Everyone likes free stuff! It’s a universal truth. But there’s more to a free content offer than just doing something nice for your current and future clients!
What is a high-value free content offer?
Well, it can be just about anything! The core elements of a free content offer are that it’s cost-free, appealing, and low risk for your potential client. Also important, it should be the full deal. No burying the lead or withholding the punchline – it’s not a sample!
The purpose isn’t just to leave someone wanting more; you want to give them genuine value while proving that you’re an expert that can deliver it!
Some well-used examples of free content offers are:
- blogs or e-books chock full of helpful info
- tools like an online calculator or free auditing service
- how-to videos
- checklists, cheat sheets or glossaries
The point is that it’s a resource that someone doesn’t necessarily need to rely on your services to get real value from.
How can offering free content help your business?
It works in many ways! For one, it can influence how people see your business. You come across as generous, giving, and not stingy with your knowledge.
It also gives you a great opportunity to be viewed as an expert in what you do. If you prove to people that you can solve problems, you’ll be their first call when they have a problem they can’t solve alone. Expertise and authority also significantly increase your chance to be found online, so it’s doubly helpful!
Finally, there’s the fundamental psychological fact that generosity is contagious. It’s called the rule of reciprocity – people who receive gifts are more likely to give in return.
How do I make valuable free content?
The best place to start is to solve a problem or fill a need that your current or potential clients have. A good way to do this is to conduct a survey or just ask people.
Then you need to decide on the best medium to reach them. Will they be likely to read an eBook? Maybe they’re really busy, so an audiobook would be more suitable. A short video? Whichever way it is, you need people to find it, so make it accessible!
It’s important that your free content offer solves an issue or provides information that genuinely helps someone but leaves plenty on the table for your business. It should be related to what you do, like solve a beginner issue when you specialise in more complicated problems.
If you find the idea of creating a free content offer daunting, then maybe consider hiring someone to make it for you. The value that you get out of building up your community will more than cover the expenses of a professional creative.
And finally, a small tip. When you have a finished offer, repurpose it. Turn an eBook into a blog, into a video, into a video series! Adapt, change, and spread the offer to reach a wider audience for a whole lot less effort than building more from scratch.
Bring your potential clients along on their buyer’s journey.
Once you’ve begun to foster a community of mutual respect, you can really engage potential clients that you know can benefit the most from your service.
Marketing your business to people who simply don’t need it wastes your time and bothers them unnecessarily. But, identifying people who you can really help gives you a great leg-up to getting them as clients, and we all love the feeling of helping others.
You can exchange access to your free content offer with email addresses or contact information and bring potential clients along their buyer’s journey.
People in need of a product or service typically go through three stages; awareness, when they know you exist; consideration, when they’re weighing up the pros and cons; and decision, when they ideally choose to work with you.
You can get a clue about what a potential client is dealing with from how they interact with your free content offer. So, you can help them along their own journey and show them you have the solution to their problems.
If you’re interested in other ways to give back to your community and see it flourish, check out our very own eBook on giving back!
We love giving back to our community in many ways, and it’s all the better when it brings us into contact with people who share our values. If you’d like to share your successes or stories, we’d love to hear about them.
Also, if you’d like to read our free eBook on creating a social impact while building a successful business, you can download it here.
