I'm a huge believer in permission marketing as taught by Seth Godin, and in author Jeffrey Gitomer's strategy of giving away your expertise before expecting people to become customers. Both strategies have helped me build successful businesses.
But...
Seth brings up a great question when it comes to "free": When is the
right time to limit it? Cut it off? End it?
Whether you're Starbucks or Buck's Bait and Tackle, "free" has to have limits or else the business suffers. Seth asks if we who market our business/product/service by allowing endless streams of "free" stuff for our customers to enjoy are creating a monster. It's a good question.
When do you say, "OK, good customers, enough "free". Time to start paying"? And, another tricky component to the whole matter is, "Have they been hooked enough on you and your free stuff to keep wanting it now that you're asking them (or requiring them) to pay for it?
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