Surfing the Free Line

Posted by writer | Take me to water - don’t just give me another map »

Despite the vastness of content and information on the internet, it’s interesting to see that most of the mavens only define and outline processes while charging for the actual in-depth how-to guides and consultation. Some people think that if they give away everything for free, they won’t have anything to hold on to. Others argue that without sharing information you can’t possibly expect to build followers and networks, hence butchering the purpose of being online.

It’s not a debate of who is right or wrong; it’s more of a question of how to draw a line between giving away free information and charging for it. Brad Fallon calls this “the FREE line” - the line between giving content, products and services away for free and the point of charging for them. This line is different for different people and businesses, and hence there isn’t any exact formula to follow. However, there are a number of factors that can be looked into; such as the perceived value of the information, the availability of the information, the ROI of consuming and implementing the information, the effect of the information on the reader’s businesses and profitability, the need and demand of the information and so on.

If you do a thorough exploratory research, you will find mountains of information designed to build the reader’s knowledge to a point where they become willing to pay someone to show them how it’s done. Community based platforms or personal sites may be an exception to this discussion - we are only referring to sites with business and sales motives. There is nothing wrong with this approach; in fact it is a somewhat preferred model for online businesses - building reputation first before drawing people to your services or products.

It seems the key to success in online businesses equates to which company can drive the free line farthest whilst still remaining profitable. These business practices are likely to strip industry of high price-points when there are multiple competitive forces at play. If your company is offering services or products that are not incredibly unique, then chances are that your monetary return per customer may fall unless you differentiate yourself enough.

As an example, if a company has consumers spending $20 per day and another company trots along with newer innovative technology offering the same value for $10 per day, then surely that industry has just had is overall price-points stripped by 50%. Either that or the ones with competitive prices will prevail while the others wilt away. Sometimes this also results in stock value high-points not seen before. Where is the true value contained?

One way in which companies deal with this is by leveraging the long tail by targeting smaller niches. This is where social media networks come into play, that have made it easier to find even the rarest sub-targeted markets, readers or audiences. On the flip side, with so much free information sources out there, I wonder where the consumer’s expectations are heading? There are a number of other ways in which companies are driving the direction of this debate; but for now I just want to limit the scope of this post to the free line point under discussion. How do we draw the line for our events or business launches without compromising on our bottom-lines. After all, a business is a business and we have to pay bills or buy the fancy new iphones, eh?

Testing the free line theory - Live!
I have an idea on how to give this blog some real direction and make it much more interesting for you to follow. If you’ve been reading my previous thoughts, strategies, perspectives and ramblings, you would know that I am a supporter of intensely remarkable launches. You would also know that I have a keen interest in the product launch formula strategies advocated by Jeff Walker and other such notable people in the internet marketing world. You may also know that I am in the process of launching a social networking website designed specifically for event planners and promoters using the latest social marketing technologies and strategies. Since you know all of that about me, I want to make the content of this blog more focused so as to deliver great value to all of you while testing the free line theory.

Stay tuned, hooked and subscribed.


| Case Studies, Follow Our Launch, Launch Strategies

Related Posts


If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.