Does your marketing strategy include a freemium digital product? If not, have you ever considered creating one to grow your audience?
SaaS (software as a service – think Spotify, Dropbox, Zoom, etc.) companies pioneered the freemium model, but it can be very effective for other types of digital products as well. A well-designed freemium offer can attract new potential customers, increase brand recognition, and grow your audience.
So let’s walk through creating a freemium offer that your audience wants and deciding where to put it so potential clients can find it!
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1 | What’s a Freemium Offer?
Essentially, a “freemium” offer gives the user a limited experience to introduce them to the benefits of a product and encourage them to pay the full price for access to all the features.
Many software companies utilize the freemium model — Slack, Zapier, and Asana are just a few examples. But you may have run across freemium offers in other industries too! Many “free-to-play” games are freemium products that limit features or perks unless you pay for them.
When designed well, freemium offers can be beneficial for both businesses and consumers.
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2 | Making the Freemium Model Work
The short-term goal of creating a freemium offer is to attract new potential customers to your business. And the long-term goal is to convince those free users to pay for the full version of the freemium product.
So, how do you design a freemium offer that does all that?
You need to figure out how to provide something that’s valuable to your customers, but not so valuable that they never want to pay for the full version.
To do that, you must fully understand your audience and your business!
Related post: Why You Should Beta Test Your Offers (& How to Do It Successfully)
3 | Identify What Your Potential Clients Want
When you’re designing your freemium offer, there are two main questions to ask:
- Where are your potential clients?
- What are they looking for?
Knowing where your target audience is looking for resources can help you decide how to market your freemium offer.
Maybe your potential clients are on social media, like Pinterest and Instagram. Or perhaps your clients are searching Etsy and Creative Market for resources.
Once you know where your potential customers are, you can keep that in mind when designing your freemium offer — make sure it’s something you could promote in those places.
Now let’s focus on that second question: what do your clients want?
If you can answer that, you can decide what type of digital product to develop into your freemium offer.
Are your potential clients looking for templates? Courses? Webinars? Coaching services? A membership?
Once you know what your clients want, develop an offer that meets those needs and showcases the expertise and value your business provides.
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4 | Simplify an Existing Offer
You don’t necessarily have to create a brand-new offer for your freemium product. One option is to just simplify an offer that you already have. You can “freemium-ize” it by developing a simplified version:
- Limit the features
- Limit the usage time/availability
- Limit the customer support
Creating a simplified version of an offer you already have should be fairly quick and easy. Plus, it also ensures that your freemium product is an accurate representation of your other offers.
Related post: 6 Ways to Organize Your Offers On Your Website
5 | Create Something New
If you don’t have an offer that would be easy to simplify into a freemium product, the other choice is to create something new.
When you’re developing a freemium offer, focus on something that will expose new clients to your brand and your other products. Make sure whatever you offer for free aligns well with your brand and your other offers.
And then, consider your potential customers. Develop a freemium offer that provides value to your target audience. It should be something that’s enticing enough to encourage them to sign up, but not so valuable that they never want to upgrade to the paid version.
Related post: How to Create Revenue-Boosting Offers
6 | Market Your Freemium Offer
Once you’ve got your offer created, set up all the infrastructure — sales/landing page, delivery system, and possibly even an email nurture sequence to encourage users to upgrade to the full version.
Then, release your freemium offer! While you can offer it to current customers and subscribers, you mostly want to focus on bringing new people to your brand.
You already identified where your potential customers go to look for resources. Figure out how to offer your freemium product there.
Can you put it in a marketplace or library? Promote it on social media? Or contribute to a database of resources?
Another possibility would be to create a bundle of products with other businesses. This strategy allows cross-promotion, which gives you the chance to engage other brands’ audiences.
The key is to find as many ways as possible to get your offer in front of potential customers.
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Final Thoughts
One of the best ways to drive new leads is to offer a freemium product. You can either develop a limited version of a product you already have or create something entirely new. Either way, make sure it provides value and showcases all your business has to offer — but limit it enough that users will want to pay for the full version!
Want more information on creating an effective freemium offer? Get your marketing guide on how to create a freemium product to drive leads inside the Momentum Biz Vault!

Our latest comprehensive marketing guide includes a step-by-step path to creating and marketing a freemium product. We’re covering every angle of this strategy:
- What a freemium model is
- Examples of successful freemium digital products
- The pros and cons of a freemium offer
- Deciding what to limit: features, support, usage, etc.
- How to attract people to your freemium offer
- Nurturing free users into paying customers
A well-designed freemium offer can drive leads and grow revenue — as long as it’s something that your audience wants. This marketing guide gives you all the tools to create the perfect freemium offer for your potential customers.
Ready to grow your audience with an irresistible freemium offer? Join the Momentum Biz Vault today! You can get this comprehensive guide (and every previous marketing guide), stock photos, customizable Canva templates, and more.