Posted September 13, 2009

As I learn more about selling Affiliate Marketing Management services, I am getting a real education in online marketing, and how to sell things online. Although I am “the Sales Guy”, my formal education is in Marketing. And besides, I was in Pharma for over a decade. Ethical Pharma doesn’t sell anything directly online. But I digress… I stumbled on a sales model that I had seen done MANY times before, with mixed results. Yola.com has adopted the “Freemium” model and is running wild with it. While most online “freemium” services are so crippled and restricted that they do little but cause frustration for those foolish enough to try them, Yola has turned this equation on it’s head and gives a staggering level of website building and blogging tools for free. As I’ve explored the site and set on building this blog two things have consistently jumped out at me:
1) What a slick interface and rich set of tools. Yola’s free service provides more than many paid services that I looked at.
2) While the value proposition on the free plan is impressive, Yola frequently offers premium upgrades, and most appear to be a good deal.

No, this isn’t an infomercial for Yola. I just think that their model makes a great example for discussion.

Feeling compelled by Yola’s implementation of the “freemium” model to make a purchase, I’ve had my eyes opened to the possibilities of the “freemium” model. I always thought that to sell something, one had to preserve as much value as possible, giving away as little as possible for free. What I’m seeing with the Yola model is just the opposite… give as much value as possible for free, compelling the consumer to invest time an energy in setting up and growing dependent on the service. Then offer premium options that really put the product’s value proposition over the top.

On the other end of the “lets give them something for free first, then charge them later” spectrum… Columbia House, circa the mid-80’s. I hate to date myself here, but I suspect that my aversion to “free” offers began with the old “get the first 14 albums for one cent, but you are committed to buy 9 at full club prices over the next 2 years” (or something like that). I ended up with more useless records that I never listened to out of that deal than I’d care to admit. And all right before CDs came out, so I got to buy the good ones again a few short years later.

What sales models have seen that you love or hate?

Jeff Cress: the Sales Guy
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