Is your FREEbie just another shiny object? Or something more?

byLaurieP2219

303 followers

8 years ago

There's something so irresistible about getting something for free, isn't there? I know I love snagging free PDF's, free webinars, or even a entire course for free - on whatever topic I happen to be researching that day.

Not too long ago, I paid $60 for a physical book about cause marketing in business. While that wasn't free, the bonus that sealed the deal, for me, was that a portion of that $60 would be used to help impoverished villagers in Africa start their own businesses.

Another free bonus was the email marketing training course that I began - and never finished.

I really should know better than to get caught up in the freebie hype. I'm a trained copywriter. The main purpose of my website is to promote a single product - ME.

Copywriters sometimes use a freebie, called a SPEC, to showcase our writing skills and gain a foot in the door with a new client. Spec work means we create a direct mail letter, ad, website landing page, or other piece of writing - for free.

Sometimes without being asked to do so. But we have our ways of getting our spec work in front of a potential client. And only if the client decides to use what we worked very hard to create, will our chances of getting paid increase.

Writing on spec also means that often, we aren't paid until after the results of our hard work come in (sales revenue or donations or any other objective) and the numbers are tallied up. It's a relatively simple process...

Unlike most of the freebies I willingly sign up to get, yet remain unstudied and unimplemented, spec work for clients returns hard numbers that can be used to know the results of my free work for that client.

For example, Promotion letter A resulted in a 3 percent response rate using my spec work piece, while promotion letter B, using another writer's work, had a response rate of only 1 percent.

Guess who gets paid for their spec work? And added to the short list of writers that client will call for future work?

Chances are you're not a copywriter like me. So how do you know if your promotional giveaway is a success?

Or just another shiny object? What criteria do you use?