As business owners, we all have freebies or lead magnets. Some we created when we started our business as a way to build our email lists, others lead into offers, but if they don’t convert our audience and they are just sort of hanging out, are they helping or hurting our business?
This week’s episode of Katy Calls BS covered why big email lists and more freebie downloads don’t reliably turn into revenue. I want to dive a little deeper into the gap between our freebies or lead magnets and that next step for our clients. The biggest problem we have right now is that anyone can open an AI tool right now and ask it for a checklist, a template, or ask to build a guide on almost any topic, and you’ll have a competent one in under a minute. For free. Available to literally everyone. We can’t win that race.
If your freebie/lead magnet’s whole job is delivering information (and value), you are trying to beat something that doesn’t sleep, doesn’t eat, and never runs out of ideas. Again, a race we are never going to win.
Here’s the good news, you don’t need to continue to make freebies. You need to look at what you have already.
Why This Race Was Never Winnable
A few years ago, giving away solid information was an easy way to stand apart from the crowd. Depth was hard to find unless you paid for it. That’s not true anymore with AI. Which means the more your freebie leans purely on information, the more directly it’s competing with all the bland, boring, I made this generic digital product last night on AI products. You can’t out-produce a machine.
You know what you can do though? The one thing AI can’t touch, add the years of experience, hand-on knowledge, and value that it doesn’t have. It’s the YOU element. The differentiator is the value or judgement that is unmistakably yours. We can’t win the information race but we can rely on what we know.
Research backs this up beyond just freebies and lead magnets. We’re tired of seeing the AI-generated mess. I cannot with the AI posters. It goes back to the classic know, like, and trust factor. The content that is human-made and generated. It will consistently outperform because your audience isn’t just looking for information anymore. They can find that easily. They are looking for you.
Start With What You Have
Before you stop reading and go build something new, pull up one or two freebies that have high download rates. We are going to run through an audit of your most popular freebies/lead magnets. Run them through this three question framework from this week’s episode.
- What am I giving away in this freebie/lead magnet?
- Whether it’s free or leads to an offer, name what you are giving away specifically.
- Is it a checklist? A framework? A template? An explanation? Be honest about what it is and is not.
- Is there anything someone CANNOT do after they have this?
- This is where most freebies or lead magnets reveal the gap.
- If the answer is nothing, they are all set: Amazing! That’s a solid freebie with lots of value. It doesn’t always need to lead somewhere. You can give value and move on.
- If the answer involves judgement, adapting to a real-world situation, or knowing what to do when something doesn’t go according to plan, we need to talk. There’s a value gap. You are trying to put too much in a free offer. This should be a paid offer.
- What’s the next step for your clients? Does it exist yet? How clear is it?
- Ok, that’s 3 questions in one but they are related! Someone finishes your freebie, loved it, now what? Do they sit on your list? Nope, not a next step.
- A real next step is book a call, book an audit, get this offer, etc.
- We’re trying to move people through our offers not have them sit lost in our ecosystem
Most existing are clear on question one, reveal something on question two, and are iffy on question three. It’s ok, that’s what we need to know to move forward.
Make It Unmistakably You
The part most freebies miss and what AI can’t touch is beyond the information. Once you’ve run the audit, look at how you can make it unmistakably yours instead of another generic download. You want anyone who gets it to know it comes from your brand, your thinking, and your approach.
That usually means things like:
- An example from your client work
- The specific language and framing you use that nobody else uses the same way
- A judgement call or exception you’d flag that a generic version would never think to include
- Your point of view!
This is where you turn a standard checklist into a checklist only you could have made. It’s also where AI can’t touch because it requires life and hands-on job experience only you can apply.
Where AI Helps in This Process
None of this means AI has no place here. It’s a tool that can expedite our processes. AI is great for a first draft, reformatting something, generating variations of a headline, or cleaning up your notes. Use it to save you time.
What AI can’t do is the part that matters for conversion. AI doesn’t know which of your freebies has a value gap and which one genuinely complete. It probably doesn’t know what your business needs right now unless you’ve trained it. I know your AI does not know what makes your particular expertise different enough to be worth paying for. It’s not about prompting either. That’s a strategy problem. It requires someone who knows your business, your clients, and understands your expertise well. It won’t come from a tool that’s generating a plausible answer based on everyone else’s content.
Now What?
Pick one freebie, run it through the three questions. Note what comes up short on the next step and take note of what you can to make it unique. You don’t need something new.
If you want to full context on why this is happening now and what it means for your digital product ecosystem, listen to episode 154 of Katy Calls BS, Your Freebie Are Competing with AI.
After you run the audit and you are staring at it wondering what should I do about this, reach out to ask questions. You can always book a Digital Product Infrastructure Audit. We look at what you have in your business, any gaps that exist, figure out the next best steps for you and your business so you know what digital products to build.
You can also check out episode 148, Your Outdated Lead Magnet is Costing You
Quick answer: You don’t need a new freebie or lead magnet to compete with AI generated content, you need to audit the ones you already have, close the gap between what you give away for free and what you sell, and add the parts of your expertise no AI tool can replicate: your judgement, your examples, and your point of view.
