How Much Does Your “Freebie” Cost?

Everyone loves free, except for the people who have to pay for it. That is the unsaid truth that hides behind any “free” marketing method or campaign. There is usually, though not always, a real cost in terms of time and money.

So when you’re tempted to offer something for free, make sure to count the cost in every way you need to, in order to make sure your free content, bonus gift or other promotional label you chose to give is affordable. It’s time to take a close look at the costs you’ll bear on the road to a freebie.

What forms of “free” are we talking about here?

The biggest places we see free work its way into our businesses is in the act of gathering email addresses. Offering a freebie is standard operating procedure, and won’t be changing anytime soon. In most cases we are offered a free ebook, report, video series, e-course, webinar or email series in exchange for our email address and other contact information.

What you must know is there are costs associated with the creation of these freebies. Let’s look at several of the actual hard costs you’ll be forced to deal with in the creation of your freebies.

• Actually writing or otherwise creating the content – There is someone who is responsible for getting this done, and you’ll most likely need to pay them. There may also be ancillary costs that go along with this, like software or hardware to help produce your content.
• Designing the marketing funnel pages – You can do this with software programs, but someone has to understand how to do it, and that will take time, money and talent. Then there are web designers, and that can cost a bundle.
• Marketing hard costs – You’ll need an email autoresponder company, webinar charges, and a way to deliver your freebie, whether it’s off your site or hosted elsewhere. Someone has to set that up. Shipping and hard costs for physical products need to be considered too.
• Advertising – You may well want to advertise for the greatest response possible, and definitely this costs money and time.

While it is still a smart idea to use this type of bribe to build a list of email subscribers, you should be aware of what your freebie really costs, and factor that into your cost per lead.