of interest. It is a minuscule price, whose objective is to make them take out the wallet. It makes them take an extra step, the same step they would have to take to pay you $100, or a thousand dollars. And it defines the fact that this person is interested enough in what you have to offer that she will pay something for it. After that, you just have to find the highest price point that they are willing to hit.

Yes, give something away for free to build your email list. Make sure they get that gift. But the next step you take should be to offer them something they have to pay for. Something small, at a low price. Don’t try to sell them extras or something expensive. Just have them pull out their wallet. If they don’t buy Item A, offer them another cheap product, Item B. Offer a range of small, cheap products. But once they buy, move your name to another list. Call it “Purchased”, “Prospects” or something else. But give bag zombies an inexpensive line to cross. Once they cross it, you have a much more interesting and lucrative problem on your hands.