The Psychology Behind Turning Freebies Into Profitable Sales Assets

Jennie Wright [00:00:02]:

Hi there. This is the Acquire Podcast brought to you by the Odd Phonic Podcast Network, and I’m your host, Jenny Wright. I’m a list build and lead generation expert as well as fractional CMO, and this podcast delves deep into the world of list building and online events. And it’s designed to empower you with all the knowledge and strategies to master these essential business growth tactics. I always say this is the podcast Wiehler you are 5, 6 or even 7 figures, all the same problems exist. They just look ever so slightly different. People wonder why I say that, but it’s true. I work at all levels in these businesses, and I will tell you that my 7 figure clients have the exact same problems as somebody who’s just starting out.

 

Jennie Wright [00:00:42]:

It just looks a little different. The scale is different and a couple other things, but honestly, it’s still the same problem. So I am excited to dive in today about turning your freebies into sales machines. These are your lead magnets. These are your easy little things that are on your Wright, in the blink in bio on your social media. And I’m going to show you how to take these free offers and elevate and create opportunities for mega sales. Okay. And to do this, we’re going to get into a little bit of the psychology of things.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:17]:

I’m actually Jennie to go into my sort of, you know, Jennie space of like how people actually think and behave. And then we’re going to talk about the tactics. And then you’re going to be able to, by the end of this episode, look at your lead magnets and then all of the systems behind them. And either you can fix it or you can ask somebody on your team to fix it or review it or audit it. Or if you want me to, you can reach out to me and I will do a specific audit on your lead magnet or your marketing systems and show you the opportunities, but they are there. They’re always there. I have yet to run into somebody where I can’t find a little something something that needs a bit of elevation. So we’re gonna talk about this first.

 

Jennie Wright [00:01:57]:

We’re gonna talk about the psychology behind freebies or lead magnets. So you may have heard of this and you might know this really well. It’s the reciprocity principle. So people feeling compelled to return a favor when they receive something for free. So I’m gonna give you this wonderful thing. All you need to do is give me your email address and your name. Reciprocity. Okay? So when you give something that looks valuable to your audience, those that audience feels a sense of obligation to reciprocate in some way, often by engaging with you more or by potentially making a purchase.

 

Jennie Wright [00:02:34]:

So if they feel like they got a ton of value, they’re more likely to jump in and buy something. There’s also this low risk, high reward principle. So a lead magnet offers a very low perceived risk for potential customers and clients. And by offering that freebie or lead magnet, you are eliminating the barrier of cost. You’re allowing potential customers and clients to try out your program, your product, or your service without any financial commitment whatsoever, making them more likely to explore and trust your offerings. And we’re looking at things like entering your name and email and getting that downloadable freebie so that people can kind of see behind the curtain of your business, what it is that you do. How do you support? How do you coach? What can, like, what problem can you fix for them now knowing that you’re not gonna problem you’re not gonna solve all the problems. And the point of a lead magnet, in my opinion, is to solve a problem, And then they need to get to the next, to the next, to the next and so on.

 

Jennie Wright [00:03:37]:

And so that sort of like low risk, high reward principle works in your favor all the time. Another sort of geeky thing we can talk about is this foot in the door technique, and that is that by making small initial commitments, your ideal client will then eventually make larger commitments. Right? So if freebie serves as a small, easy commitment, there’s literally no barrier to entry for it. Once somebody has accepted your free offer, they are more likely to agree to a larger request such as purchasing a paid product or service. So foot in the door is what you want. You you wanna get in there. You want to get people into what I call your sphere of influence so that you can continue to engage with them and offer them opportunities that make sense, which is why down the road, segmentation of your email list is so darn important. Because if you’ve got the foot in the door thing, you don’t wanna then make the wrong offer, which will turn them off and have them go, you know, flying out the door.

 

Jennie Wright [00:04:40]:

The other thing is value perception. Right? So freebies can enhance the perceived value of your brand by leaps and bounds. I once, actually, it was The beginning of the pandemic. I watched a webinar on growing your own indoor, food. I was really interested in this. I wanted to grow microgreens. I was growing indoor tomatoes. I had, what’s called an AeroGarden, and I was really interested in this.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:07]:

I found this webinar. I was watching this webinar, and I knew they were gonna make an offer because everybody always does. At the end of the webinar, they offered a freebie. Actually, they actually didn’t even tell you they were giving you the freebie. They just said, by the way, just for being here, we’re giving you this cool free. And it was actually really, really cool. It was an entire growth plan, for indoor microgreens and indoor plants that you could grow that were safe if you had pets or wouldn’t take up too much space. I will tell you something though, and this makes me laugh.

 

Jennie Wright [00:05:38]:

I actually grew zucchinis indoors. And if you know anything about zucchini plants, those things spread. It’s not the thing to grow in a condo. I’m just telling you that I grew them indoors. I couldn’t grow them on my balcony because it was too windy. And, the leaves are very, like, sensitive slash delicate And the leaves kept getting bruised. And The, you know, anyways, long story short, there are certain things you should grow indoors. Zucchini is not one of them.

 

Jennie Wright [00:06:01]:

But this freebie was super helpful. And so that sort of, like, value perception, I I felt like the brand had that much more value because the freebie was Wright, like, that good. It was such high quality. And then let’s talk about lead generation for a second. Right? So obviously The point of giving a freebie is to have people, like, have you actually create lead generation for your list. And they’re really effective tools for doing that. How many times have you put your name and email, in a box on a website so you can get 15% off? How many times have you put your name and email on something to be entered into a draw? I mean, they work. They have always worked and they will continue to always work.

 

Jennie Wright [00:06:48]:

Everything that I’m telling you today is not going to change. Our physiology, like our brain physiology hasn’t evolved or changed that much, but these techniques are gonna stop working in a couple of years or even a couple of decades. These techniques, I mean, they were identified in our lifetime, obviously, but they’re gonna continue to be something that we all do. This is how the physiology works. And so the next thing that works really, really well and that you can include to amplify your lead magnets is social proof and virility or, yeah, virality, not virility. Darn it, Jenny. Virality. Okay? Don’t get those 2 confused.

 

Jennie Wright [00:07:32]:

Anyways, people are more likely to engage with shared free offers. So if I say something is really, really cool and I share it with my friends because I think it’s cool, it’s more likely they will think it’s cool because I shared it with them versus them seeing it completely for free with ever like without having some sort of recommendation. Right? So social proof is huge. And if you can encourage sharing of your freebie, then that’s gonna help you build your list. It’s gonna help you get in front of more people, and that’s gonna be a win win for you. Right? So it helps you it helps you build your list of potential leads and customers who have shown interest in your brand. And then there’s this thing that The this it’s kinda like a technique. It’s called trial and trust.

 

Jennie Wright [00:08:17]:

And freebies allow your potential customers to trial you out, to try you before they buy you. Wright? So they’re trying you, they’re trying your stuff out before they actually buy it. So by providing like a free sample or a 30 day entrance into your membership or a 14 day Wright, like some of my SaaS clients who have software as a service, you’re giving potential customers a chance to experience the benefits of your product and service by building trust and increasing likelihood of future purchases. Some of the most expensive software out there has a trial. A 14 day trial, a 30 day trial doesn’t matter. And some of the most expensive software out there, like HubSpot as an example, because that is not cheap, has a free option with a bunch of different, like, elements within it hidden behind a paywall. So you’re using it. You’re using your free HubSpot.

 

Jennie Wright [00:09:13]:

And you wanna do the really cool thing because it’s like you can see that the cool thing is within your account. You can see, like, the tab. You go and click on the tab because you wanna add you know, you wanna do this neat. I can’t remember right now, but, like, you wanna do the one thing in there that you really would think would elevate your HubSpot experience, and you go click on it. It says, oh, this is for only, like, premium members only. And that’s a really great way to show you what the services are so that you’ll click the button and upgrade. I recently test drove, Pipedrive, which is a CRM. I test drove it on a 14 day trial for a client before that you know, before thinking of moving them, away from HubSpot into Pipedrive as a possible CRM.

 

Jennie Wright [00:09:54]:

And, you know, all CRMs have similar sort of tack like, similar sort of setups and whatnot, but Pipedrive, and a lot of people do this. Pipedrive gave me access to, I’d say, about 75% of all of its features that I could try out. And then some of the bigger ones were like, hey. Yeah. You can try this, but you have to upgrade. So 14 day trial, I got to try out all these different things. It’s Wright. And it helps you, make a decision.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:21]:

It also helps you, The sort of loyal to that brand or even loyal to the product because you’ve spent the past, you know, 14 days working in the product to see if it works. And it’s a wonderful thing. I mean, from my side, I always have my clients do a trial on the software that they’re thinking of using. So they get used to, like, the look and feel and how to navigate within it. The worst thing you can do, and this just happened to a client of mine, is they locked in. So they a client of mine was recommended to try out a certain all in one software. And if you know me, you know, I don’t love all in ones. I like a tech stack.

 

Jennie Wright [00:10:59]:

So they tried it out. Actually, they didn’t even take the trial. Somebody recommended it to them. They bought a whole year upfront nonrefundable because this particular all in one does not give you a prorated refund, which I don’t like. I don’t think that’s good customer service. Anyways, so they’ve bought it. And now we wanna build out a bunch of stuff, And this all in one service has a CRM and email marketing and landing page software, but the landing page software is not the best. It doesn’t convert very well.

 

Jennie Wright [00:11:31]:

Even though I love the core software that’s built into it and a lot of really big people use the core software, A lot of big people use the core software, but they don’t actually use the email marketing and that thing, and they don’t actually use a couple other things. But, anyways, this person has paid up front for an entire year, did not do a trial, and is now locked in, and they don’t like the software. So that’s why trial and trust is a big deal. And then the last piece of sort of like psychology is the scarcity and urgency technique where limited time freebies can create a sense of urgency. So for the next 10 days, you can get this such and such. Now I’m actually working on a scarcity and urgency technique right now in my own business. At the time that I’m recording this, I’m working on a giveaway bundle. So the bundle will only be open for 10 days, which is a scarcity and urgency.

 

Jennie Wright [00:12:23]:

You can get all the freebies for 10 days. After that, they’re gone. They go back to being behind a paywall for whatever expert is participating. So offering freebies for a limited time can prompt, like, immediate action, driving more registrations, more sign ups, more downloads as people rush to take advantage of your offer, which means you can get what I love, a list injection. Okay. So let’s talk about how to use these examples now in the real world, and then I’m gonna talk about the sales machine we can create from it. So I’m gonna kinda go a little quickly through this because you don’t need me to explain all of this at great detail, but you just need to know it. Okay? So the reciprocity in action is a free ebook or a guide.

 

Jennie Wright [00:13:06]:

It’s a high value ebook. It solves a common problem. In return, people Wright feel more inclined to, you know, purchase the full course or even the full book. Low risk and high reward, look at doing a free trial. Provide a free trial of your software, your service, allowing for potential customers to experience its benefits without any of the financial risk. The foot in the door technique, free webinars. Host a free webinar and provide immense value. After building through trust in the webinar, pitch a comprehensive paid course or consultation service.

 

Jennie Wright [00:13:42]:

For the value perception, offer exclusive free content, something that is like premium quality that they can’t get anywhere else. The perceived value and the content will reflect positively on the other paid offerings. And again, you could run a Acquire after this and so on. In terms of lead gen, do a free checklist or a template or even a how to. Offer those, you know, the free checklist or the download or whatnot in a template in exchange for your email address, and it helps grow your list for future sales. In terms of social proof and going viral, look at a shareable freebie, create a shareable infographic or tool that users can then distribute within their own network, increasing that reach. That’s really helpful. And then in terms of trial and trust, try sample products.

 

Jennie Wright [00:14:32]:

Right? If you sell physical products, you can offer free samples. If you offer an online product, this is another try like, this is another opportunity to do those, like, free trials because those are we work super well. And then with scarcity and urgency, take a look at the limited time offers like a bundle giveaway or a free resource that’s only available for a short period of time, encouraging immediate action. So those are those in play. Now I wanna shift and talk about your sales machine. Okay? So freebie to sales machine. And The we’re gonna do this through strategic bundle structures. You might have heard people talk about value ladders and all sorts of stuff and alignment.

 

Jennie Wright [00:15:18]:

Value ladders are great, but that’s just math and it doesn’t, it doesn’t take into consideration how people actually work. So, you know, you could say math. Well, if you offer a $27 product, then, you know, then you can offer a 297, then you can offer a 4.97 and a 1600 and so on. Sure you could, But does it work? Right? So we first have to go through a couple different things to make sure that value ladder actually works and then be able to convert it. So the first thing is understanding your audience and your goals, knowing who your ideal audience is, their goals at the exact time that you’re looking to offer something, that’s gonna make all the difference. Knowing your audience’s pain points, their needs, their desires, understanding the value of what they like, understanding what they value most and what kind of free or low cost offers are actually gonna attract them. Offering the wrong thing for the wrong problem, giving the wrong solution is going to fall flat. So you have to understand your audience really, really well, And I’ve talked about this before.

 

Jennie Wright [00:16:21]:

You can do this by, looking around in social media groups. Like so get into a Facebook group and see what people are talking about. Look on social media and see what people are talking about. TikTok is a great way, actually. So find a hashtag on TikTok that is close to the topic that you’re talking about and then see what people are complaining about. I’ve done that a lot. Works. It may not work in all niches, but it does have some niches it will work in.

 

Jennie Wright [00:16:45]:

So once you know your audience a lot better and you understand the goals, then this is where you can create the value like, the value ladder and feel more confident that it’s actually gonna sell. So you obviously have that initial paid offer. We’ve already talked about that. That’s your lead magnet. And that high value freebie is what addresses one specific problem for the need of your audience. Again, this is an ebook, a checklist, a template, a mini course, and you ensure that it provides real value and positions you as an expert. I’ll give you one example of this, by the way. This is an elevation technique, and you probably have done The, but if you haven’t go and check your lean magnets.

 

Jennie Wright [00:17:25]:

One of my clients just she had a really great, what was it? A journal. She’s a wonderful journal, and the journal has a one page per week for the entire year. It has some other things in there. I think it had, like, a financial checklist. This person is a financial planner. And so there’s lots of tips in there about how to financially plan at certain times a year and what to take advantage of. In Canada, it’s, you know, when to buy RSPs and so on. But what was missing in this planner was a cover page, was a intro page that talked about her, was a CTA offer either within or at the end or even in the beginning.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:04]:

So there was missed opportunities in these. And so this planner actually had a lack of branding too. So if you got the planner, which was great, it didn’t say on the bottom the name of the company. It didn’t tell you anything like The. So you wouldn’t know that it was from my client. So that is something where it’s a quick fix. Get into Canva, update it, add a cover page, add a CTA, add some more info, get some page numbers and some like, you know, company name on the bottom, whatever you want and elevate that thing. Okay.

 

Jennie Wright [00:18:33]:

Additionally, people are in our elevated sort of technique of free offers, you should look to make sure that you’re covering the different ways that people learn. So if you have a free journal, take a look at adding in sort of like maybe a private Podcast people learn that people learn about financial literacy if that’s your topic so they can get it different ways. Okay? So that’s your first step. Freebie is always the first step. Now some people believe in their value ladder, they can go from freebie to high tier. And if you do, that’s totally cool. Other people don’t. And so I’m gonna explain the things that are in between.

 

Jennie Wright [00:19:14]:

So we have our low cost offers. And if you follow-up your freebie with a low cost offer or even potentially some sort of a trip wire, which is a low cost that leads to a higher cost product, then it’s going to add a little bit more value than your freebie. And it could be a workshop, a more comprehensive ebook. It could be an entry level online course and price it attractively so it fits really, really well. I I don’t know why, but the magic number for my audience is $19. So from freebie to $19 has successfully over the past, you know, gosh, many years given me the most success, so I stick with that. And then you wanna move on to your core paid product. So, obviously, you have something that is your core product, whatever that is, and you wanna offer that.

 

Jennie Wright [00:20:01]:

So for the most part, that might be a course, that might be some coaching, or it could be a mastermind or a membership. Now is the time to pitch that and make sure that you’re offering additional good value. And depending on the price, obviously, you might have to have a sales call, maybe not. Depends on how you do it. And then the last is always gonna be high end offers. And some people I know do not do high end offers at all. Their whole business is built on low to mid tier, which I think is great, but then you’re relying on volume. So if you can get volume, amazing.

 

Jennie Wright [00:20:31]:

You can do that low and mid tier all day long. But if you don’t have volume, if you don’t have, oh, if you don’t have hundreds and hundreds of people looking at your brand on a regular basis, then you do need to include a high tier offer most likely to make the money that you need to make it worthwhile. Okay. So once we’ve got our value ladder, now we’ve got to align all of these offers in a logical progression. What does that look like? So there has to be a logical progression from one offer to the next, and each step should feel really natural and feel like it just leads to the next level of value with minimal whiplash with just really easy. So an example of this would be an ebook for lead gen, and this could lead to a low cost webinar, that has more advanced strategies. And that leads to a full course on mastering lead Jennie. And then that leads to a mastermind.

 

Jennie Wright [00:21:24]:

That’s one of my techniques, actually. So and then you have to do consistent messaging. So maintaining consistent messaging throughout all of your offers, language, tone, From the lead magnet to the low The, to the mid tier, to the high tier, if you do it, from the lead magnet to the low tier Wright the mid tier to the high tier if you do it. It should all look and feel similar and reinforce your brand and your value prop. There should be, like, no questions there. Then once you’ve done that, now you’re gonna go back and you’re gonna optimize Jennie landing pages that you have. Right? So now you’re gonna look for the little like, optimizing a landing page is where you start looking for percentages. Okay? So the landing pages that I build usually convert anywhere between 40 to 80%.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:11]:

That is well above industry standard. I know it. People ask me how I do it. It is the minor like, it’s honestly, it’s minor and minute things that I do differently than some people. And I actually did a workshop once where I said, I will build a high converting landing page in front of all of you, and you will actually give me the topic right on the workshop. Like, I I did no prep. And I built this entire landing page right from the go like, get go with no information, just people telling me a topic and and things like that and built a high converting landing page. And then I didn’t let I know I didn’t send any traffic to it because it was a test, but it had all the premises.

 

Jennie Wright [00:22:54]:

And if people took that template, which I gave them the template, the reports back were 40% or higher. Right? So if you if you now optimize your landing page for the minute little things like clear value prop, strong call to action, upsell and cross sell opportunities. But then the last piece being the visuals, how it looks, how it performs, what people see, then those little chi like, The those little changes make a massive difference in the long run. And then to amplify and continue to create The sales machine, we’re going to look at our email marketing. Do you have an automated sequence? What does it look like? How many emails? When does it happen? Over what duration? If you do, what has been the open rate, the click through Jennie, anything, any data, and then starting to make some informed decisions based on that. So automated emails, what have you already done? Can it be changed, updated to go through your value add you know, value ladder? Where are you sending traffic? What has worked in the past and what hasn’t and why? Wright? So I love doing, I love doing a lot of automation where if people open an email, I’m obviously tracing The. Like, I’m tracking that information, but I’m also looking when they don’t. I’m doing, you know, updated automations or advanced automations when, somebody looks at a product, but doesn’t buy the product and so on.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:25]:

Like, just a ton of stuff. And I’m always looking at the segmentation. So I’m further segmenting on every decision that people are making so that they’re never without an opportunity to stay within my world, and I’m giving them less and less of an opportunity to leave. Everything should feel in alignment. They should be getting clear communication when the right communication should happen. They shouldn’t feel overwhelmed, all those different things. And then I’ve kind of been hinting at this the whole time, but I want you to track and I want you to optimize. Analytics are the best thing ever.

 

Jennie Wright [00:24:58]:

Data is amazing. It’s beautiful. And I’m not even a math person. This isn’t even math. This is just data, raw data, where you can see a trend. Right? Those trends and a lot like allow you to track performance of each offer, each landing page. You know, I want you to monitor conversion rates, click through rates, open rates, etcetera, etcetera, and then collect that feedback to try and understand where people are like, what the experience is and where you can prove it. And then the last thing is that continuous improvement.

 

Jennie Wright [00:25:28]:

So you’re regularly trying to review and refine your entire bundle stack to create a more sales, keep people in your sphere of influence so they’re not leaking out. And that will get you a really far away in creating The sales machine. So, basically, you’re not letting anybody out of your sphere of influence unless they actually wanna leave, which is fine. But it’s it’s making sure that everything is optimized. And this is something that not everybody loves to do. And I totally get that. But this is something that is absolutely necessary when you want to go from 5 to 6 figures, when you want to go from 6 to multi 6, when when you wanna break the $350,000 mark, and when you wanna get to 750 and more. This is where these these techniques really come into play and they become so important.

 

Jennie Wright [00:26:18]:

So when you look at these, freebies that you have, know that they’re part of a life cycle The I actually can create a ton of revenue for you down the line. And so I really want, and I really hope that I’m empowering you to take a look at these principles that we talked about, like the, reciprocity, low risk, high reward, foot in the door, value prop, lead Jennie, and so on and so forth. And that you’re actually able to pop these things into play. I think this is I think it’s just really a key fundamental thing that no matter where you are in your business that you need to work on that. Right? And so I hope that in doing all this and then looking at all this information and talking about this in a bit more detail, that you found it useful. And that now you’re gonna go and you’re gonna take a look at your lead magnets, and you’re gonna take a look at all the follow-up information. You’re gonna find those minute opportunities, and you’re gonna toy with it and play with it and look at the data and then and just try and, you know, really improve things. And if that feels overwhelming, maybe there’s somebody on your team that can help.

 

Jennie Wright [00:27:20]:

And if there’s nobody on your team that can help, then come to me. My team and I will do an audit. We’ll take a look at exactly what’s going on, and we’ll make suggestions on how you can improve it. It is a paid audit. It’s on my website. You can go check that out. And if you wanna talk to me about it, there is a link to book a call and to talk about it. Anyways, I’m so glad that you’re here.

 

Jennie Wright [00:27:41]:

I really appreciate you listening. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by the Autophonic Podcast Network. And if you found it value plea valuable, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave me a review and let me know what you think. Thank you so much. We’ll see y’all soon. Take care.