You're listening to the online marketing made easy podcast episode number 164.

Welcome to the online marketing made easy podcast business advice so easy you'll feel like you're cheating and now your host Amy Porterfield.

Well, hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the online marketing made easy podcast. I'm your host Amy Porterfield and today I am answering the question that I get asked almost daily on social media.

And that question is how do I decide what content to give away for free versus what content to include in my paid programs or asked a slightly different way this is from one of my students Deb in my courses that convert program.

I have a blog that I use to attract customers and get people interested in my online training program. How do I share information on a blog or in a podcast without giving my class content away for free.

So well put right this is a question that comes up a lot and it could be tough to know what content is best to give away versus what content you should keep inside of a paid program.

And if we are really taking a close look with so much online content available for free these days. How the heck do you even have enough content left over to actually include in a paid program.

I mean have you ever thought that like oh my gosh I cannot create any more content and I'm pretty much giving it all away for free. So what am I even going to have left for my program.

So today my friend I've got answers when I say free content just so we're on the same page. I mean the content you use in your blog or in your free videos or on your podcast or with your opt-ins like your freebies, your lead magnets, your content.

Upgrades I'm talking about all of that free content anything your customers can access without spending a dime and for paid programs I'm talking about anything you've put into your online courses where your students have actually paid to get access.

So now that we're on the same page let's get to it.

There are three core differences between free content and paid content and I want to break it down for you core difference number one the free content is all about the what in the why and the paid content you're creating should be about the how.

So with your free content when we're talking about the what in the why one of the questions I want you to ask yourself is this what does your ideal audience need to know.

Be aware of understand or believe before they are ever ready to buy your paid programs and that believe is an interesting word because it's either what do they need to believe in themselves believe in the industry you're in believe in the topic that you like to discuss what do they need to believe in before they will ever buy any of your paid programs or services.

Now I have an online friend I've never met her in life but her name is Diane San Felipe and she has a great Instagram channel I'll link to it in my show notes but what she does is she really pays attention to what her audience is asking and so she's a blogger she's an author and in my opinion she talks a lot about different ways to eat clean and eat right for your body.

And so what I noticed recently is she was talking about a low carb diet and that's not just what she's about but she did a two part series on this and one thing she said is I've been getting a lot of questions about keto or low carb diet and I want to address some of those questions in a two part video series that she created on her YouTube channel.

And I thought this was so smart because I don't think she has an online training program just about keto however she does have an online training program around eating clean and living clean and so every piece of content that she has is somewhat aligned to some of her online training programs and some of her cookbooks and all this stuff she's got brewing.

So that leads me to this next section when we're talking about the what in the why of the free content I want you to ask yourself what are the big questions that keep popping up from my audience because typically the questions they keep asking that's golden for your free content that's exactly what Diane does and why I'm always drawn to her channel because I think she uses free content really well also ask yourself what's working right now in your niche or in your

market and what's getting big results and find out if that's what your audience wants to hear more about. So your paying attention to what's working in your niche as well and also what does your ideal customer believe about themselves or their situation that needs to change like if they're believing this is too hard this is not doable they're not a good fit for this or for that they're not ready whatever that might mean to your audience you need to address it with your

free content. So with most people free content falls into categories with most people's businesses I mean and that is one around mindset to around strategies tactics tips tricks whatever it might be no matter what industry you're in usually there are the tactical principles that you can ride about do podcast about videos and then there's the mindset around it and if you want an easy way into the mindset typically you have to explore what do they believe about themselves or what do they do.

So you're not going to be able to do that or about their situation that needs to change there's a whole lot of free content right there so again it's the what and the why what is it and why does it matter those are questions you want to ask with the free content now with the paid you're giving the how to execute in the form of a sequence or a roadmap this is the step by step this is the in depth content so here's an example in my list builders lab program I show you how to set up your list building foundation.

In your business I walk you through step by step how to set up the technology how to set up your content creation plan the whole shebang now in a lot of my free content around list building I talk about what goes into a list building foundation and why it matters the what and the why I create free content about what it takes to have a list building mindset and I give a bunch of examples for lead magnets now why do I give a bunch of examples

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