Freemium: The Key to the Future

I've noticed in the last couple years that many of the leading companies in the world offer or are starting to offer freemium memberships. In the field of internet marketing this really isn't something new, but it is rather refreshing to see huge companies like Microsoft, Sony, and more start offering something the small guys have had to do for a long time. In case you don't know freemium is a hybrid between free and premium. It's when a product or service is sold for free, but in order to use advanced features you'll have to pay a premium price.

Free is the new black

I first noticed this a few years back with products like AVG and services like OKCupid. AVG is an antivirus software that is free to use but in order to get the advanced protection like email monitoring you need to pay money. This is great because if you just need the bare bones of the program it doesn't hurt your pocket book and when you need those extra features you can get them from a company that you already trust without having to risk money to find a trustworthy company.


OKCupid is very similar in that they provide a dating service which is free but if you want to be able to more easily find matches and increase your visibility to those and other matches it will cost you some money.

So why is there such a transition from high priced products to completely free front ends? Well I think there are a few factors. First with the age of internet piracy came the idea that people shouldn't have to pay for anything anymore. While I don't necessarily agree with that the mindset is there now and the only thing we can do is adapt to it.

Giving away free stuff has always been a great lead generation tool, but now it's almost a necessity and you can't just throw a couple small trinkets at your prospects hoping for them to be chomping at the bit to buy. It's time to realize that people want fully functioning products and services that they don't have to pay for. Once you've proven that you can provide that they are more than ready to open up their bank accounts and start writing checks (a check is what people used to pay for things before the internet and paypal).

So what's the theme here? Give your clients what they need to solve their problems for free. Make sure what you are giving them is quality and then once they see what kind of quality you can give them it's time to start letting them know about the extras you can throw in to enhance their experience, for a price of course. That's how the big boys are doing it and that's how I think everyone should be doing it from here on out.