Should you give away digital downloads for free? Definitely. Here's why. |
Free digital downloads can boost your profits more than you might think. Find out how, when and why to create online digital items for free.
If people ask me about my favourite meal is, I'm always a little taken aback by my reply.
This isn't because it's complex or, in fact, it's from the simplest cuisine out there with most regulations, but simply since it's not what people are looking for.
Which is "free".
Because being free, fellows, can be lucrative.
Because I'm sure that you might be apprehensive about giving away digital downloads without any cash reward, we'll cover why and when to give away free digital products, discuss the ways they could generate revenue as well as go through three types of products that you could create in order for yourself to benefit from.
As usual, let's start at square one. Why would you give anything, or even a product, away for free?
What is the point of giving away a digital download for free?
If you're unfamiliar with the term, don't worry. It's actually quite simple.
Simply put, a lead magnet is any item that attracts customers to your sales funnel. Typically, it's done by capturing an email address.
Although each lead magnet performs a little differently depending upon the method of delivery, they tend to adhere to this pattern :
A quick note:
Lead magnets, particularly if they're relevant to the offered products is mainly aimed at getting competent prospects .
'Qualified' is an important phrase to consider"Qualified" -- 79% of leads never convert into contacts, and the primary reason for lead morbidity is a lack of an effective nurture.
Which makes a lot of sense when you consider it: how can you nurture prospects that aren't suited to your company?
This is why 70 percent of marketers say that the most important goal of their lead generation strategy isn't to create more leads, instead, it's to increase the overall quality of the leads.
Perhaps it's because those who have efficient lead nurturing have been causing envy for those without it.
Businesses that nurture their leads effectively -- something that you cannot do unless your leads are well-qualified -create 50% more sales-ready leads at a third of the price .
However, what about a concrete instance of a company that offered a no-cost digital download with great benefits?
Consider the case of 24Slides the company that designs custom presentation and slide decks for not insignificant fees .
You'd think that giving away gratis templates could hurt their business -- after all, if people can do it themselves and save money, why would they need to spend money on you? But the result was not detrimental to their business's bottom line.
They came up with the 20-slide template that is suitable to be used for corporate presentation -- something that could cost $120.00 on the lowest-end of their prices -- and posted it via LinkedIn.
All users have to do to obtain this template is share the content, provide their name and email and then leave a message.
Their numbers speak for themselves:
More than 63,000 responses
24,000+ followers
1,800+ shares
In all, they have reported having gained 80,000 new email leads they have followed up the campaign to grow their subscriber base to 130,000 robust.
And since everyone who joined their email list has expressed an interest in and desire for professional presentations, their prospects have the right qualifications for the kinds of services and products that 24Slides provides.
Nice, right?
Ok So, now that I hope to will have you aboard my free train, is timing affect your journey?
Short answer: Kind of.
Longer answer
What is the best time to give away gratis digital downloads or products?
Ideally, you'd offer online downloads for free or other items on a constant basis, by offering them on your site, similar to what you can see Ryan McRae, aka the ADHD Nerd doing in this particular meta* example.
*Why, yes, I do love meta examples.
However, it isn't a guarantee that you'll be able to make a product and be finished. When your company expands the audience you target will shift, and you'll likely gain a deeper understanding of the kinds of goods that are free, as well as those that resonate best with the people you want to reach.
Which begs the question of what time you should create fresh digital downloads for free?
If you have analytics from the past year review them and take a look at the times which were the most successful and then plan to introduce fresh lead magnets ahead of these.
If you don't have that information You have two alternatives (or in the event that you have iton hand, you can supplement it).
Worried about competing on those special dates? Don't be.
The big holiday shopping season may feel like a game that corporate giants play however, statistics do not back this up. Adobe claims that small-sized businesses actually attract two times as many consumers as big, large-box retailers during Black Friday.
Another method to establish the seasonality of your topic is to look up the trend history of the subject or area of interest using Google's Trends . Certain sectors are more susceptible to seasonal fluctuations than others, but you'd be surprised at how much details you'll find through a short search.
In the case of something that has a clear seasonality component -- taxes You probably won't be surprised by an increase in tax rates during the weeks prior on "tax day" for the US (April 15th).
But even topics like " design " are subject to seasonality, with a spike from the end of summer until early winter period.
(Interestingly -- perhaps just to other marketers -- "marketing" hits the lowest point in the week between New Year's Eve and Christmas.)
No matter what the trend is you should aim to provide fresh digital downloads for free during the time that precedes the peak. It doesn't necessarily have to be a brand new item, however: it's possible to give older products new life, as they're still useful to the people you're trying to reach.
Creating pertinent material (in this instance lead magnets- is hands down the most successful lead nurturing strategy, and if you've already got something of substance, you should give it a facelift to make it ready for the holidays and get ready for profit.
"What profits?" you ask. I'm so glad you did.
What can you do to still make money from digital downloads for free?
I get it. When someone states that something is for unrestricted, making money from it in any tangible way seems to be a bit odd, at the very least.
In addition to the obvious benefit that you can get more people in the door and ready for nurturing (if they aren't already being nurtured by your offering) by offering a no-cost download via your site provides you with the opportunity to upsells and cross-sells.
A upsell occurs an offer to sell a second product or an upgrade during checkout, usually at a discount.
A cross-sell occurs an offer that is related to a product at the time of checkout, as an item in a bundle.
You see it pretty often with retailers. Here's an example of a cross-sell-in-progress from 1-800-Flowers .
How do lead magnets play in? Easy. If your lead magnet is well-suited to your product and someone shows interest in it, there's a strong possibility that they'll want the other products you offer as well, especially if you give them an exclusive discount.
That's not the only way that you could use the free digital downloads to make into a profit however.
Alternatively, you could also make free downloads available to your affiliates to utilize as opt-ins.
So creating a free digital download for affiliates will make you stand out from anyone else an affiliate partner.
Be sure, however, to ensure that, whoever you decide to make your free digital download, you're offering an item that is useful to the user and not demanding too much by the person who downloaded it.
Consider your sales or landing page to get your digital download as an abstract section of a research paper. Without purchasing the complete item, you'll have the ability to view an overview of what this study is about and the results.
Forrester is a market research firm, has demonstrated this with their reports paid for. Take a look :
In terms of how much data you need from people be sure to keep the request at a moderate level. If you make users give more information than they would like to have access to your digital download, you can anticipate getting junk data and cold leads.
How do I know?
Two motives:
First, I have one number - --- an excellent hotline for rejection -- that I give to businesses who ask me for more details than what I would like to provide in order to download a file which may or might not benefit me.
The second reason is that the numbers indicate that I'm not alone. Convertr is a customer relationship management system, looked through their databases and found that 38 percent of leads are fake .
Ouch, right?
We've now covered how free digital downloads can you lead to profits -leads generation leads, lead nurturing, cross-selling and upsells, as well as affiliate marketing is just scraping the surface. The question is what kinds of downloads are you able to create?
Three types of digital downloads available to offer
Anything you offer for sale, you could offer as a free digital download. That said, some types of content work better as lead magnets than other. Here are just a few to get you going.
#1. Develop a resource kit to users
Do you know what I love? being inactive. If it was an Olympic sport I'd certainly qualify for the regionals.
So when a website offers me a product -- especially one that provides value that I won't see elsewhere and promises to improve my conversion rates -- I'm willing to give over my email and joining their mailing list.
So, this kit from Sleeknote is the perfect lure for me:
If you're looking to capitalize on the potential of lead magnets, you should consider making something similar.
As for what to include the contents of a kit, there's no strict or fast guidelines -- a kit can comprise anything from PDFs, image files or even video files. The sole metric the digital download must fulfill to qualify as a kit is that it provides more than one resource regardless of whether these resources are contained within the same file.
A kit, for instance could contain:
Are you able to access all the information you need by opening various tabs? Sure. Do you want to keep them all nestled and organized in a simple file folder? I would.
That model isn't purely from thin air, by the way.
This example from Sleeknote follows pretty exactly:
And it follows our "don't solicit too much data" guidelines, requiring just two information points to can access an extensive library of resources.
Incidentally, Sleeknote also excels at the other kind of digital download that you could create -- the content upgrade.
#2. Offer an upgrade that is simple to attract customers to sign up
I create massive text for a living, but not everyone is able or desireto go through them, and that's okay.
You don't need people to go through each line of your blog content to make them subscribers. Actually, providing them with an easy summary and actionable aid -- such as an cheat sheet, short start guide, or a printable resource -- can improve your conversion rate significantly.
This is the result that Sleeknote observed when they linked the latest content updates (relevant changes, particularly) along with blog posts, gaining 28.83% more users to their email in a single month.
And because we've established that I've got an unending love for meta, here's their apt illustration from the same webpage that outlines the case study:
Here's a more poignant illustration of a webpage that offers tons of fantastic ideas for other kinds of upgrades to your content:
It's clear that effective content updates don't need to be a burden to develop They just have be appropriate to the content they're linked to and to the target audience you're hoping to get to.
Therefore, if you offer template templates to help with nutrition and tracking calories, you can create a cheatsheet for blog readers.
Also, if you instruct others to design websites, you can create Flashcards that can be printed with the terminology or key design ratios they might need.
It's easy to see the concept. It should be simple, efficient and pertinent. This is all that's needed to it.
#3. Make an email-based mini-course or bootcamp
Unlike the last type of digital download you can create, putting together an email mini-course can definitely be much more labor-intensive, however, it could be a rewarding way to introduce people to your style of teaching when you offer online courses.
Mini-courses for email are typically drip material ( something you can make to your advantage, in fact), so they're the ideal combination of lead nurturing and automation.
They convert incredibly well and are extremely efficient, in fact.
Guillermo Ziegler used free email courses to add 1,700 new subscribers to his email list.
Another teacher, Wes Wages, added 428 subscribers to his list in three days with the help of an email drip course.
And entrepreneurs aren't the only individuals who have realized the value of an email-based course. Buffer is one of the tools we use at , offered their own variety for those looking to take advantage of social media for once in a while.
Because Buffer is an online social media platform that is incredibly relevant to those who are interested in becoming customers.
Also, ConversionXL, a conversion rate optimization firm and marketing training provider offers a product that is utterly delicious for the people it targets .
How easy button? You could ask me about it. However, in some cases, the best approach is to "show, don't reveal,' so register for an account that is free and test it out for yourself.
The answer to this is 'super easy button.'
The most valuable things in life are the ones that cost nothing.
And by best things, I'm talking about things that bring in profit, improve lead quality, and help buyers until they're ready buy.
If you have any doubts about giving away free digital downloads, set the fear to rest with this:
If you design a no-cost digital download, you've made an lead magnet. And like the title suggests, they're fantastic for creating leads and getting them onto your email list.
Ideally, you'll provide free content all year long by hosting it and offering it to anyone who visits your website.
At some point, however you'll have to alter the services you provide (or in the simplest case or refresh the content). If that occurs, you can use seasonally-based patterns of your market and major holiday shopping seasons as your starting points.
Free doesn't mean "free of earnings." Alongside the previously mentioned leads' nurturing advantages, a free digital download is an excellent asset for an affiliate marketing program -on either sideit can also be utilized for cross-selling or upselling your other products.
If you're trying to find the kind of product you need to develop for a no-cost digital download, the only limit is your only limit.
But, the resource kits, content upgrades, and email courses all are well-converting.
And when it comes to delivery, do you have everything covered. If you're hoping it'll be easy, anyway.
Do you think that creating a free item will requires time, energy, and hourly billing? Yes. But , does it bring any profit?
Far from it. In exchange for a little generousness on your part it will result in better qualified clients, well-trained leads and an email list that's ready for your paid products at the time of your launch.
And those are certain to be one of the greatest things about an entrepreneurial's world.