Pat Flynn is the creator of the very popular podcast and blog Smart Passive Income and is an exceptional online marketer who has made a living from publishing niche websites and eBooks. The SPI podcast focuses primarily on interviews with lifestyle entrepreneurs who are making a living from successful online businesses and also covers online marketing topics like SEO. His mantra is to work hard now so you can reap the benefits later which is a very attractive offer for a large segment of the population who dream about passive income that was made famous by The 4 Hour Workweek. Becoming an effective online marketer can certainly help individuals in pursuit of this goal. Here is Pat’s excellent presentation on leveraging the power of free in your marketing that he gave at New Media Expo in 2013.
Key takeaways from the talk:
-People will go amazing lengths for free like waiting 3 1/2 hours for a free Grand Slam from Denny’s.
-We know that free works to build connections.
-Dan Ariely did an experiment where he sold Lindt Truffles for 15 cents and Hershey’s Kisses for 1 cent. 73% bought a Lindt Truffle and 27% bought a Hershey’s Kiss. When he lowered the price of both by 1 cent, then 30% bought the truffle and 70% took the Kiss.
-Free is an indirect path to profit.
-What is the ultimate goal for people coming to your site?
-If you create something amazing, people will share it.
-Introducing free changes behavior.
-We hate to lose things.
-Free is not a business model, it has to lead to something else.
-Make it easy, people are lazy online. Make it one click.
-Earn trust with people and show them you can create amazing content.
-You will get higher quality leads.
-Cliff Ravenscraft’s free teaser course was viewed 24,000 times. 40% of purchasers of the full course also took the free course.
-Surprise people with something out of the blue.
Check out Pat Flynn’s book Let Go: