How To Use Freebies To Make Oodles of Money!
I have a little story to tell you about how I use freebies to make oodles of money!
So first off, we have to go back to 2017 when I registered and created a site called Artsy Fartsy Life. I didn’t really have a plan for it, but I wanted to have a place to talk about something besides marketing!
My Mom had always said I was Artsy Fartsy when I was little so that jumped to mind when I was thinking up a name…:)
Fast forward to the end of 2018, I hadn’t posted much on Artsy Fartsy, but around then was when my dementia Mother-In-Law moved in with us… I process trauma by writing so I wrote a whole bunch of caregiver articles.
Also around this time I met some mommy bloggers who were CRUSHING it running ads on their websites… like thousands of dollars a month!
So I applied to Mediavine (an ad site) with my marketing blog which had enough views per month to make the grade and then piggy-backed my artsy site in the next month.
(modest income estimate to date $192,000… it is way more than that but I want to lowball everything to be fair!)
In 2021 I published my first freebie, Bee Tags and Tickets. Again, no grand master plan, I just wanted to have some cool stuff to use in my own art.
Over the next year or so I published enough free printables to warrant making a freebie library. I modeled it off of a gal named Jennifer Maker who has MILLIONS of people who watch her Cricut craft machine videos. I figured if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me!
Now we are up to 2023 where I decided to get serious about growing my email list. I added at least a freebie a week and sometimes a day for a while. At that time my list was about 3K people who I had cobbled together from my marketing peeps who also liked doing crafts.
Today I have 10.5K people on my list! Whoo whoo!
The first way I monetized my list was by suggesting affiliate products that they would like. Craft gals LOVE buying craft supplies so that brings in about $200 a month between Share A Sale and Amazon Affiliates. (affiliate link)
(modest income estimate to date $9,600… it is way more than that but I want to lowball everything to be fair!)
Then I went back to the mommy bloggers to see what they were doing to make money and BAM… they said they sell products and courses to their peeps. BRILLIANT! (I already knew this and had tried to sell marketing courses for years, but I had never tried to sell craft courses)
So I started making junk journal kits and courses to sell to the gals who have already said they like to make paper crafts.
I only have a few right now, my goal is to sell at least 12 different ones.
(modest income estimate to date $500… it is slightly more than that but I want to lowball everything to be fair!)
Because I am a marketing gal at heart, I know that I need LOTS of courses to gain momentum so I am not sad about that low number right now… they are evergreen products that will just continue to bring in money for me on autopilot over time!
And just this week a gal from my email list asked if I had a Facebook group for the peeps, so I made one! This will serve as another touchpoint to promote my freebies, sales funnels and products.
So now you, what can you give away for free that could start a magic snowball like this to grow your business?
Hope this helps!
XOXO
Tara
