How Much Free Content Should You Provide to Your Audience?

There are a lot of differing opinions out there about offering free content, and you might be curious how to decide what to give away for free and what to charge for. How much free content is too much? 

Trust and Authority

When you give away free content, it helps you establish trust and build a strong relationship with a potential customer and a fan. Also, when you offer some free, premium quality content to your audience, they will likely think that if this is what you provide for free, your paid-for content will be even more amazing!

However, of course, a question pops up: if I am giving away my content for free, where is my opportunity to earn money? Let me give you a short explanation about how to differentiate between your free and paid content: 

Free Content versus Paid Content 

Your free content should always be captivating, valuable, actionable, detailed and relevant to your audience. However, the difference between your free and paid content should be that your paid content is valuable, actionable, detailed and relevant to your audience. Wait, did I just repeat what I said at the free content? You bet I did! However, paid content should go deeper into the details and offer a clear roadmap or blueprint to a transformation or how to achieve your goals. You should provide more examples, details, and a clear path and structure to achieve specific results with paid content. 

What happens when Free and Paid Content Overlaps? 

It is completely fine to have a small percentage of overlap between your paid and free content. As I mentioned above, people pay for structures and have everything in a clear roadmap in one place. If you give away some of your paid content for free in the forms of blog posts, social media posts, webinars or downloads, it is okay. However, your ultimate goal with your free content is to loop it back to your paid content. For this reason, it is essential that you strategically align your free and paid content. Your free content helps you promote your paid content and eventually supports your sales efforts. 

If you need more information about creating content, I have a couple of valuable resources for you: How to Write your Blog Posts Like a Pro with Grammarly or How To Create Content For Social Media with High Impact