This post is about those two methods and how you can implement them in your own marketing.

Eben Pagan’s Massive Free Content

The expression “free line” was coined by Eben Pagan. He is an advocate of “pushing back the free line”. In other words: Give away tons of value for free, then charge a premium for your higher-end content.

Pagan definitely lives this philosophy. The most recent example of this can (still) be seen on the pre-launch blog for his latest product, Guru Blueprint. Not only did he give away massive value in about half a dozen videos before the product launch, he even continued updating the blog after the launch with some extras like an interview.

I recommend you go take a look at that blog. It shows the kind of free line content that most people are scared to give away, because it seems like “too much”. His product is about creating and selling information products and on the pre-launch blog, you can easily find enough information to start a successful info products business, if you apply the methods in the videos and use some initiative. This begs the question: Why would anyone buy the product if they’re already getting so much stuff for free? Since Guru Blueprint sold out in a few days, I’d say that for whatever reasons, Eben’s approach to the free line works.

Further Examples

Search for “Eben Pagan” or “David DeAngelo” (that’s his pen-name) on YouTube and you’ll find no shortage of further free-line content that Eben has produced. For example, here’s a channel where he’s giving away lots of great productivity advice in 14 videos.

Pros and Cons

This kind of free line content is one of the best ways to build a reputation, get lots of exposure (through sites like YouTube) and grow a mailing-list (if you put some of the free content “behind” an opt-in form). For long-term, large business projects, I reckon nothing beats Eben-style free content.

The problem with this method is that you need to have wide and deep knowledge of your subject matter, otherwise it’s impossible to apply. After all, the kind of content you’re giving away is equal to or more than many people put into their premium products. If you only know a little about a subject, that might be enough to put together a $7 ebook, but it won’t be nearly enough to create this kind of free line content.

In other words: You need to be an expert to make this happen.

Ryan Deiss/Perry Belcher’s Really Hot Tip

Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher are both extremely successful and well-known marketers who have partnered on many projects. I mention them both here, because I really don’t know where the “hot tip” comes from, but I’m pretty sure it’s one (or both) of those two guys.

The “hot tip” concept works like this: People have a very short attention span and are looking for instant gratification. So, don’t offer an entire ebook or complex training program for free. Offer one simple, really hot tip instead.

A good example of this is the million dollar napkin by Ryan Deiss. As you can see, the free tip you get for signing up fits on a napkin. You get a simple squeeze page that tells you what you’re about to get (and it’s clear that what you’re about to get is short and sweet) and you need to opt in to get to the next page and see the goodies.

Strangely enough, there are now multiple bonuses and downloads once you opt-in for the million dollar napkin, so it might not be the perfect example anymore. But the concept is clear: You don’t offer something huge and complex; you offer something short and cool.

Further Example

Ironically, the best example of the “hot tip” was created by none other than Eben Pagan and was called the “Kiss Test”. Unfortunately, it seems that it no longer exists in it’s original form.

Here’s how it worked: You arrive at the squeeze page and see that you can learn one simple technique that will help you tell with 100% certainty whether your date is ready to be kissed. Enter your name and e-mail to learn this simple technique.

That’s it.

If you opt-in, you arrive on the next page, where you read about the Kiss Test (which is only a few paragraphs).

Very simple and very powerful. Think about it: If you’re a guy in the dating market, you’ll instantly give your e-mail address to learn something like the Kiss Test!

Pros and Cons

The big advantage of this approach is that your freebie is relatively easy to create. Sure, you need to do some good research to find one tip that really has enough pulling power as a “hot tip”. The hot tip you’re giving away is like the first impression you make on your prospect, so if it’s a half-assed piece of advice or something that’s practically common knowledge, you’re losing your credibility and basically ruining any further efforts you make to market to your list.

Bottom Line

Essential for both free line approaches is that you build a backend that you can make money off of. The most basic form of a backend is simply your mailing list. You can use your free content to get people on your list and then market to them down the line. As an affiliate, using the “Hot Tip” method and then promoting affiliate offers is probably one of the easiest ways to start building a solid income-basis (did I just give away a big “secret”?).

If you do Pagan-style free content, then it’s almost a given that you need to have your own products to sell. However, in both cases, it’s ideal if you also build a simple funnel after the opt-in, i.e. you add “bonuses” or upsells to the thank-you page, maybe a downsell via exit-script etc. You get the idea.

How do you utilise free content? What do you need to know to get started with either of the above methods? Let me know in the comments!

I also happen to believe that you can probably learn more about marketing by observing and analyzing what the successful marketers are doing than by buying their magic pills. Guru Popcorn is about following the big product launches, but instead of frothing at the mouth with anticipation for the product, we will watch, be entertained and learn from these marketing spectacles. It’s a bit like going to the movies, really.

Read on to see my run-down of one big launch that’s going on right now.

Our first candidate to watch and analyze is Eben Pagan’s Guru Blueprint. This product is going to be about creating and marketing info products. Having created several multi-million dollar products himself, Eben Pagan is definitely a qualified teacher on this subject. Better yet, most of his products are outside of the Internet marketing niche, so he’s not a guy who can only make money by teaching people how to make money.

Breath of Fresh Air

My Guru Popcorn series starts out on a very positive note, with the Guru Blueprint. First off, the pre-launch process is a breath of fresh air, compared to what we’ve recently seen. The last three big launches – Andy Jenkins’ Video Boss, Frank Kern’s List Control and John Reese’s Outsource Force – were all incredibly uniform in their appearance. They all used very similar site layouts (video on top and comments section below), they all featured four videos (video 1: introduction, video 2: free info give-away, video 3: more free info plus a bit of hype build-up, video 4: full-on sales pitch) and particularly Outsource Force and Video Boss were almost clones of each other.

Eben Pagan does a very different style of video, he set up a pre-launch site in a standard blog-format and he’s delivering more than three videos. He’s pleasantly breaking the product-launch mould.

Master of the Free Line

Eben Pagan is the guy who coined the term “Free Line”. In a nutshell, the free line is the line separating what you give away for free from what you charge for and the idea is to give away great value for free and selling even-higher-quality products at a premium price.

Everyone and their dog has adopted this model to a certain extent, as you get free giveaways left and right and they are part of practically every product launch and sales-funnel online.

However, if you watch the free content Pagan is giving away on the Guru Blueprint blog, it becomes very clear that he is not only the founder, but also the undisputed master of the method. The information on product creation that he gives away is, quite frankly, mind-blowingly valuable.

Sure, Andy Jenkins did a nice video on how to put together a decent sales-presentation and Frank Kern gave away an interesting viral script (that was badly coded and had some security issues, from what I gathered) as well as some of his older courses, but that stuff just doesn’t even come close to what Pagan is sharing.

For me personally, the reaction to the Jenkins/Kern/Reese freebies was somewhere between “that’s nice” and “meh”. My reaction to Pagan’s videos: “HOLY CRAP! If he’s giving this stuff away for free, the stuff he’s selling must be AWESOME!”

And that’s exactly what’s supposed to happen. That’s what the free line is about.

Proof and Confidence

One thing I found very interesting about the Guru Blueprint pre-launch was how, particularly in the first video, a lot of emphasis is put on how much money Pagan has made with info products.

He goes on and on about how his company is grossing close to $30 Mio per year and how each of his products is selling like crazy. He also goes to great lengths illustrating the growth in the info-product market and explaining how absolutely vast the potential market for such products is.

He goes on about this stuff for much too long, for my tastes. And that’s what makes it so interesting.

You see, Eben Pagan is not just some rich dude with an inflated ego and no feeling for how to pace a video. If he puts “too much” of something in a video, he does it on purpose. I’m sure of that, because he’s nothing if not deliberate.

It seems that this is a way to address some common concerns, as people tend to worry about a market or method becoming over-saturated (“affiliate marketing is dead”, “do ebooks still work?” and all that).

Closing Thoughts

Personally, I enjoyed the Guru Blueprint pre-launch videos immensely and I’m quite impressed with the whole sales-process. I usually couldn’t care less about Guru-products but in this case, I have to admit: I’d love to see what is offered in this course and whether it lives up to the price tag.

I wonder whether this will be a “limited” launch as the Guru products typically are. Pagan generally offers his products indefinitely, but lack of scarcity could seriously hurt sales, given the very lofty price-tag (according to the affiliate information, there will be several levels to the Guru Blueprint, ranging from $2000 to around $5000).

It also remains to be seen how exactly Pagan will present the final pitch and I’m looking forward to that, as well.

UPDATE:
I’ve added this video with my analysis of the final “sales-pitch” video for the Guru Blueprint:

This post is about the concept of the “Free Line”, the line that separates stuff you give away for free from stuff that you charge for. The Free Line is a concept that I first heard Eben Pagan talk about (though I don’t know if he coined the term) and it’s one of the things that is drastically different in online marketing, compared to “traditional” offline marketing.

Read on to learn exactly what the Free Line is and how it’s placement can dramatically impact your business.

The Basic Concept

As stated above, the Free Line is simply what separates your free products from your “premium” or paid products. The first interesting point about this is that there is a part of your product range that’s available for free. I’m sure you’re no stranger to this: In online marketing, everyone’s trying to give away free stuff, right? The typical example would be a short ebook report or a freebie to download (free theme, free sample, demo-version of a program…).

When we’re talking about the Free Line, it’s about more than just having some stuff that you give away for free, however. The question is where you are placing your Free Line, in other words: How much stuff you give away and how valuable that stuff is.

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Value

Value and amount of freebies is where we see the big difference between online- and offline marketing. Offline, most things you can get for free are purely promotional (e.g. brochures, product catalogs,…). Online, you’ll often be offered real value. A brochure is something you wouldn’t pay for if you didn’t get it for free, since there’s almost no value in it. On the other hand, a limited-time trial of a piece of software has real value – as much value as the full program, during the time of the trial. And the same goes for free information products: Many businesses give away very valuable and useful information in the free guides they offer.

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Business Application

Giving away free things is valuable in three ways:

1. Reputation
   By giving away something of real value for free, you position yourself favourably with your potential customers and the better your freebie is, the more likely people will remember you.
2. Sign-Ups
   Most freebies are offered in exchange for an e-mail address. In fact, giving away free things is the most popular list-building technique out there.
3. Trust
   The prospect can get an idea of your quality standard by checking out your free offering. If you’re giving away something really awesome for free, then your premium products must be worth looking at.

Eben Pagan says that you should give away your best stuff for free, then create something better and sell that. He recommends that you push the free line further back, offer more things and more valuable things for free and then scale your prices in the back end. He himself lives this principle in his businesses: He always gives away a lot of valuable stuff and on the premium side, he holds $10’000 seminars, among other things.

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Your Free Line

Are you aware of where you have placed the free line in your business? If it doesn’t exist yet (common in e-commerce and brick-and-mortar businesses), how can you create it? What is the best thing you can afford to give away for free? If you already have a free line, how can you push it back? How can you give away more value?

Whatever you do, don’t be afraid of the free line plunging you into poverty. If you’ve been watching the recent big launches in the make money online market, you’ve probably seen very generous free offers in the pre-launches. For example, Frank Kern gave away one of his earlier big courses and a very interesting list-building script during the pre-launch of List Control. We’ve seen many examples, lately, of marketers pushing back the free line and still raking in millions with their premium product.

What has your experience with free giveaways been? Do you appreciate them as a customer? Do you like to give things away to your prospects? Let me know in the comments!

Cheers,