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  • Sep 28

87: The One Good Freebie Method: How to Build a Freebie AI Can't Copy

Your list doesn't need another freebie. It needs one good one. Build the freebie AI can't copy in 4 simple steps.

🌟 Why Your Freebie Isn't Growing Your List (and Why More Freebies Won't Fix It)

You've been told you need a freebie. You've been told to add more value. You've been told to make it bigger, prettier, more "premium."

So you built the 40-page guide. Maybe the five-day email series too. And your list still isn't moving.

It's not a volume problem. It's a focus problem.

You don't need ten freebies. You need one good one, built right the first time and promoted everywhere. That's exactly what I teach inside The Coven, and it's what I'm breaking down for you today with The One Good Freebie Method: a simple foundation plus 4 steps.

And because AI can now spit out a freebie in nine seconds flat, we're also going to talk about the part AI can't touch. That part is the whole reason the right people opt in.

So tell me: how many freebies are sitting in your email platform right now?

📝 Want the whole method on one page? Grab this episode's one-page cheat sheet, the 4 steps to one freebie that converts, so you can print it or save it to your camera roll while you build.

💡 The Question That Stumped Me (and the 47 Freebies Behind It)

A few weeks ago, my business strategist, Ash McDonald, asked me a question I could not answer.

I had just pivoted my whole business over to email and newsletter marketing. My website was mid-update. I was announcing the pivot, building a new offer, and I told her I needed a new freebie ASAP. One that connected to my offers. It was stressing me out.

She got quiet for a second (which always means something good is coming) and asked:

"What can you create for your ideal client that they can't just get from AI?"

I had nothing. Then she told me to slow down and do one thing at a time. This is why I need someone like her in my life.

So I sat with it for a few days. And I went back through my Flodesk account to look at every freebie I've ever offered.

Over five and a half years, I had made 47 of them.

I know. That number looks like it came straight out of a chatbot. I screenshotted it for my training so people would believe me.

What 47 freebies taught me is that making the freebie is the easy part. Every single one also needed a segment, an opt-in form, a workflow to keep updated, a ManyChat keyword, and a spot in my link in bio. That's a lot of backend for something that often got posted a handful of times and then abandoned.

I care so much about getting this right because my entire business runs on my email list. I hit a million dollars in revenue about three and a half years in, without running a single ad, and that came from my owned audience. I've grown to over 25,000 subscribers in five and a half years (I hover around 10,000 to 12,000 with regular list cleaning), my average open rate sits at 53.7% when the industry calls 20 to 30% good, and I just sent my 300th weekly newsletter.

AI can write you a newsletter. It can't show up every week for six years and earn the trust of your people. Your freebie works the same way.

🎯 The Foundation: The Part AI Can't Do

Before any of the steps, we need the foundation. Every program I run starts here, because everything else points back to it.

There are two pieces.

1. Your domain (or umbrella). This is the arena you work in: a topic plus who it's for. Mine is email and newsletter marketing for female solopreneurs.

Your freebie serves the umbrella, not one tiny offshoot of it. Build it around a little slice and you'll attract people who only care about that slice. Build it around the big thing you want to be known for, and you pull in people who care about your whole world. (Your content pillars live underneath the umbrella. That's a whole separate conversation, and I break it down in Episode 69.)

To make this real, meet Renee. She's a fictional solopreneur I created for my training, because I need examples before anything makes sense in my brain. Renee's domain is money and budgeting for new entrepreneurs. Topic plus who it's for. Whether you're a flower farmer, a physical therapist, or a perimenopause coach, this part should not stump you.

2. The one question. Now zoom in. Inside your domain, what's the question people ask you over and over? The thing you've answered 100 times in your DMs, on calls, or at a party when someone finds out what you do. Or the very first step you walk every client through.

That question is probably your freebie.

Renee hears "Where's my money going every month?" constantly. Mine would be "I don't know what to write about in my newsletter week after week."

AI can't tell you what you want to be known for. It can't know the question your people keep asking, because that comes from you living it and being asked. That is not a prompt, my friend. That's 100% you.

Everything after this, AI can help you build. This piece, it can't.

✅ Step 1: Pick One Problem and Solve It Fast

Pick one clear, common problem and solve it with a win someone can feel in 3 to 10 minutes.

We're not talking about a 52-page guide nobody opens, a five-day email series people forget about (I've done that one, and it flopped), or an hour-long training nobody makes time to watch.

The word common is doing a lot of work here. A freebie that solves a rare problem fast is still a dud, because barely anyone has that problem.

Renee's first instinct was to flex. She wanted to prove she knew more than any other money coach, so she planned a 90-day money makeover inside a 40-plus page guide. I get it. We all want to overdeliver and wow people. But nobody is finishing a 90-day anything from a free download.

So she subtracted all the way down to a quick weekly check-in sheet that was already buried inside that guide. One page. Ten minutes. They fill it out and see exactly where their money is going.

She didn't teach less because she knows less. She taught less because that's what gets used.

I see this constantly with women inside The Coven. They send me their 40-page thing, and I point to one page and say, "This is it. This is your freebie."

Then pick the simplest format that delivers the win. The best format is never the fanciest one. It's the one they'll finish. My rule of thumb: a checklist beats a guide, and a guide beats a video most of the time. The quicker someone gets the win, the quicker they fall a little more in love with you.

✅ Step 2: Name the Win

If somebody has to decode the name of your freebie, it's dead in the water.

Your freebie's name has one job: make the win obvious in about two seconds. This is not the place to be clever. Cute and vague have the same problem. They both make someone stop and think, "Wait, what even is this?" And by then, they're gone.

Run two tests:

  • The stranger test: could a total stranger tell exactly what they're getting from the name alone?

  • The out-loud test: say it out loud. Does it get jumbled in your mouth? Can you mention it quickly at the end of a reel or in your stories?

Renee's first instinct was "Make Your Money Make Magic." Kind of adorable. Also useless, because I have no idea what I'm getting. A course? A mindset thing? So it became The 10-Minute Money Check-In. Now you know what it is and how long it takes. Clear beats cute every time.

Your opt-in page follows the same rule. This is a freebie, not a course launch. It doesn't need testimonials and five scrolls of copy. It needs a clear name, one promise, and a button. For a free thing, every extra sentence is friction.

One of mine, My Top 11 Canva Instagram Templates, has one simple promise (make finding Instagram graphics way less overwhelming) and one button that says "Yes, please." That page converts at just over 69%. Almost seven out of ten people who land on it opt in, because there's nothing to figure out.

A follower recently told me nobody was opting into her freebie, and it was so good. I asked to see her opt-in page and spotted the problem in two seconds. Not because she isn't smart. Because she'd looked at it 5,000 times. We all get too close to our own work, which is why a fresh set of eyes before something goes live is gold.

✅ Step 3: Sell the Benefit, Not the Feature

Nobody wants to hand over their email address for your freebie. They want who they get to become on the other side of it.

A feature is what your freebie is. A benefit is what it does for them.

"Five email templates" is a feature. "Never stare at a blank subject line again" is a benefit. Only one of those makes someone stop scrolling.

My quick test: after your freebie's name, can you finish the sentence "so that you can..."? If you can't, you're probably leading with the feature.

Renee's first description was "a 10-minute budgeting worksheet." Technically true. Totally forgettable. So she led with the change instead: Finally know where your money went without the shame spiral. Can you feel the difference?

The piece almost everybody misses: a great freebie solves one problem and reveals the next one.

Renee's people do the 10-minute check-in, finally see where their money goes, and immediately think, "Okay, now I need a plan to save it." She solved one problem and earned the next. That next problem, the plan, is the doorway to her coaching. Her freebie was never a dead end. It was the first step on a path straight to her paid offer.

🎥 Want to watch me build Renee's freebie start to finish, slides and all? The full One Good Freebie Method training replay is free. Grab it and build alongside me: https://thecreativebodega.myflodesk.com/onegoodfreebiemethod

🔥 Step 4: Promote It on Repeat

This is where most people quietly lose the game.

Building the freebie is not the finish line. It's the starting line.

The trap I lived in for years: make a freebie, post about it a handful of times, watch interest drop, decide it "doesn't work anymore," and go make a brand-new one. Then the same people would opt into that one too. Over and over. That's how you end up with 47 freebies.

The freebie was almost never the problem. I just never gave it a fair shot.

So now, one freebie shows up in about 8 places every week. A few of them:

  • My Instagram bio, with the freebie named clearly (never a vague "courses and freebies" with arrows pointing down)

  • A pinned post at the top of my feed that is entirely about the freebie

  • The captions of my reels and posts, the last slide of my carousels, and out loud at the end of reels

  • My podcast show notes, plus a mention inside my episodes

  • A dedicated menu tab on my website called Freebies & Instant Access

Compare that to posting about it once on a random Tuesday and wondering why nothing happens.

You don't need more freebies. You need more doorways to the one good freebie you already have.

🛠️ Resources Mentioned in This Episode

💪 Go Build Your One Good Freebie

Let's put the whole thing in one picture.

Start with the foundation only you can build: get clear on your domain, then find the question your people ask you all the time. The answer to that question is your freebie. Then build it: one common problem solved in 3 to 10 minutes, named clearly instead of cutely, sold on the benefit instead of the features, and promoted on repeat, everywhere, basically forever.

And back to Ash's question: what can you give people that they can't get from AI?

AI can absolutely make you a freebie. It'll build a 40-page guide in nine seconds, give it a cute confusing name, and stuff it full of things nobody asked for. It always does too much, because adding is what it does.

What it can't do is pick your one problem. It doesn't know your people or what they're asking. It doesn't carry the point of view you earned by showing up for your audience week after week. That judgment only comes from you.

If you want other smart women looking at your freebie before it goes live, that's the number one thing we do inside The Coven. Every week someone asks, "Can you look at this?" and five to seven of us weigh in. Join us in The Coven and bring your freebie with you: https://www.thecreativebodega.com/the-content-coven

If this helped, send it to a solopreneur friend who's sitting on a folder full of freebies nobody downloads.

Now tell me in the comments below: what's the one question your people always ask you? That might just be your next freebie

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