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This is a case of "priming" the consumer, in some cases you don't need to prime them but those low-hanging fruit are rarely not served already and it's usually juicier and only slightly more time consuming to drive your nail in that "middle somewhere" spot that some businesses get lazy about addressing.

So, for myself as a generalization, I'm writing it down as prime your target with something accessible (free knowledge, free feature-set, etc...) and engage them early in the funnel so you can iterate the lead-gen and the resulting product early.

The takeaway of the article is: give me your email, I want to sell you stuff.

I like the other approach better: provide useful, actionable information to assert your expertise and foster trust.

Then provide additional products and services for a fee (without stupid pricing tricks).

Bingo. The email course is the "why", the product is ultimately the "how".