So What's in a Freebie?
So what's in a freebie? What's the catch? So you can get all your satellite TV equipment for free or get a spiffy new Motorola Razr for free. So what's the catch?
Three catches, and some variations, which you already know; but just in case your friend doesn't:
- Sampling. The company wants you try try their product so they give you a sample. Skin care products and food come to mind. These are great to use as samples since an immediate result can be seen. Test driving that nice new car can be seen as a sample. Do you want more?
- Trial offers. Sign up for the seven or 30 day trial of some cool thing, like Netflix, and if you like it at then end of the trial period you pay some reasoable monthly free. Don't like it? Cancel before the charges start. Most companies are pretty up front about allowing you to cancel and actually make it easy.
Software frequently is sold as a trial offer. For example, an anti-virus program might work well for 10 days and then pop up some notice reminding you to buy when the trial period expires. The program then turns off (after the trial period.)
Shareware is a variation of this. Downloading and sharing the product is encouraged, but parts of the product might be disabled. And example is a word processer that doesn't print. In games you'd pay the fee to get the full game after playing the sharewarfe levels. The authors of the original Doom game did this and made a lot of money.
- Free items. This is where some useful thing is actually free. There are a lot of ebooks and free online courses that fall into this category. The author of the product creates something useful in the hopes that some people will buy the upgraded version. This is different from a trial offer in that the product remains useful and there's no expiration date.
An example is a free ebook which teaches you about how to build websites or how to sell on the web. The ebook is useful in and of itself, but leads into buying other things if you decide they're useful.
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