Some of us offer free products or services to win eyeballs and hope that wallets will follow. Small problem: It’s hard to support free forever. So how do you ease that transition?
1. If you are looking to offer your product or service for free, then keep it free or at the very least set the expectation that free doesn’t equal forever. Think of the very public backlashes against companies who have taken their free services and products away! Transition the change slowly and give your customers plenty of notice! It’s okay to change the rules, but yanking the rug out from your customers won’t mid-stream keep them loyal.
2. If you are looking to take your free product or service up a level, then make sure your customers have a good reason to pay! Many services offer a free/basic option and then have paid options that offer more bells and whistles. So keep your free option, but kick up the product or service a level or two to generate income.
3. Listen to feedback from your customers! Take in to consideration what they may be looking for or have to say about some of the features and benefits (or..gulp…lack thereof) and build those upgrades or changes in to the paid version of your product. Your customers will likely gladly pay for those added features.
What are you currently giving away for free?