Reply To: 🆓 Spitfire Symphony Orchestra Discover is out for free

[LinkedMusicians]

Orchestral developers know that there’s big money in (1) the educational market, (2) the aspiring semi-pro market, and (3) the home hobbyist market — in other words, people who aspire someday to make money who are just starting out, either in schools or as hobbyists, and being there on their desktops and iPADs as they begin their journey has proven highly profitable. Go back more than 20 years and Garritan was really strong in marketing his products to schools. It showed other sample libraries to pay attention to that market.

So all of this free stuff is really just an investment in beginning a brand relationship with future spenders. It’s very smart business strategy and should never be confused with acts of altruism. It’s completely about long-term investments in customers. When brands like Soundtoys give one month of revenue to a good cause — that’s altruism, and it’s very rare. Almost all corporate giving is done to enhance the brand. I’ve tried to persuade every developer I’ve advised to do free libraries to keep their names in the public eye — staying relevant and newsworthy and establishing a direct marketing channel with future customers that is significantly lower cost than advertising. There are a number of factors, but just as an example, for some developers, if even 5 or 7 percent of those who get freebies convert to customers within a couple of years, it more than pays for the expense of doing the libraries or plugins. It can get them tons of free advertising (called “earned media”) that has a value what is often far beyond the marketing budget of a small or mid-sized company.

Head to my thought of doing what successful influencers don’t want to do, and that is, committing to maintaining extensive lists of reviewed and recommended free sample libraries and plugins. Influencers will do videos of free stuff to build their followings, but they’re primarily focused on the paid stuff — because it brings them money. Those faux influencer reviews are commonly commanding thousands to tens of thousands for a major influencer in this space. Free sample libraries can get attention without having to stuff cash into an influencer’s greedy little shilling hands.

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