Free products

[Grith - WPW]

Hi everyone,
Does an e-commerce site benefit from offering freebies? Does it help promote the products, close the sale or is it just a case of shooting yourself in the foot? Someone suggested that we should make an e-book to give away for free online as it would encourage people to buy the real book later.
Do you agree or disagree?

[101homebiz]

I think freebies could definitely help to promote businesses. I.e. you could use a freebie to convince your visitors to sign your Newsletter, this would increase your signup-rate.

Since I offer a free e-book and free software in my website, the number of sign-ups increased at least by 50%. There are thousands of Newsletters on the web, so it is a "competitive advantage".

Furthermore you could "brand" your freebies with links to your business or products and take advantage of "viral marketing". If your freebies are valuable, they will start to spread out and carry your own links to future customers.

Additionally, you could add them to your product to increased the "perceived value" of your offer. It is very common by internet market products that they are acomplished by a long list of Free Bonuses.

I will visit your website soon and see what do you have to offer for free (;-)

Regards,

Alex

[Grith - WPW]

Hi Alex, thanks for that feedback - any advice is helpful and I'll be sure to let you know when the e-book is ready so that you can give it a test run ;¬)

[cyanide]

Are you talking about the entire book(e-book) ?
If that's so, then why would they buy the book?

Maybe 1 chapter... or some excerpts, perhaps

[Grith - WPW]

Cyanide, that is a very good question, because that was my first reaction as well - why buy the book when you can have it as an e-book for free? Our e-business marketing consultant assures us that when people get a free e-book then the majority will then want to buy the hardcopy subsequently. I guess it should be argued that by buying the hard copy of the book you will get the lovely illustrations in a bigger format and the added benefit of being able to play the CD anywhere at anytime you wish i.e. in the car, on a personal discman, on the hi-fi in the kids' room etc.

What has actually happened is that we are producing an e-book containing just one of the stories from the book (the book actually contains three stories in all). We hope that by giving away a whole story people will download it and then when they have heard it buy the book which contains the other two stories as well. But perhaps that is giving too much away?

[emarketinvestor]

I'd have to agree with cyanide. Giving away one out of three stories is a bit much for a freebie. Especially when that is your main product. Maybe give away a tease on a couple at most. Hollywood nor Bollywood will let you go see a movie for free, in hopes of you buying the DVD.

Our e-business marketing consultant assures us that when people get a free e-book then the majority will then want to buy the hardcopy subsequently.

Not necessarily so. Been there done that. I give free Creole recipes on my site at CreoleMan.com. For a couple of years the site enjoyed top 1-7 ranking from Yahoo, DMOZ, Jeeves, and MSN for terms like creole recipes, oyster recipes, crawfish etouffee, and others. This was organic placement, and the traffic was great. The oyster recipe page had been my best traffic, so I compiled an e-book of 50 oyster recipes. Started out at $5 and ended at $3.50. Not a problem, if only enough e-books would sell.

After months of slow sales, and feedback from visitors as a result of email and phone follow ups with newsletter subscribers, I learned that the majority came for just what I offered. Free creole recipes. Not much else. Had I started as a pay for complete access model, the oyster recipe venture could have been more successful. The oyster recipes have since been retired until a later date.

Don't give away so much that the temptation to buy is satisfied.

Best of luck,

[cyanide]

Hi Grith,

Unfortunately, I don't agree with your consultant.
You're heading into dangerous territory. You need to tread carefully and really, your consultant should have thought of something more unique and eye-catching than just giving away a free book.
Sorry, no offence.

There are bargain-hunters everywhere and there's nothing wrong with that, but then you get the group just underneath... the cheap-skates.
When you start offering things for free, especially if it's your main product... people take notice, that's for sure, but then when you ask for money? ... huge drop off.

And more importantly, what kind of value are placing on your product by offering it or 1/3 of it for free?
Why not offer something for free to go with the book, like a bookmark... okay, maybe that's been done to death, but you get the idea.

A few years ago, Steven King did something unique when launching his newest novel. He offered it as an e-book but people could buy and download per chapter, not the whole book. $1 or $2 per chapter

[Grith - WPW]

Hi Rick, thanks for your feedback, it is always good to get the low down on what has and hasn't worked for people who have been down the route you are planning to go.

Rick said:
"I give free Creole recipes on my site at CreoleMan. com. For a couple of years the site enjoyed top 1-7 ranking from Yahoo, DMOZ, Jeeves, and MSN for terms like creole recipes, oyster recipes, crawfish etouffee, and others. This was organic placement, and the traffic was great."

Did you start out planning to make money on your recipes or was it an after thought as you noticed the fabulous traffic it generated? We are not planning to advertise the fact that you can get the e-book for free, in fact our adwords have free as a negative keyword at the moment.
We do not seek to generate traffic using the free ebook. These will be the wrong kind of people. We hope to use it to positively persuade people who would otherwise not buy because they swither as to whether or not our unusual book is right for their children.

Rick said:
"Don't give away so much that the temptation to buy is satisfied."

I know what you are saying but, at the moment, the problem quite frankly is that we aren't selling anything anyway. People are visiting the site but not buying. If people visit the site, they find the free e-book and download it, then at least we can see that there is some interest in what we have to offer.

I shall be posting our website in the forum for website reviews shortly, perhaps that will generate more clues to why people have not been buying the book so far.

Thanks again for the feedback it is appreciated.

[Grith - WPW]

Hi Cyanide, I appreciate all the points you mention and I particularly agree with you that it is indeed a very fine line to tread to give away something for free.

Quote
"A few years ago, Steven King did something unique when launching his newest novel. He offered it as an e-book but people could buy and download per chapter, not the whole book. $1 or $2 per chapter"

I think your mention of the Steven King story is very interesting, I heard about that too. However, I also heard that the 'buy the book per chapter' websales never really worked for him on the scale he had hoped and that he chose to go back to his publisher in the end. I guess you can speculate on why this would be the case. My own guess would be that although people like the Steven Kings novels, sales would be hampered by the fact that you had to wait for the next installment of the story. Arguably you could of course wait and would in the end be able to buy the whole thing which is what most people do indirectly anyway when they buy a book. Another guess is that the Steven King website did not carry as much promotional force as a major heavy weight publisher who can get bookshops to put up posters and arrange other promotional offers and thereby make a lot more money from sales for themselves and their author.
But also lastly and perhaps most importantly, publishing industry research has shown that people who like and read books buy books not just for the content but because they like the traditional value of books if you know what I mean. A lot of readers like to see the book sitting on their bookshelf and value this traditional format. I am not saying that with the new generations of children growing up e-books are not going to become more accepted, but I still hope that for some generations to come there will be people who think that the hard copy is worth investing in.

Do I sound like I am stuck in the 20th century??? ; ¬ )

Perhaps I am, but if I'm wrong then I, as a publisher of hard copy books, don't have a very good future to look forward to.

[sfowler]

I read books when I find time, but I hate e-books. It is a thoroughly unpleasant way to go blind! I might buy a hardcopy after seeing a chapter on a site, but I would not buy on just the title.