August 31, 2010 10 Comments

One Alternative to Freemium

Some people do freemium as a publisher quite well. I really love how GigaOm does it, for instance. Lots of their posts are very informative, but then you can get even more information if you subscribe to GigaOm Pro. It’s a great way to do it.

The other way is how I did it in how to put your small business on the web. I gave you lots of free information, but also had some affiliate marketing links in there. You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want, and the information is still useful. But should you buy a few things, I’m further incented to create more content that’s useful like that.

It’s one way to add a small revenue stream to your free work.

I should point out that a lot of times, my goal in showing you these kinds of things is to provide you some meta how-to information for how you’re delivering your own blog content. Believe me, I’m pretty happy to receive the occasional $10 or $20 that a sale provides, but that’s not the big goal. I’ve got other revenue streams that make monetizing the blog not as important. But it sure proves for an interesting testing ground for what works and what doesn’t.

Does that make sense?

Can you see how this is an alternative to freemium?

Related posts:

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  • Justin

    Hey Chris, what is freemium exactly? I haven’t heard you refer to this term before.

  • http://kaplancopy.com/blog Jodi Kaplan

    @Justin, I’m not Chris, but it means offering a basic service for free, but charging for the deluxe version. For example, online photo editing software that’s free for the first 5 images, but costs $10 a year after that for the premium version (free + premium =freemium).

  • Justin

    Thank you, Jodi. That’s what I thought!

  • http://www.vandehaterd.nl/ Bas van de Haterd

    Chris, the thing we’re dealing with in the Netherlands now with these kinds of affiliate links is the question of objectivity. For me, I know I’m objective. However, when I posted a book review about a book I liked, with an affiliate link, there were people stating that ‘of course I liked the book, else they wouldn’t buy it and I wouldn’t make money from the affiliate programm’.

    Personally, I don’t understand. I always think there are enought people that dislike me so much they would probably buy it if I trashed it :) It’s something like, you trust your guests like you are (is that an English saying too)? But there are a lot of people that stop trusting the objectivity when you start using affiliate links in posts.

    What’s your thought on that?

  • http://twitter.com/TMetzner Tim Metzner

    Really like this thinking Chris – makes a lot of sense! Freefilliate model? :)

  • Anonymous

    A creative alternative Chris. Having a fondness for fishing, I would equate this with “chumming”. Throw enough bait in the water to attract fish, then throw in the hook and something will bite. In both cases, the majority get a real benefit, but in your case, instead of a hooked lip, customers get additional value….. ;>)

    Thanks for sharing. It is key for any business to build a foundation, and while this method is not quick, it can be longer lasting.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    Now that’s interesting. : )

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    It’s certainly something that people say. I often just counter with the question of whether people can make up their minds whether the $2 US I get per book sale is worth upsetting my audience.

    I think it’s a matter of proving your value over time.

  • Anonymous

    Totally Chris. I remember when a friend was doing a promo, and I just let our then small little list know about it. 30 minutes to write the email, $1500 banked. It was fun. :)

    It’s exciting to see all of the different ways that publishers can now monetize, from sponsorships to cost-per-lead programs. For one of our properties, we’re considering not looking at any freemium at all, at least for some period of time, and basing our revenue model entirely on a collection of strategies other than the paywall (don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the paywall, and believe in the value of paying for content when its quality, time, and thought commands the prices; it’s just not always, in every case, the most appropriate option).

  • http://confidentialityagreementform.net confidentiality agreement form

    This is something that will help all the money-seekers, wanna make money through net. This information will definitely going to help a lot of guys.