Make money giving away free

I always take advantage of the folks passing out samples my local grocery store. I figure…. This same concept — giving away samples — works for more than just grocery stores. Some companies actually pay people to hand out samples of their products or visit their website. With millions of websites on the internet — and loads of competition, giving away samples can be the perfect promotion to nudge ahead of everyone. I heard a Proactiv commercial today on the radio offering free kits.

Stop Dreaming, Start Believing

Free is well on its way to becoming a sustainable business model for companies that make money by giving something away. Beyond the gimmickry and the academic discussion, companies that are serious about testing the waters of Free often benefit from a set of rules and principles important to its successful application. A business is giving products away. Free is well on its way to becoming a sustainable, meat-and-potatoes business model for companies that make money by giving something away. Software and Web-based companies were among the first to blaze the Free trail, and their successes have become legendary. And more. But many think these are just the beginning of a dramatic and fundamental shift in pricing, with more traditional companies already jumping on the bandwagon. Anderson sparked a wide-ranging debate, leaving some critics to conclude that Free is merely a business fad.

Companies That Pay You to Give Away Freebies

But the business world has shown a sustained interest in Free, sometimes going boldly where none have gone before. What if you stopped charging for your products? How would competitors react? How would finance react? What would be your next move? But when the speculation ends, companies that are serious about testing the waters of Free often benefit from a set of rules and principles important to its successful application. But there are a handful of potent forces that are rapidly changing the marketplace in almost every sector of the economy. Free pricing strategies have made inroads beyond the expected domain of information and technology providers, and arguably businesses with more traditional products and services may be just as likely to benefit from Free in the future. Could cars be free? In exchange, the fuel company has monopolized sales for an entire fleet of cars, securing a steady, predictable source of revenue. Auto manufacturers provide free basic cars as teasers, offering options to upgrade to premium models for a fee. A beverage company gives away a limited number of free cars in exchange for product placements, with the cars serving as mobile billboards in key target markets.

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Earlier this year Inc. One thing some readers asked for: Even more specific advice about content marketing. The goal? Get people engaging with your brand and eventually paying for whatever you’re selling. Gregg Pollack, CEO and founder of the programmer training website Code School as well as the web consultancy Envy Labs , knows firsthand content marketing can be profitable.

An entrepreneur gives nitty gritty details about how he bootstrapped two successful companies via content marketing.

Here’s part of our phone conversation. The goal? A good place to start developing a name for yourself is always guest blogging, finding people that talk about your content, or even people that create the same kind of paid content that you want to be creating and then instead of creating your own platform, create content for them. That’s where you go to develop a conversation and if you can ask good questions, than people start answering those questions and having conversations. Gofundme — interesting crowd sourcing web site I heard about today The local radio morning show host brought this very interesting web site to my attention during today’s show. One [piece of] advice that I give people is try to reuse your content as much as possible. You have to be willing every time you create a piece of content to take time out of your schedule and publicize [it]. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. So if you’re putting out content—and this goes for anybody publishing about anything—go out and find other bloggers or people in the media and say ‘Hey, I have this blog or content or video. Proactiv has been around forever and there is name recognition — but giving away free kits might be what gives them the edge they need to stay ahead. We will have one topic that will be introductory and we’ll teach people a bunch of stuff for free and that will lead into a paid advanced topic. You can even ask them to help promote. There’s still people out there that are going to give you [money] for it.

Welcome back

I may or may not decide to reward you. I think it’s good to start out [selling content] piece by piece. Comments Cynthia, Are you in direct sales? Cashback on groceries and. So many people liked this that I decided to create Code School, where I could create and sell educational courses that I loved making. The easiest way is to find the people who are also publishing in your community [and] reaching out them on social media. One thing some readers asked for: Even more specific advice about content marketing. You pick your schedule, it’s all done on your smartphone!! Usually that’s the amke to get started. I know this is a bizarre concept. Just Ask That’s all you have to. Neither company ever took funding.

An entrepreneur gives nitty gritty details about how he bootstrapped two successful companies via content marketing.

Earlier this year Inc. One thing some readers asked for: Even more specific advice about content marketing. The goal? Get people engaging with your brand and eventually paying for whatever you’re selling. Gregg Pollack, CEO and founder of the programmer training website Code School as well as the web consultancy Envy Labsknows firsthand content marketing can be profitable.

I started a consultancy, Envy Labs, about eight years ago building web applications. Then I started a developer blog which covered Ruby and Ruby on Rails.

On the blog I posted tutorials, video talks and a podcast. Doing this definitely led to some great consulting gigs over the years. About five years ago I started experimenting with selling educational content videos on the blog. It was good, but still just supplemental income. Every year I’d still release lots of blog posts and free videos.

I love creating educational content. Then about three and a half years ago I created another free property, Rails for Zombies, which was the first time I combined videos with coding in the browser. So many people liked this that I decided to create Code School, where I could create and sell educational courses that I loved making. I repeated this, just selling one-off courses until October when we switched to a subscription plan. Note: 20 percent of Code School’s courses are still free, with the other 80 percent behind a paywall.

Now Envy the consultancy still builds web applications and has 13 people, but they’re a separate company from Code School, which now employs 27 people. Neither company ever took funding. In my opinion a great deal of our success revolves around building social capital and hiring talented people. Do you think video as content is better than, say, a written blog piece or does it depend?

It kind of depends on your audience and how your audiences enjoys consuming information. Obviously people who are video podcasters find an audience of people who enjoy consuming video in that way. One [piece of] advice that I aaway people is try to reuse your content as much as possible. Some people maake listening, some people like writing, some people like watching. If you can take the same content and reuse it there is nothing at all wrong with putting on a podcast, posting it to a blog, emailing it in an email newsletter and making a video of it.

You can take the same content and you can repurpose it in many different ways because everybody is different as to the way they prefer to consume it. Well, I think it’s good to always awag for] something from day one even if it is a small part of your content. It doesn’t have to be a lot. People sort of over estimate how much you really need in order to start charging for something, even if it is just a page PDF on how to do.

There’s still people out there that are going to give you [money] for it. It could be just five bucks. It’s also pretty important that awau have free content that awau into paid content which we do a lot of. We will have one topic that will aaay introductory and we’ll teach people a bunch of stuff for free and that will lead into a paid advanced topic.

Is some kind of monthly or annual subscription in which a user gets to eat as much as he wants better than buying content per piece? I think it’s good to start out [selling content] piece by piece. It makes it really easy to test and you’re not going to piss off customers.

Usually that’s the way to get started. But once you get going, doing the recurring revenue model tends to be a lot more lucrative in the long run, which is what we did. So, that’s always going to be where you want to go just because you’re going to get more consistent income, you’re going to have people stick around for longer, and you’re going to be more profitable that way if you get people to drive [revenues].

And that’s what we did with Code School. We started out where you could buy individual courses, and from there once we had enough content we switched over to subscription where it’s one price and you get all the courses. A lot of developers like to produce free content in the form of mooney. But what if you’re a PR consultant or a fashion retailer or a Yoga guru? What kind of content could these people put out?

Well, I think it’s funny you ask. My girlfriend does a really very popular finance blog about how to save money and I think no matter what discipline you’re in you’re always going to be able to figure out what kind of content other professionals like you would consume.

That’s really the simplest thing that you can do is to start givving a blog, start up a mailing list. There are step programs out there that show you how to get that done and start publishing and self-promoting [your work]. You know, I’ve never done a whole lot of that but what we’ll do a lot aaay make money giving away free time to publicize our courses and our content is go out and we’ll ask people to review. So if you’re putting out content—and this goes for anybody publishing about anything—go out and find other bloggers or people in the media and say ‘Hey, I have this blog or content or video.

I would love to give you a free copy if you would review it. Just give me your honest feedback. Yeah, social media is the easiest way to get started with exactly. It goes along the lines of finding other people that are also bloggers that might be interested in your content. The easiest way is to find the people who are also publishing in your community [and] reaching out them on social media. You can easily start retweeting their tweets when they publish things to give them publicity and hopefully they’ll return the favor.

Ffee can also create a Facebook page [so that] people can like you on Facebook. Facebook is a great way of starting a conversation. That’s where you go to develop a conversation and if you can ask good questions, than people start answering those questions and having conversations. You get on not only your friends’ walls but your friends’ friends’ walls and start getting a lot of publicity. So certainly learning to leverage social media is your cheapest way to get traction and publicity and drive people to your content.

I always tell people it’s not good enough to just create content, even if it’s free content. Creating content is 50 percent [producing it] and 50 percent self-promotion. You have to be willing every time you create a piece of content to take time out of your schedule and publicize [it]. I also encourage people to fee only go onto social media but [use] email.

So if you know somebody that writes or creates content of monet same type that you are creating, there is nothing wrong with sending them an email saying ‘Hey, I really love all that one article you did that one time. And then tell them about your articles, tell them ‘I just created this piece of content.

I would love to have your feedback on it. Start a dialogue with these people and eventually they may help promote. You can even ask them to help promote. Well, obviously you don’t necessarily have to just create a new island on the web. A good place to start developing a name for yourself is always guest blogging, finding people that talk about your content, or even people that create the same kind of paid content that you want to be creating and then instead of creating your own platform, create content for.

So they get paid awaay creating paid content, start developing a name for themselves and don’t have to worry about publicity at all, we take care of.

Want more advice on content marketing? Interesting stuff, but I wanted more of his advice. Here’s aaay of our phone conversation. How do you suggest that people transition into getting paid for their content? Do you post content on other websites that link back to your site? How important is social media in getting people consuming content? The opinions expressed here by Inc.

Make $75+ Per Day Giving Away FREE EBOOKS!

Does this sound like something you would like to learn about, and possibly even do? If you think givimg, then please read on…. What about you? This article is about the Basic. The one caveat is that this specific method is very special, and we may roll it up at any time. So mke advised.

Did You Say Free?

This method was developed and perfected a few years ago by a good friend of ours Mark, a seven figure per year marketer nowadays — see income proofs. But more than this — and this is not something to be taken lightly or dismissed easily — what you are about to see here is a kind of perpetual motion money making machine that can keep you in boat drinks and bonbons for life. Another great thing about this method is that it is that it works as well today as the day Mark invented it. Better still, because of the brand equity it builds, it actually works better and better over time. Mark still uses this method today… as do lots of other people who have access to his teachings. But it also works really well in nearly every other niche you can think of…. It worked just as well. Take a look at the screen shot. The screenshot was taken in the first quarter ofso he later went on to do even better than in The chart above shows British Pounds Sterling Mark is in Englandwhich, at the time of conversion, equated to about three-quarters of a million dollars! There are some small expenses involved along the way. Pretty nice, huh? Like so many of us, he decided to try his hand at making money yiving, and like most of us, struggled mightily for a long time.