What are the Best Freebies For Your Audience (And Why Are They So Important?)

Hey Travel Creators! Today we will be discussing how travel creators can grow their email list by offering freebies to their audience.

You’ll gain tips on creating these freebies that speak directly to your target audience so that you can grow your email subscribers and help you own a community that is truly yours.

What is a Freebie?

When I say freebie, what the heck am I talking about? I am talking about the offer that you give your community for free in exchange for their email list. And if you don't have one of these you've definitely seen them before. They are the little links in bios of creators that you admire or business or marketing folks. 

A freebie should be leading you to one link and that link should have their free offer in there for you. For example, as for my free offers. I have a free newsletter template for travel creators so you can get started today. I also have a free content repurposing guide so you can get started repurposing your content with that guide.

You probably have so many. I feel like I have too many to go through but I am going to show you how you can create one for your travel niche. So why do we even need freebies? Why? The whole point of them is to get one step closer to your target audience. In my case, and in most creators’ cases, freebies are given away in exchange for an email address.

So when they get my freebie, they're like, “yes, I'm also opting in to receive my Content Compass newsletter for free.” My newsletter is where I highlight travel creators who are crushing it, and show you how and why. And then they are added to my list. The good part is when you're doing a freebie and you add those people to your email list, they should be the right people.

Engaged Subscribers is the Goal

Meaning that the people that download the freebie are going to be really engaged you hope. They should be good people to keep your email engagement numbers high. So freebies are very important because you can get new subscribers through your freebie. And email lists convert when you eventually have something to sell to your audience.

They also are a place where you can connect with your community and do it in a place of the internet that you actually own. Meaning you own their email addresses but you don't own the direct message that you sent to them on Instagram. Freebies are also good for establishing you as an authority in your niche.

Establishing Credibility through Your Freebie

Yours might be a packing list for budget travelers going to Italy or something. You will help show that you know what you're talking about and you can show other people how to do what you're talking about through your freebie. They also create opportunities for you to collaborate or learn with people. I'm always looking for feedback on freebies.

Ask people who have downloaded your freebie what they liked about it? What could I do better? What do you feel like was missing from it? And then you can also grow those relationships from there too and make some cool internet friends.

Understanding Your Audience

So to create an awesome freebie, you're going to need to know what your audience needs. Because I'm a content developer for travel creators, it doesn't make sense for me to make my freebie a cookbook. That is not aligned at all and it doesn't make sense. I need to give them something that helps them in their creator journey, because my target audience are travel creators.

My freebie should also be something that is related to content development, which is what I do. So for you, for example, if you are a luxury travel creator and your target audience are people in a specific demographic of socioeconomic status, they might have more time to travel, and they maybe are in a certain age range.

In essence, your target audience are people who want luxury experiences, so you can give them a freebie of like, “My 10 things I wish I knew about luxury resorts before I went to them” or something along those lines. So you're giving somebody something that has to do with what they want to hear about.

You wouldn't give your luxury travel audience a list of the best hostels in Brussels because they're not interested in that. They want to know about luxury stuff. To help you learn about what your audience wants, you can ask them. I love asking people things. You can do market research and slide into people's DMs and say, “hey, I have nothing to sell you I just want to know what are your pain points in X niche,” or whatever niche that you are an expert in. You can say, “What information would be most helpful for you? I'm creating a Free resource. What answers are you looking for that I could answer for you?”

You can also go ahead and look at your top performing pieces of content. So what are people interacting with? Why do we think they're interacting with them? Are there questions you are commonly asked? This can all help you figure out what your audience really wants. If they're all asking you the same question, you could probably just answer it in a freebie and instead of just blurting the answer out for free on the internet, you could get something in return, which is their email address–something that is so valuable.

Learning from Peers in Your Niche

You can also go to peers. If you're a luxury travel creator, go to another luxury travel creator's page and see what their audience is asking. Are they asking good questions that you didn't even think about, that you know, that you have knowledge on, or that you can create content on? Now that we know what our audience wants or we have the steps we can take to go find out, let's talk about the types of freebies you can create as a travel creator. There are infinite options.

Types of Freebies You can Create

I’m going to try to boil down a couple of good ones for you that you can create in a minimal amount of time yet are really impactful. So travel itineraries and guides for a specific destination are great. Sometimes I come across travelers who are specific in a specific region, niche, country, or type of experience. So could create for them a travel itinerary for, you know, visiting California's wine country. Or you could create for them a best warm weather Bahamas travel itinerary when you're on a cruise. Something like, “You have this amount of time when you get off a cruise ship, here's how to maximize it all.” Another classic is a packing list.

I don't think this is going to be the most impactful freebie for you. I think it would still get quite a few people to come to your email list. But I think this would be an impactful piece of content if you are a creator in a very specific region. Another great freebie could be a travel planner for a specific budget traveler. For example, “You're a budget traveler and you have 10,000 to spend. How far can that get you in the areas of the world you want to be in?” Here, you know, you created one for Southeast Asia. I mean, you could live like a king on $10,000 in Southeast Asia.

You could create an itinerary and say, “If you gave me ten thousand dollars, here's what I would do, and here's how far you could get.” This could be really an impactful freebie because you have solved a problem for them and saved them time, and all they had to do was slap you their little email in to get your freebie.

So you can take that knowledge to help you figure out what kind of freebie you should be creating. Templates are also great freebies. For example, I have my newsletter template. You could create a template on how to organize your photos, if you're speaking to another travel creator, a template of how to create or organize all of your documents in a safe place when you're traveling. For example, “who should you tell?” “What information should you have on hand?” “What should you print out?”

All these templates that would just make your audience’s life easier. You can also think about what do you google? Like if you put yourself in the shoes of your target audience and maybe it's somebody who doesn't travel a lot and they want to travel, what questions would you be asking?

What questions were you constantly googling or asking friends and family about that you felt like you couldn't answer without extensive research and now, because of your experience, those answers are pretty clear.

Put Yourself in Your Prospect’s Shoes

This next example is one that might take you a little bit more time to create, but I think always has a high return. If your target audience are people who are new to travel, travel is a very overwhelming thing. Let's all remove ourselves from knowing everything we know about navigating airports and things. If you've never done that before that is horrifying.

I remember flying by myself for the first time I think I was like 17. I was like, “okay, it's kind of intimidating.” If you put yourself in the shoes of somebody who doesn't know as much as you, think about all the value you can provide. If you host a webinar and guide someone through the entire process of where you look for flights that are cheap and good, to here's the type of bag you should bring, to here are the pros and cons of the backpack versus suitcase dilemma.

In short, if you are able to guide someone through that process and remove all of those barriers, you have done your job. A webinar could be a great example to show your expertise. One, because similarly to my podcast, you can just word vomit. You can word vomit with a couple of nice canvas slides.

And there you go. Destination specific tips, tricks, hacks. Things that you would not know about a destination until after you went there and you're like, “here's what I'm gonna tell everybody who now goes to Barcelona.” 

You could create a travel budget, worksheet, template, or a language guide. What language do you actually need to know? A food guide, oh my god, yes. A food guide, or like, a cafe guide, that kind of thing. You could put together a walking tour in one of your favorite places and name it, “How to travel X destination in a sustainable manner.” 

I would pick one that doesn't feel super overwhelming to you. If you're a person who doesn't like to be on camera, don't record the webinar if you're a bad writer. Don't write a blog, so pick something that makes sense for your skill set.

Here are some tips on how to create good freebies. First of all, they look good. Canva.com will blow your mind and it's easy. Also, you should keep it pretty concise or easy to digest. I know it can feel overwhelming to just like vomit everything out there, but you should also keep in mind that people should come to this freebie with the thought that “wow this person is giving away all this information for free!”

I can't even imagine what their paid offers would be like if their freebie is so good. Make sure your freebie has actionable advice. We love tips, but we love to-do lists more. You can also offer exclusive content somebody cannot find anywhere else.

And make sure at the end of your freebie, you have a good call to action so that it leads people to either share it with a friend who hopefully is in a similar niche, or tell people to follow you on social media if they haven't already. Or tell people to visit your website or reach out to you to schedule a call. Your goal should be to keep people more engaged and give them a next step to connect with you. Now go create your awesome freebie that will attract your target audience!