One of the biggest fears people have about offering a free course or free sample chapters of their online product is that this will cannibalize their actual sales.
This was certainly our fear too when we first started adopting this strategy. But we soon found that the free course increased sales and signups by close to 100%!
The graph below shows signups and sales on a test site we implemented for a client. We first attempted to go directly for the sale.
This experiment lasted 6 weeks. Signups hovered around 200 per week while sales were around 100 units. People signed up not to receive a free course but to get on a mailing list for special offers.
We later started offering a free course. Visitors on the main page of the site could no longer sign up for special offers. Instead, they could sign up for a free online course spanning 3 weeks.
At the end of the course they would receive an email promoting a special offer. 8 weeks after offering the free course, total signups had more than doubled!
The total increase was 105%. Sales too, shot up - by 96%. Rather than cannibalizing sales, offering the free course had actually doubled them.
So don't worry about losing sales by offering a free course or free information. Anything you can do to put yourself in further contact with your visitors can boost sales.
And if your product is good, a free course will inevitably result in more sales.
So how to design your free course? Designing Your Free Course When designing your free course, follow these 2 rules:
Rule 1: Give Away Just Enough to Create Desire The first thing you need to do is decide what bits of information you're going to give away.
You want to give away just enough to entice the reader to purchase your full product. Try to craft your free offer so that it allows you to email the subscriber with free information at least 7 times.
Rule 2: Give it Away Slowly Second, you must spread out the information over several days. Let's say you're selling a book on competitive rock climbing. Your book contains 29 chapters. You decide to give out 7 chapters for free.
You DO NOT want to let the subscriber download ALL 7 chapters in one go.
Let them sign up to receive one chapter every 2 - 3 days. By spreading it out this way, you allow yourself more time to form a relationship with the reader.
You also make it easier for them to consume the 7 free chapters by spreading them out rather than handing it to them in one go. Remember, you need to contact the subscriber around 7 times on average before generating a sale.
If your free course is a software product, then you can let the subscriber download a limited version of the product (with some features turned off). You should always require subscribers to provide an email address before downloading and you should email them a friendly tip or suggestion every few days.
The purpose of the email is to remind them to consume the product and to create a bond with them. Simply allowing your subscribers to download a software product and then forgetting about them is not a smart thing to do.
Create a relationship! Setting Up the Course Your free course should start with a welcome email followed by Lesson 1.
Every 2-3 days the subscriber should receive another lesson or nugget of information. We recommend at least 7 lessons in total. At the end of the 7th lesson, the subscriber should receive a promotional email offering them a reason to buy your product immediately.
------
Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned from having his own building company to a great online business. Check out his site and see for yourself how he can help you do the same at
http://www.moneyacces.com
