The Creative Bodega | Content Marketing and Instagram Growth for Solopreneurs

68: Why Your Freebie Isn't Converting (& a Simple Fix With 6,930 Downloads to Prove It)

• Emily Connors • Episode 68

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If your freebie has been sitting out there and barely anyone is downloading it, you're not imagining it. And it's probably not your offer, your niche, or your audience. It might just be how your freebie is built. In this episode of The Creative Bodega, I'm sharing real download numbers from my own freebies, including one that flopped hard, and walking you through the four questions I now use to evaluate any freebie, mine or my students'. If growing your email list has felt harder than it should, this one is for you.

Check out the full show notes for this episode HERE.

Things I cover inside this episode:

  • Why elaborate freebies almost always underperform simple ones, with real numbers
  • The clear over cute rule for freebie titles and why it matters more than you think
  • What my two top-performing freebies (6,930 and 6,474 downloads) have in common
  • Why the five-day challenge format felt like more value but actually created more friction
  • The four gut-check questions to audit your current freebie or evaluate a new one
  • Why instant usability is the most underrated quality a freebie can have
  • What to put on the last page of your freebie (most people completely skip this)

Resources & Links mentioned in the episode:

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Emily Connors

elaborate freebies, massive freebies underperform simple ones almost every single time, and I've got the numbers to back it up. Today, we're talking about freebies. I very often in my stories, or in my membership, or in my email, or wherever say, "You guys, if you have a podcast idea for me, tell me, tell me. DM me, message me, email me. I don't care. I'm, I'm curious." And if it's not for me, I'll say no. Like, somebody once was like, "Can you go over automations in ManyChat?" And I was like, "Mm. No." Because, because... Not 'cause I don't wanna help you, and not because I can't. Because yeah, I could tell you how I use automations and how I set up ManyChat, but it's not what I wanna be known for, and my worst nightmare is you coming to me with questions about that. Like, literally not my jam. Not something I wanna talk about. Not something I'm very confident in, to be honest. I've hired people to do that stuff for me. So when it's not a great idea, I say, "Mm, well, no, it's not a great idea." But not for me, right? and then I actually think, "Who could I have on my podcast as a guest?" And that's how I actually figure out who's gonna be a guest, in the Content Coven, because we have a guest almost every month. And I just ask myself, "What, what are people asking about that I'm not an expert on, and that I could bring an expert in on?" So we've had a ManyChat expert come in. My friend Sarah, who actually works at ManyChat, came in. We've had, like, an AI automations expert come in. So yeah. So when it's not right, I say, "Mm, thanks, but no thanks." But when it's right, I'm like, "You know what? Yeah, I haven't talked about that." And something that I've gotten multiple DM requests about is freebies. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. I do feel confident and comfortable talking about freebies, specifically the mistakes I see over and over that's probably quietly killing email list growth for a lot of service-based solopreneurs, and I've got the receipts to prove it, because I've done it, too. It's a mistake I have made. And I'm gonna share some real numbers with you today, including a freebie of my own that completely flopped. Because I think probably one of the most useful things I can do for you is show you what actually works instead of just telling you. This is from my lived experience. So if growing your email list has felt maybe harder than it should be, or if you've had a freebie sitting out there that just isn't converting the way that you hoped, this episode is gonna be for you. I did do an episode that is all about how to grow your email list, and all the places that I am talking about my freebies and email list. So that's episode 60, and I will link that in the show notes, because that's certainly worth a listen, and that's not what this episode is about today. It is not about, specifically how to promote your freebie. It's, it's about the actual freebie, right, and what is included and what it is called and all that good stuff. So if, again, growing your list has felt hard, or your freebie's been sitting around and nobody's downloading it like you thought they might, then this, this is a great episode for you to tune into. Okay, so let's get into it. There is a very widespread belief in the online business world that a bigger, more impressive freebie signals more value, and that if you give people more, more pages, more days, more content, like more of everything, they're way more likely to sign up. And I completely understand why people think this. It, it feels generous. It feels like you're really showing up for them. It feels like you're proving that you know your stuff. But here's what the data actually shows, at least in my experience, and a lot of the women I've worked with experience. elaborate freebies, massive freebies underperform simple ones almost every single time, and I've got the numbers to back it up. In 2021, when I first started out, okay, that was like my first full year in business, I created a freebie. At the time, it was called 10 Instagram Canva Templates. That was it. That was it. It was literally 10 Canva template links for Instagram designs. The title told you exactly what you were getting. You signed up, and you got the template links, and you used them. That's it. I just said, "Hey, like, let me curate this for you. Let me round up 10 of my faves and just, you know, let me just send them to you," because I know that finding templates can actually be really hard for people. This freebie, which has since been changed to 11 Canva templates, 'cause I updated the templates. I, got a whole crop of new ones in the last couple years, especially when Instagram size kind of changed, the size they want you to post. So I had to create a new one, and I didn't wanna call it 10 because I just felt like I was gonna get confused. So I called it 11, 11 Canva templates for Instagram. This freebie has been downloaded 6,930 times. and then in 2023, I was like, "Huh, probably time for a new freebie, right? I've been rocking this one for two years. It's worked really well, but I'm kind of ready for something else." So I created one called 60 Post Captions, Prompts, and Headlines. Again, the title is the whole pitch. 60 captions, prompts, and headlines, ready to go, clear, specific, immediately usable. That one has 6,474 downloads. And let's look at what happened when I went in a different direction, okay? So those are the two that are crushing it to this day. It's 2026, my friend, and I still have both. Let's look at what happened when I went in a different direction, okay? In 2025, just last year, I launched, over the summer, a five-day social refresh challenge as a freebie. It sounded good to me, and it sounded really robust. Five days, um, structured email, one email per day for the challenge, and it was just like a little more of an overall experience, 'cause you, you opt in and you get one email per day with action items of, of like, "Here's what I would do to, like, refresh your social media." And I would even link, like, podcast episodes to support whatever I was talking about in the email. I thought people would, like, love this commitment and this amount of help. And I've had 1,081 signups, okay? That's... I mean, compared to the other two. Now, granted, the other two have been around for longer, but when you do the math, it's not trending anywhere near the performance rate that the other two have. The other one, Canva carousel workshop replay. So this was a workshop that I did in conjunction with Canva, and I cannot charge for it. It's gotta be free, and so I did it live, and then I just wanted to offer the replay for free. So it is a full workshop. It's probably over an hour, and it is a recording that you can access, and, uh, there's probably... There is at least one Canva carousel template included in the email that you get with the replay. this is actually even later than that five-day social refresh. So this has been around less time, and this has 1,944. So it's outperforming the five-day social refresh challenge, but still not great, okay? The drop-off between the top two and the bottom two is not small. We are talking about thousands of people, and that gap has everything to do with how the freebie was built, Not how much effort went into creating it. Okay? So what went wrong with the five-day social refresh challenge? Why did it underperform? Well, I did what I always do when I need real answers. I went to my coven members, and we were on a call, and I said, "You guys, what do you think it is about this? This has performed actually quite terribly. W- can you just tell me?" And, and this is what I encourage them to do. If something is happening or they're confused in their business, bring it to us and ask, because your ideal client is there. They're in there. And, and, and for me, the coven is all- filled with all my ideal clients. So I said, "What... You guys, what, what, what is wrong with this?" And I wanna pause on that for a second because I think it's actually one of the most underrated things that you can do as any business owner. Like, my membership is full of my ideal clients. They are the exact women I'm trying to reach. So when something isn't working, I don't need to guess. I don't need to go to Claude or ChatGPT. I ask real humans, and what they told me was super clear. Two things. The title wasn't specific enough. They didn't really understand immediately what they were getting, and five days felt like too much of a commitment. They wanted more instant relief or a freebie that they could take action on immediately. And that second one like, really stuck with me because I think a lot of us assume that more feels like more value to our audience. But what it actually feels like, especially to a busy-ass female solopreneur who I'm talking to, that's already juggling business and family and, you know, all the things, is more work. So nobody woke up this morning excited to add a five-day commitment to their already busy plate. Okay? They woke up wanting one problem solved today and fast. And so the same can really be said for my underperforming carousel workshop replay. The full workshop sounds impressive. Oh my God, you get this full hour-long training from me on how to find carousel templates and how to customize them easily and quickly. But when someone signs up for a freebie, they're not in, like, workshop mode. They want a quick win. They wanna open it. They wanna use it. They wanna feel good about it within minutes, okay? And so handing them this hour-long recording and asking them to do something that they didn't sign up for is not really working. Okay? So when I look at the two that did perform well, almost 7,000 downloads, and, here's what basically my community shared with me and what I think is happening. The title tells you exactly what you're getting. There's no mystery. It's not a clever title for the sake of cleverness. 11 Instagram Canva templates or 60 post captions, prompts, and headlines. You read the title and you immediately knew, "Yeah, I want that. Yeah, this is, this is for me." Okay? And that's not an accident. Clear over cute is gonna win every single time, and I know it's tempting to come up with something clever or branded or, like, a little more elevated-sounding for your freebie or even your course or program or whatever. And I'm not saying that your freebie title can't have personality, but if someone has to think for more than a couple seconds about what they're actually getting or what this is, you've already lost them. Okay? The other thing those two top-performing freebies had in common is that you could use them immediately. Download the templates, right? They... Just click here, and that template's gonna open up in your Canva, and you start designing. Okay? I- inside the delivery, the email that gets sent to you with the 11 links to the Canva templates, I actually also share a lesson that's, like, 10 or 12 minutes long about how I would go about customizing templates. Okay? So it's like, it's awesome. you copy a caption, you paste it, and you're done for the 60 captions blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's no ramp-up period. There's no day one, day two, day three. There's no, you know, 50-page PDF to get through. You get it and you use it, and that instant usability is everything to my ideal client who's really, really busy. So when someone comes to me with a freebie idea or when I'm evaluating one of my own or one of my coven members or somebody inside one of my programs, here's what I'm actually looking for, okay? And write this down. First, can I say exactly what this is in the title? If your working title is something like The Ultimate Guide to Showing Up Online, that's not a title. It's just a vibe. You've got to get more specific. What does somebody walk away with? Name the thing. Second, does it solve one problem? Not multiple problems, not the whole journey, just one thing. The more specific the problem you're solving, the more magnetic this freebie becomes because the right person sees it and thinks, "Oh, my gosh. This is exactly what I need. Oh, my God. I'm putting, putting my email address in there. Give me that thing." You know? And third, is it actually small? Like, I had someone tell me recently that their freebie was legitimately 32 pages long. 32 pages. And I said, with complete love and kindness, "Absolutely not." Okay? If you have a 32-page freebie, somewhere inside that is something really valuable, like a checklist or a list of resources, or one really great framework on a single page. Find that thing, pull it out, and make that your freebie, and literally get rid of everything else. A shorter freebie that someone actually completes will always outperform a massive one that sits in their inbox forever. And when someone completes your freebie and gets a result from it, even a small one, that is such a win for them, and they instantly appreciate and trust you. And trust is what's gonna turn, you know, a random follower or subscriber into a buyer. And fourth, and this is one people forget constantly: what is on your last page? If this is, like, an actual PDF or whatever, or even inside the email delivery when they get the freebie, That final page of your freebie is not where the content should end. It's actually the hand-off point, okay? It should tell people who you are briefly, warmly, like, like a real human being. It should tell them what to do next, whether that's follow you on Instagram or, or they're already on your email list, right? Or checking out a specific offer, or just knowing where to find you. Like, give them that next step and make it super simple. If you're making a PDF in Canva, you can hyperlink things and buttons inside of there so that when they download the PDF and open it, they can click stuff and end up somewhere else, right? You can put a URL in there. and if you did the work on creating something really valuable and you got them to open it and you got them to use it, and they didn't just, close the tab and move on, you are helping them walk towards that next thing with you. So a quick gut check for your current freebie or the freebie you're considering making. I want you to run through the four questions. Can someone tell exactly what they're getting from the title alone? Does it solve one specific problem? Can someone realistically use it or finish it in one sitting? And does the last page or the delivery email tell them who you are and what to do next? And if you answered no to any of those, I mean, that's your next move, to figure that out. You don't necessarily need a brand-new freebie. You might just need to tighten up the one that you have. In fact, I'm actually working with a funnels expert right now, and I'm revamping a couple of these freebies that I actually already mentioned, just to make them a little more clear and a little more valuable, or just update them a little bit. They've been around for a while, and they need a little zhoosh, right? and if you don't have a freebie yet, and you're overthinking the you-know-what out of it- Start smaller than you think. I am telling you, it's probably something you've already provided to somebody at some point. Or I would go into my Instagram analytics and see, like, what had the most saves, right? Or what had the most follows for me, and is that piece of content, that post, something that I could turn into a similar version, but now it's a freebie, right? So pick the thing that your ideal client needs the most right now and make that. And you can always add more later, but you can't get downloads on something that doesn't exist yet. So just... I feel like I said this in the last episode. I was like, "Get down and do less." It's from a movie. I don't even know. Forgetting Sarah Marshall? I don't know. Somebody help me. DM me what that's from. it's Paul Rudd giving a surfing lesson and telling someone, and he says over and over, like, "Get down and do less." I'm, I'm 99% sure. I suck at movie quotes. and my best friend knows. I know she knows. Hopefully, she's listening to this and she can tell me. when something is not working in my business, okay, a freebie underperforming or whatever, I don't have to guess why. I literally have a room full of ideal clients inside the Content Coven who will tell me exactly what they think, and that feedback loop has shaped so much of what I teach and create. Um, but the same could be said for my community that I've built on Instagram and the people in my stories. My story watchers, you are my community, too, and you help me so much. And that's the kind of community that you need, right? And inside the Content Coven, it's not just templates and trainings, although there's plenty of both of those. It's literally a place where you're surrounded by women who get it, who are likely your ideal client, who are building the same kinds of businesses you are, and who sh- will show up for you with honesty and will give you really solid input, okay? And if that sounds like something you need right now, the Coven doors are always open. You can find the details in the show notes of this episode, and I would love to welcome you in there. I tell people all the time, I'm like, "Share your freebie with us. We will literally give you feedback on it." And sometimes that's invaluable, and it's, in my opinion, so much more valuable than an AI robot who has never had real-life experience building a business, right? And who is not your ideal client. So humans for the win. All right. Go audit that freebie. Tighten the title up. Cut the pages down. And, I will see you on the next episode. Thank you so much for being here.