The Gurus are giving courses away for FREE!!!

To get you on a Continuity program, upsell you on other
products, and collect your online/offline contact info.

It's a brilliant method and provides folks tremendous value.

Lavelle

It's called "moving the free line"

Eben Pagen talked about it in length previously.. By giving away some great stuff for free, you can increase the perceived value of what you have on the back end... most of them lead into a back end continuity deal of some sort or some cool coaching...

Most of the time, they really do lead to exceptional value too.

Peace

Jay

Because a $10,000 weekend workshop pays so much better then a $1997 course......it's called priming the pump (to do something in order to make something succeed).

Tim

I was noticing the same thing about a number of 'free' offers recently and thinking - I'm just deleting all the these emails and not bothering with it, even though its free, because I've bought from the 'guru' in the past and it was overpriced, generic, with terrible customer service.

With that in mind, I'm heading off to the War Room to get some real value.

A great example of this is Michael Rasmussen's Mini-Sites Profits Exposed. It's a Clickbank product but when you click on the link in the Clickbank Marketplace and go to his pitch page, you see that he gives you his entire course for FREE.

I have to tell you that this free course is easily worth as much--no, probably quite a bit more than any of the $97 ebooks at the top of the Clickbank charts. There is one catch. You have to give Michael your name and email address to access his course.

I know I read somewhere online that Michael was responsible for over 600,000 dollars in Clickbank sales last year. One reason for that is that he grew a huge list from giving this product away. Sure, he could have sold it and made some money. But this way he built a huge list and used that list to market many different products to that list. He's a smart guy. It's a matter of short term profits vs much higher long term profits.

They probably make something off the shipping first off and of course they give away free information, thats the best way to get subscribers right.

The other aspect is - they've already milked the majority of the market for the product so rather than just let it die a slow death - they're injecting the interest back into it by giving it away.

It's a way of extending the life of a customer list and creating a buzz but instead of the buss being about your new product it's a switch and bait - you think you're being given a free product, while they're selling you the continuity program they're actually focused on.

You get a bunch of people thinking they're getting a high ticket product for free instead of that they're buying into that persons latest product or service.

When the dust settles a big chunk of these people won't have done anything with the main product and will be paying for something they never would've bought if it was the main offer.

It's just a marketing strategy based on distracting you from the real offer by focusing on the giveaway.

Politicians do it all the time - the best time to release bad policies is when there's bad news in the headlines, you can sneak all sorts of unpopular stuff by when people are distracted.

Andy

Top marketers like Dan Kennedy will tell you:

Convert your online leads to offline leads as soon as possible.

Continuity + Offline leads = $$$

I think it is an act of desperation. I don't like the model because it creates this mindset that everything should come for free. I think these programs are killing the membership model because there are so many of them, many that are hardly providing real value, and people are becoming burned out on them.

The state of the IM niche scares me right now...I think we need some innovators. Anyone want to step up?

I give away a ton of stuff. The motivation - at least for me - is indeed one facet of viral marketing. At present, the economics of my situation dictate that I also sell stuff, but, longer term, I would like to get my Advertising revenue to the level where I could give everything away.

Cheers

Will

With these free offers do you have to sign up to a direct debit form or give your paypal address upfront? Sometimes it can be hard canceling something after one month if you are not satisfied with the quality.

So many people are following the "Colon Cleanse", "**** Berry" model these days. Free physical product up front, followed by a continuity program.

It works SO well for diet pills, ringtones and so many other markets outside of Internet Marketing, why not put it to use here?

I'm planning on including continuity programs in virtually all my upcoming products (outside the IM niche).

All the big-time hitters do it, so what does that you... IT WORKS!
Get on their list, develope a bond,trust and upsell the heck out of you!
Let's all learn from them.

Correct me if I'm wrong but MF's Butterfly Marketing is a new course. It may be a revamped
version with new bits added in.

actually not free at all. It must be a great strategy to give first. Have to do something "big" on marketing strategy. I think its a great strategy from the gurus

Mark me down in the 'never again' column for the free-with-a-catch guru stuff--I'm getting spam phone calls for coaching months after cancelling the continuity and the calls are now coming from people other than the original guy I signed up with.

On the other hand, if you can do it with a product just to build a list, provided you give real value, the numbers work well. This his how some of the uber-affiliates win every affiliate and promo contest.

I don't think they have problem giving away the "free" content because all it really makes you do is feel good and inspired to do something.

Put it this way. Most of the free information given away is big on content, shallow on substance. Most of the bigger players giving away this free information have mastered the art of talking a lot without saying much at all.

You can read through these courses and really ask yourself, what tangible knowledge did you walk away with? I'm not insulting any one person or another in particular.

Of course it's as everyone here has mentioned. Prime the pumps, get the engines started, so when paid offers come your way, you'll be ready, wallet in hand.

They understand the life time value of a client.

Most likely a client will buy much more than this. It's like those 10 DVD's for US$1.00 offer. Do you think they do make any money on those DVD? They get you by signing a 1 year deal to buy x number of DVD's where they make money on you at the end.

Pretty good and can be applied for almost any business

Actually,

I'm not sure if Mike is reading this thread, but got his butterfly effect material and wanted to say thanks. It's pretty good quality stuff, and no, not affiliated with him

Cheers!

Johnathan

I'm a big believer in giving away for free at the outset. I'm currently giving away a PILE of stuff on naitonal television, radio and in papers. it builds my profile and it builds my accountablity.
If only I could work out exactly what to do with it....