Last month I posted about using free incentives . Now, there are times when offering something for free is a good tactic. If you get the offer right it can encourage people to take action. This may be to read your latest blog post, subscribe to your email list or to invite others to do so.

On the other hand a paid offer can be useful when presented correctly. If you have a list or are working on building one it’s important to know when it’s best to use a free offer and when to use a paid one.

A free offer can be useful if you have an unresponsive Twitter account. You should be tracking any links you include with your tweets and so should be able to tell how many of your readers actually follow your links. If no one is clicking your tweeted links it could be because your links are not of interest to your readership or that no one is reading your tweets. Offer something relevant for free and you should get some response, unless no one is reading. You can use the same tactic with a blog.

The big problem with offering something for free is that you are likely to attract people who are only looking for free giveaways. Use only free offers to build your list and you’ll get a list of people who may be reluctant to buy. You’ll get a big list, but it will be of poor quality.

This is where you need to use a paid offer to separate the tyre kickers from those willing to buy. You can either present the paid offer on its own, or present it as a one time offer after someone has signed up for a freebie. This combination is the best of both worlds and you’ll see it used quite often by internet marketers.

If you’ve never before considered whether you should use a free or paid offer you need to be clear about what you hope to achieve with the offer. What action do you want people to take and what type of list do you want to start building?