Free isn’t a desperate word among marketers any more, Neither is it a way to ‘lure’ unsuspecting customers to sell them something that they don’t need!!! Nor is it a ‘chocolate’ to bribe customers and tip them over to choose the product with a free offer over another parity product that doesn’t. (Just go to your Mom’s kitchen and look at the odd assortment of spoons, katoris and glasses that all came free and therefore cannot be refused, a la Don Corleone)
Freemium seems to be the hot, new buzz word among marketers. Give it away for free and everything will be hunky dory and the profits will rise, brand awareness will rise and it will be a win-win for both marketer and customer. Unfortunately, not every product and business plan lend themselves to Freemium – the many successes among Freemium-based products and services – Evernote, Dropbox, LinkedIn, Ancestry and a whole slew of others – make it seem that every single service or product are bound to benefit through having a free component weaved in. Sigh!
Hint: It does work better for online products and services that can be scaled and duplicated very fast; as well radical, pioneering services that need to be experienced before plonking down hard cash for them – the category referred to as an ‘Experience Good’.
I suspect it will soon become the benchmark against which a new service or product is judged by – “Is it good enough to give away for free?”
Here’s some more about Freemium and why it may be right for you:
https://www.cmo.com/pricing/your-product-good-enough-give-away-free
Have you ever used Freemium in your business model? Is it an important component of your marketing strategy? Do share your Freemium experience, it would be interesting to know how you used it or tried it and found it inappropriate for your product and why.