Dollars work a lot better than FREE when you want a customer to consume a product/service

You’ve been told that FREE works really well.
Well it does.

But only when attracting a customer.
If you really want a customer to benefit, you have to stop the free dole out.
Because the moment something continues to be free, the consumption of those products/services plummets like a rock.

You don’t have to believe me, but you might as well.
Because we’ve tried this concept several times over.

So let’s take a real case study
We used to have free marketing courses at a cafe and we called it ‘BizBrew.’ Each of the Biz Brew courses were complete in every detail. It was the kind of course that you’d readily pay $75-$100 for, without the coffee. I say, without the coffee, because the coffee brewed up a latte, a frappe, or just about any coffee you wanted. And yes, it was free.

Think about it: A free course. Free coffee. And a pretty decent presenter. Would you miss sessions? You’re shaking your head thinking there’s no way you’d miss it, but the converse is true. When given a free option, people turn up sporadically, and then not at all. In fact, we were so sure we were wrong about this concept, that we started a new course series called the ‘Learning Rock’. While every session of the ‘Learning Rock’ was full, they were filled with 60% of new customers. Only 40% of the customers were repeat customers.*

Then we had paid courses. And 95% turned up for every course. Without fail. Come rain or shine.

So what does this teach you about consumption?
That the concept of FREE is wonderful for attracting customers. That FREE forms a beautiful attraction factor. But it’s only the first step in the sequence of attraction, conversion and consumption. Once a customer has gone through the attversumption steps; once they’ve opted in for the FREE whatever, and consumed the FREE product/service, the next step should be paid.

And that if you truly want to help your customers, you must make them pay.

* Note: We’ve tried this FREE model both online and offline. We’ve tried it both for products and services. We’ve tried it once, twice, thrice, hoping somehow we were wrong in our assessment. And no matter what options, media or method we tried, FREE always failed at consumption stage. It’s not like a paid product/service works 100% of the time. Even when a customer pays, they are not always consuming the product/service. However, the consumption factor is far, far greater when the product/service  is paid for—and especially if paid for in advance.