Free Samples - Yes or No?

[cdnjpn]

Hi all,
Just wondering what you guys think about free samples on paysites. Are they a good idea?
I'm worried that I'll just get a ton of traffic sucking all my bandwidth downloading the free videos and I'll get, like, two signups. Having said that, it seems that just about every paysite I visit is giving away some free stuff.
My thinking is that I'll wait until I'm making money and bandwidth will pretty much be a non-issue, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. Would I perhaps be better off starting or joining an affiliate program (oh god...here comes the spam!) and have affiliates handle all the free stuff?
Your advice is much appreciated!
Cheers!
Chris

[amateurcanada]

There is nothing wrong with offering free previews on your site so the potential member can checkout what he is buying into. However you may re-consider this with some traffic, for example tgp traffic - where the people often click away in a numbing free state until they cant click no more.

Just some thoughts. On www.amateurcanada.com and other sites I offer free content.

and ya, bump to my sig :P

[soulswagon]

I think the key is what type of free content. If you keep it teasing them, you'll do better if than if you don't give them anything or give them too much. There are basically three states. Not interested, that was good I'll bookmark the free page, and wow I need to see the rest of this. You want the latter of the three. Keep that in mind and I think you'll do well. (Good affilliates certainly don't hurt either.)

[cdnjpn]

Jesus H. this is an active freakin' board! Two responses in, like, ten minutes! And they were both great answers! Very cool.
Thanks for the advice guys. I think I will go ahead and offer up some free stuff. I'll just make sure they're real teasers. This raises another question though - My member content is actually going to be fairly large avi files. Am I shooting myself in the foot if I make my free previews wmv files that are smaller and more compressed in order to save on bandwidth? I'd obviously state very clearly on the preview page that these vids were not full quality. I know people hate to read however, so they'd probably miss that statement. Am I better off going with something full sized and full quality and just keep it really short...like 10 or 15 seconds?
Thanks!
Chris

[grundic]

that is Ok..

[SkeetSkeet]

yeah short clips obviously

[cdnjpn]

Thanks guys! Much appreciated!
Chris

[blood_burn]

10 or 20sec clip wont hurt.. for a free preview..

[CamsLord]

ya free previews are good especially if its a good one! don't give out too much but give enough to get them to pull out their credit cards

[eurorevenue]

Hi all,
Just wondering what you guys think about free samples on paysites. Are they a good idea?
I'm worried that I'll just get a ton of traffic sucking all my bandwidth downloading the free videos and I'll get, like, two signups. Having said that, it seems that just about every paysite I visit is giving away some free stuff.
My thinking is that I'll wait until I'm making money and bandwidth will pretty much be a non-issue, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. Would I perhaps be better off starting or joining an affiliate program (oh god...here comes the spam!) and have affiliates handle all the free stuff?
Your advice is much appreciated!
Cheers!
Chris

free samples work great for us, just don't make them too long, lets say 10 sec. watermark them and you should be fine. the increased bandwidth usually isn't a big deal since you'll get more signups.